Before the postage-envelope was finally withdrawn from use, the Treasury issued another prospectus, offering a reward of 500_l._ for the best design and plan for a simple postage-_label_. It was made a condition that it should be simple, handy, and easily placed on paper, and of a design which would make forgery difficult, if not impossible. About 1,000 designs were sent in, but not one was chosen. Eventually, the ugly black stamp, said to be the joint production of some of the officers of the Stamp- and Post-Offices, was decided upon and brought into use. Two years afterwards, this black stamp was changed to brown, principally with a view to make the obliterating process more perfect, and the better to detect the dishonesty of using old stamps. For the same reasons, the colour was again changed in a short time to red, and so it has remained to the present time. The twopenny stamp has been from the first blue. Up to this date, at different intervals, six other stamps have been issued, as the necessities of the inland or foreign postage required them. The tenpenny stamp, of an octagonal shape and brown colour, is now scarcely ever used, if it be not even withdrawn from circulation. The list comprises, besides the stamps we have mentioned, the sixpenny (lilac), the shilling (green), the fourpenny (vermilion), the threepenny (rose), and the ninepenny (yellow). The last two were issued only two or three years ago. The whole of the English labels bear the impression of the head of Queen Victoria, and are all of the same size and shape (if we except the tenpenny stamp), the sole difference being in the colour, and in the various borderings round the Queen's portraits. Besides these distinguishing marks, however, they all tell the tale of their own value.[176]
Soon after the introduction of postage-stamps, stamped envelopes were again proposed. This time the proposition was a very simple one, only consisting of the usual kind of stamp embossed on the right-hand corner of a common envelope; the shape to be oval, round, or octagonal, according to the value of the envelope. For the envelopes themselves, a peculiar kind of paper was prepared by Mr. Dickenson, and was considered on all hands to be the best possible preventive of forgery. This paper, which was manufactured with lines of thread or silk stretched through its substance, has been used ever since. Russia, in adopting the stamped envelope, guards against forgery by means of a large water-mark of a spread eagle running over the envelope.