Rare Stamps - Kirkcudbright Penny Black first day cover

Discover the most treasured 'first day cover' in the world, known as the Kirkcudbright Penny Black first day cover.

There are thought to be at least seventy ‘first day covers’ for the Penny Black, those covers sent on the first day the world’s first postage stamp was accepted as payment for postage, but only one boasts more than two examples of the 1d black stamp.

The Kirkcudbright cover, sent to a James Burnie Esq. of Kirkcudbright in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, on 6 May, 1840, has ten Penny Blacks affixed to it, in two rows of five, making it a mouth-watering souvenir from the very first days of postage stamps.

The cover is now held in the Royal Philatelic Collection, after it was purchased for the Queen in 2001 for £250,000.

The purchase of the cover was made possible by the selling of duplicate material and whilst the Royal Philatelic Collection is private, housed at St James’s Palace in London, the famous cover is occasionally shown at stamp exhibitions.

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