LAYING OUT THE PLATE

The first step in laying out the plate was to transfer the impression from the master die onto the transfer roller. The roller was initially of a soft steel and was rocked back and forth over the master die with considerable pressure applied so as to ensure a clear impression was made.

After the transfer roller had been hardened it would then be used to transfer multiple impressions onto a soft steel plate. Once all the impressions had been laid, the stamp corner letters and the marginal inscriptions were added, following which the plate was hardened and ready to start printing stamps.

Horizontal guide through ONE PENNY (FC, plate 38)

Horizontal and vertical guide in 'I' square (GI, unknown plate)

Various guide lines would be marked onto the bare plate as a guide to where to place individual impressions on the plate. Sometimes these marks would be deep enough such that they would remain visible even after the stamp image had applied.

Letters QF/QG

Letters QG/QH

Since each image was positioned by hand, some variation in spacing was to be expected. This is clearly illustrated by the different inter-stamp spacing of the two neighboring pairs QF/QG and QG/QH from die 2 plate 2.

Frame break, top right corner (FG, Die 1, Plate 13)		Plate 12	Plate 16
		Progress of the break.

The same transfer roller would be used across a number of plates. Any weakness in the roller's impression would degrade as more plates were processed. This effect can be observed from the Die 1 plates 12 through 16 in which the upper right frame gradually weakens.

Flaw in top, left corner (PC, Die 1, plate 28)		PD	OK (Simulated)

The transfer roller could also pick up foreign matter which in turn could affect the stamp impression. However This matter would invariably wear away. This is illustrated by six stamps from Die 1 plate 28, in which a flaw in the top left square suddenly appears on stamp lettered PD and gradually dissapears through stamps PC, PB, PA, OL and OK. From this we can ascertain the order in which that particular plate were laid out, namely from right-to-left and from bottom-to-top.

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