A is for Abnormals

Just as it sounds, an abnormal is a stamp that isn’t quite as it should be. For collectors of GB, the term refers to a stamp printed from a plate in colour, or on paper with a watermark, differing from that in which the plate was normally printed, or a stamp printed from a plate that was never put to press, and therefore not printed in the normal way.

De la Rue’s surface printing plates wore out at more or less predictable intervals, typically after 35,000 sheets. So they made sure that replacement plates were always available. As each new plate was made, six sheets were printed on gummed, imperforate paper and submitted to Somerset House for approval. These were called ‘imprimaturs’ from the Latin word meaning ‘let it be printed’; a more accurate term would be ‘registration sheets’.

Of the six sheets, one was retained by Somerset House, while the others were perforated and distributed for circulation as normal. In most cases this went unnoticed, as the new plate was put to press soon afterwards. But in a few rare instances, something changed: a design, a colour, a watermark or postal rate. So the new plate was never used and the stamps from those five sheets became the only copies in existence. And there can only be 1,200 of them.

The abnormals appeared from 1862 to 1880 and collectors have been on the lookout for them ever since. But many surface prints went abroad, not everybody knows about them and the vast numbers of surface prints produced makes them very much the needles in a philatelic haystack. So there is a distinct possibility that more examples might turn up.

Everything changed from 1880. British stamps would be designed and printed in sets, on the same paper and by the same process. Stamps also lost their visible plate numbers and (eventually) the check letters too.