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Postage Stamps ‘Shape-Up’
The shape of the first adhesive postage stamps was determined by the gummed labels which secured tax stamps to parchment legal documents. This was an upright rectangle – a format which has been used for the vast majority of British definitive stamps since 1840. Exceptions include the embossed stamps of 1847 – 1854, the halfpenny of 1870 and all stamps above the face value of two shillings, which were produced in a larger upright format or various large horizontal formats. Many of the early stamp issuing countries followed the British format which remains the most widely used format to the present day.
The first polygonal stamps were embossed shilling stamps of Great Britain. These stamps had an upright octagonal format which was subsequently used for the tenpence stamp of 1848 – 1854. The 1854 sixpenny stamp also had a polygonal shape but with the top and side panels raised from the main frame which was slightly curved.
In September, 1853, the Cape of Good Hope issued the first triangular stamps. These stamps were issued in denominations of one penny, four penny, sixpenny and one shilling and remained in use until 1864. The one penny was printed in vermilion and the four penny in blue. Both values are known in the wrong colour due to being inadvertently inserted in the wrong plate. The South African government revived the design of the Cape triangular for a four penny grey-blue stamp released in 1926.
The triangular format did not find much favour with Commonwealth countries, Newfoundland being the only other colony to issue a stamp on this type in the nineteenth century. It was a three penny stamp issued in 1857. New Zealand revived the fashion in 1943 with triangular stamps portraying Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. In more recent years, some triangular stamps have been issued for commemorative purposes by Jamaica (1964), Malaysia (1962, 1966) and East Africa (1976). Triangular stamps have also been produced intermittently by Hungary, Monaco, San Marino, Israel, Mongolia and the countries of Latin America.
The smallest triangular stamp was the two and a half centavos black on lilac, issued by Colombia in 1865. It was an equilateral triangle with a side length of eighteen millimeters. Colombia also released the first scalene triangular stamp in 1969, with a face value of two and a half centavos. Triangular stamps with the apex at the foot were first issued by Latvia. They were airmail stamps released in 1921 and 1928 and then as air charity stamps in 1932 and 1933. Other nations to adopt this unusual format included Icleand, with a ten aurar airmail stamp in 1930; and Tuva with airmail stamps of 1935.
The first diamond shaped stamps were issued by Nova Scotia in 1851 and consisted of three penny, six penny and one shilling stamps featuring the heraldic flowers of the United Kingdom and the mayflower of Nova Scotia, with the imperial crown in the centre. Similar stamps were issued in the sister colony of New Brunswick four days later. Two years later, Nova Scotia added a penny denomination but turned the design around so that it appears as a square, with the Chalon portrait of Queen Victoria in the centre.
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