Have you ever wondered when the stamp was first used, and who thought of this system of communication?  The first government-printed postage stamp was born on May 6, 1840.  In 1837, Sir Rowland Hill, the British Postmaster General, first introduced the idea of the postage stamp.  The idea was to create a system whereby mail could go anywhere in the British Isles at one rate (a penny a half-ounce).  The sender was going to pay the postage and payment would be receipted with a small piece of colored paper on the outside of the letter – otherwise known as the stamp.

The first stamp had the profile of Queen Victoria on it and it was designed by Sir Rowland Hill.  The stamp cost one penny and was printed in black, quickly becoming known as the Penny Black.  These stamps didn’t have perforation, so people had to cut apart the sheets.  The first perforated stamp would appear on the market in 1854.

Certainly, other countries soon found out about this system and thought that it was the way to go.  In 1847, the United States Post Office Department printed their first stamps; the 5 cent stamp had Benjamin Franklin’s picture while the 10 cent stamp showed that of George Washington.