Talk:Maclure, Macdonald and Co.

No stamps after 1884

This printer does not seem to have made any stamps after the NTC issue of 1884. Could this somehow be related to the events described below?

The National Telephone Company introduced a system in 1884 where subscribers could pay their bills by buying special National stamps and saving them until the phone bill arrived. The stamps could then be stuck to the bill and mailed in as payment. Initially the stamp scheme infuriated the Post Office. The stamp did not carry the portrait of the Queen, as was fit and proper, but that of the Chairman of National, Colonel Robert Rainsford Jackson. The Post Office received a ten percent commission on all calls, so Post office stamps were also used to attach to tally sheets at the Public Telephone kiosks. Subscribers could also make calls from a kiosk and have them billed to their home phone. The stamp system was discontinued when National introduced another innovation, the coin telephone or payphone, in 1891.

The Post Office sought to suppress the stamps. The NTC had issued 5 denominations, printed in sheets of 12 and did not wish to waste them, though they did prepare new designs, just in case they were forced to replace them. Each time the Post Office challenged them, the telephone company would say that the new issue was in course of preparation. Meanwhile, they were busy using up the current stock. Subscribers could use them to pay bills and sets of cancelled stamps were sold to collectors at the International Exhibition in Edinburgh in 1886 and again in 1890. Renewed pressure came from the Post Office in 1891, but by this time the company had merged, the chairman was no longer Colonel Jackson and most of the stock of offensive stamps had been used up. Replacement stamps were never issued, as by then, effective coin boxes had been invented.Arno-nl (talk) 07:42, 16 April 2014 (UTC)