Great Britain 1876 8d purple-brown Plate 1 imperforate imprimatur, SG156a.
A superb unused with original gum right-hand marginal example, lettered 'TL', showing part sheet inscription.
A magnificent positional rarity, with only 42 examples removed from the imprimatur sheet, several of which are held in institutional collections.
Stanley Gibbons catalogue value: £12,000.
This value was issued to prepay the rate at that time to India via Marseilles and to Australia via Brindisi. Two printing plates (1 and 2) were prepared and registered. However, plate 2 was never put to press.
Plate 1 was used for a printing of 10,000 sheets in purple-brown. These were later almost all destroyed. The only regular issue was therefore that in orange from plate 1. As a result, examples of plate 2 were never issued for postage.
