Victoria Penny Black: The Mystery of the Pinhole Uncovered

Look out for penny blacks and penny reds with pinholes in them. An article which appeared in "THE LADY" magazine in the 1840's suggested a way to entertain your children by getting them to make a "STAMP SNAKE". You did this by cutting stamps off envelopes and old letters and threading them through with cotton, the red stamps making the body of the snake (GB PENNY RED STAMPS) and the black ones (PENNY BLACKS) making the head. Your children could then run round the drawing-room with their stamp snakes. You can still find lovely-looking copies of the Penny Black to this day which have pinholes right through the centre. Are they worthless? You decide if these affordable stamps are still collectable and should become a seperate catogory of your early British stamp collection.