Inland revenue document IR79/79 pages 40-41, illustrated below and which is held at the Records office in Kew clearly states the following:

1- Plate 77 - was not registered
2- Plate 77 - was not put to press
3- Plate 77 - no impressions were printed
4- Plate 77 - partially defaced in Feb 1862*

* It is very probable that a transcription error was made in entering this date as the year this plate was partially defaced was more than likely 1863 and not 1862. (See appendix A4). Partial defacement of a plate was the process used to ensure that the plate was not put to press and that no prints could be made from it (See appendix A5).

A statement which appears in manuscript next to the plate 77 entry states: ‘incorrectly laid down for perforation’. There is no imprimatur sheet for plate 77 in The British Postal Museum.

The Inland Revenue document IR79/79 found in the Public Record Office clearly states the following facts when recording the status of the printing plates 70-81 as far as preparation, registration, defacement, both partial and full, putting to press and the number of sheets printed etc.
For plates 70, 75 and 77 it states the following:

Plate          Registered        Put to press           Partially defaced      No. of sheets printed
70               Not registered     Not put to press      1864 Feb15                 None
75               Not registered     Not put to press      1862 Feb 4*                None
77               Not registered     Not put to press      1862 Feb 4*                None

Other relevant data from the Perkins Bacon records Vol. II by Percy de Worms:

1861
January 24         Finishing Postage Plate No. 70      Not registered                          Partially Defaced 1864 Feb15
January 31         Finishing Postage Plate No. 71      Registered 1861 Mar 14
February 7         Finishing Postage Plate No. 72      Registered 1861 Mar 14
February 12       Finishing Postage Plate No. 73      Registered 1861 Mar 14
February 20       Finishing Postage Plate No. 74      Registered 1861 Mar 14
May 24               Finishing Postage Plate No. 75      Not registered                           Partially Defaced 1862 Feb 4 A24
September 16   Finishing Postage Plate No. 76      Registered 1863 Feb 7
September 23   Finishing Postage Plate No. 77      Not registered                          Partially Defaced 1862 Feb 4 A24
September 27   Finishing Postage Plate No. 78      Registered 1863 Feb 7
October 5          Finishing Postage Plate No. 79      Registered 1863 Feb 7

The data in italics come from IR79/79 and is printed again here in order to show the relationship between the two dates.
Note the reference A24 on IR79/79 which applies to both plates 75 and 77 both of which were partially defaced at the same time. A reference A75 on IR79/79 appears next to the defaced entry date of plates 70, 75 and 77 all of which were defaced on the same day, Dec 1st 1864.

It is clear that plates 70, 75 and 77 were defaced before this issue went to press on the 1st March 1864.

Notes for consideration

According to the above data there is absolutely no doubt that plates 70, 75 and 77 were prepared and completed within similar time parameters to the other plates 71-81. However it is very clearly documented that plate 77 was partially defaced on 4 Feb. 1862 (probably 1863. See appendix 4), one year before the printing date of March 1st. 1864. It is also very clearly documented that none of these plates were put to press and that no sheets were printed from them. Of course any sheets printed from these in 1864 would have had to have been printed from defaced plates that did not fit the perforating machine, a most bizarre occurrence bearing in mind that plates are generally defaced in order to avoid producing any impressions from them.
Furthermore one notes that no sheets from plate 70, 75 and 77 were registered and understandably no imprimatur sheets exist today. Any existing stamps IF from plate 77 must therefore have come from the trial sheets which may have been pulled from plate 77 in order to get a view of the plate impression, assuming these sheets actually existed. Should any printing from this plate been made then, in the case of plate 77, this must have been between 23 September 1861 and 4 Feb 1863, i.e. up to two years before the issue went to press on March 1st. 1864.

Why are there no printer’s records for stamps showing a plate number 77 bearing in mind that these stamps do exist and are found in both used and unused condition?

A major and very justifiable question that should be asked, but one for which we can but guess at the answer.

We can infer without any doubt from the data above that stamps showing a genuine number 77 could only originate from the rejected imprimatur/trial sheets that may have been produced over a year before the printing date of this issue or from other re-engraved plates.

The Perkins Bacon daybooks have without doubt been heavily studied by philatelists and scholars of this issue and had there been any mention made as to how these stamps have come to be, then no doubt the information would now be at hand. We therefore find ourselves in a position where we have to research for an answer.

If these stamps did come from imprimaturs then why are there no records available at the printers? Can we deduce that some impropriety had been committed, in that a rejected sheet that should have been destroyed was retained for over a year, perforated, gummed, some stamps removed and the remainder released to the public? Bearing in mind that none of these stamps match the roller impression!

The discovery of the 1865 plate 77 cover with stamps originating from plate 73 however gives us a different outlook at this enigma.

Perhaps one glance at the table in W.R.D.Wiggins’ book ‘The Postage Stamps of Great Britain Part Two, The Perforated line engraved issues’ which shows all the plates numbers, dates and the number of sheets printed from each of them would bring matters into some perspective.

I have used this source in order to calculate the printing figures for this issue. It soon became apparent once figures were being added up that we were looking at a gigantic printing operation in which some plates during their lifetime printing in excess of 900,000 sheets. Added to this we can possibly infer that up to 18 printing machines were used simultaneously to print this issue (see appendix A2).

there is no doubt that this was a very major printing operation and as such would have put great demands on the printers in order to keep the printing figures up and keep the supplies of stamps ongoing and also put an equally great demand on the plate makers and engravers whose role was to ensure that the plates were workable and in good order.

Now to simply assume that every separate task carried out on each plate was supervised and recorded would perhaps be asking much, and I do feel that work was carried out which was never put down in writing. In fact Dr Osborne records that there is evidence of repair work that was not recorded in the Perkins Bacon day-books.

If the re-engraving of a plate to show a number 77 was a misunderstanding and therefore a major error by the engravers, then perhaps this error would have been kept out of the record book, and why not. After all the postal authorities did not have an interest in the plate number as such, see appendix 2, and therefore such a faux pas by the engravers may have been ‘kept quiet’.

Another possibility for the existence of these stamps was through an effort to create a collectable item, and with this in mind we can ask the question why did one of the three unused copies fall in the hands of Tapling? A major collector of his day.

Any substantiated evidence that the accepted stamps showing a plate number 77 do come from the plate 77 imprimatur sheet(s) would be very welcomed indeed.