The design for the ½ anna stamp that was finally accepted was one of eight arches, and it was printed in blue. There are three distinct shades of blue in the 1854 issues, varying from deep to pale. These stamps were prepared by engraving on copper plate and transferring to stones. The sheets consisted of twelve horizontal rows of eight stamps on paper watermarked with the arms of the East India Company. The sheets, dated May and July, 1854, were evidently made up of blocks of twenty-four stamps, repeated four times on each sheet. This is apparent from the fact that the fifth stamp in each of the third, sixth, ninth and twelfth rows is slightly out of alignment, and the sixth stamp in each of the first, fourth, seventh and ninth rows has had the chignon redrawn (Plate facing p. 180). The sheets are not perforated, and are without gum: 333,399 sheets were printed in 1854 and 48,831 in 1855.
The 1 anna stamp was printed in vermilion-red, and 26,897 sheets were ready by August, 1854; there were further supplies of 54,961 sheets in November, 1854, and 15,834 sheets by November, 1855.
The colour selected for the 2 annas stamp was green, and the printing was completed in October, 1854. There is no record of the number printed.
The need for a 4 annas stamp was badly felt for postage to the United Kingdom, which cost 1 rupee 4 annas an ounce in 1854. A design was prepared in two colours, blue and red, and the first sheets contained only twelve stamps (Plate facing p. 178), and the first supply consisted of 17,170 sheets delivered on 14th October, 1854; in all 61,580 sheets were printed. In April, 1855, a new setting was adopted with twenty-four stamps on a sheet, and two arrangements of this setting were made, one with the stamps much closer together than the other.
[Illustration: BLOCK SHOWING ONE THIRD OF A SHEET OF BLUE HALF ANNA STAMPS OF 1854. PRINTED IN CALCUTTA]
All the stamps referred to above were prepared by Captain Thuillier, who subsequently became General Sir Henry Thuillier, C.S.I., Surveyor-General of India.
In November, 1855, stamps of the value of ½, 1, 2, 4 and 8 annas were received from Messrs. De La Rue & Co. The designs were engraved on steel and the stamps were printed on white wove unwatermarked paper with white gum. The 4 and 8 annas are also found printed on a highly glazed thick bluish paper without watermark. These stamps supplanted the old issues manufactured in India, but the stocks of the latter were not finally called in and destroyed until 1858.