The idea of the Penny Black postage stamp, (as well as the mulready pre-paid envelopes and letteer sheets), were the idea of Rowland Hill. His ideas for the introduction of uniform penny postage and the ways it could be implemented were set out by him in a pamplet which is illustrated below.

     The total number of black stamps printed is estimated at between 283,990 and 284,700 sheets, (68, 157,600 and 68,328,000 stamps), which is broken down as follows .....

          Low est                         High est

1. 41,885                         42,000 sheets. (This is a combined total for plates 1a and 1b)
2. 31,913                         32,000 sheets.
3. 19,945                         20,000 sheets.
4. 27,924                         28,000 sheets.
5. 35,902                         36,000 sheets.
6. 37,896                         38,000 sheets.
7. 33,907                         34,000 sheets.
8. 29,918                         30,000 sheets.
9. 16,000                         16,000 sheets.
10.   8,000                           8,000 sheets.
11.      700                              700 sheets.

     The first stage in the production was the engraving of the die. This was engraved in reverse, (with the Queens' head facing to the right), to allow for the reversal of the image via the transfer roller to the printing plate. The first stage in the preperation of the die was to engrave the background for the stamp. This was done using a rose engine, which generated an intricate series of symetricial patterns. Once this had been done, the outer edges of the circular design were removed, leaving a square. The next stage was to clear an area in the centre into which the Queens' head could be engraved.

     Following the engraving of the head onto the die, the tablets were added at the top and bottom of the impression with squares at each corner. The squares at the top of the impression were engraved with stars, whilst those at the bottom were left blank, as the chek letters were added after the plate was completted.

     Once the die was finished and hardened, the image was duplicated on a transfer roller. As the name implies, this roller was used to transfer the impression from the die to the printing plate. The roller was of soft steel, and was rocked over the die under great and increasing pressure until the required impression had been transfered. Each transfer roller held between two and eight impressions from the die, and this process had to be repeated to obtain each of the required images. Once all the transfers had been completted, the roller was hardened ready for use.

     The next stage was to prepare the printing plate for construction. This was a piece of soft steel which was of sufficiant size to take 240 impressions of the stamps, (20 rows of 12 impressions), and enough room on the outer edges for the inscription to be added. Onto this plate, a series of dots were marked to show the spacing between the impressions and some of these were joined by scribed lines. These when visible on the printed stamps are refered to as guide dots and guide lines.

     To transfer the impressions to the plate, the roller was rocked onto the plate, (again under great and increasing presure), until the required depth of impression was obtained. This process was repeated 240 times until the entire plate was completted. Seperate rollers were then used to add the inscriptions to the side margins and the plate number was engraved by hand in each of the four corners.

     Once comletted the check letters were inserted into each corner by the use of hand-punches. Several strikes of the punch were often required to obtained the required depth of impression, and if the punch moved slightly between strikes a shodow impression of part of the leter occours. When this is visible on the printed sheets, this is refered to as a double letter.