Most collectors know the first philatelic story—Genesis of our hobby—the issuance of the Penny Black. Even more interesting is the story of Penny Black’s twin sister, the 1840 1 penny Official. Rowland Hill envisioned twin stamps, the Penny Black for public use and the Penny Black Official for Official use (then, as now, the government sent tens of thousands of letters per year in furtherance of official business). The difference in the stamp between the regular issue and the Official is slight— the change being in the check letters being “VR” on the Official stamps. The plan was a good one; the realization of the plan was more problematic.
The reception of the first postage stamp was tremendous. Furthered by the large reduction in postal rates that the new stamps heralded (all mail within the UK was 1 penny, prepaid for any amount up to one ounce, rather than the array of postal rates based on distance and sheets of paper mailed that existed before), the public embraced the stamps. But the regular issue stamps were just part of Rowland Hill’s scheme. He envisioned that the public would also like his 1 penny and 2 penny prepaid envelopes and letter sheets (called Mulreadys after their designer and listed in Scott as #U1-4). But, in this, he seemed to have reckoned without his host. The British public thought the Mulready designs too busy, and they were promptly ridiculed in the press. Mockeries of the designs were issued by such magazines as Punch and are even known with Penny Black stamps used on them (and as you would imagine are very desirable and expensive).
Because the public wouldn’t use the Mulready envelopes, large quantities remained unsold. The Post Office didn’t like waste and ordered that the unsold Mulreadys be supplied to government agencies that Hill had intended to supply by the the first printed official. The first Official stamp was never really used. Hill gets huge kudos (as he should) for his great innovation—the postage stamp. Stamps allowed tremendous postal economies by simply mandating prepayment of postage rather than the old system of the postage for letters often being collected by the post man on delivery. Most of us who are devotees of the little stamps he produced don’t remember that his Penny Black was part of a triad of postal issues that were part of Hill’s postal reform—the VR Official, the Penny Black, and the Mulreadys— and that 2/3s of his innovation never caught on. VR officials were issued to the public. They are among the rarest stamps of the British Commonwealth, cataloging today at $35,000.