Excerpt from A History of Railway Letter Stamps: Describing All Varieties Issued by the Railway Companies of Great Britain and Ireland Under the Authority of the Postmaster-General Although the Railway Letter Post was established as long ago as February, 1891, it is only within the last three or four years that the stamps issued in connection with it have attained any considerable degree of prominence in the world of Philately. Their long neglect is undoubtedly attributable to ignorance, for the stamps are among the most interesting yet issued. The many minor variations in the issues of the more important Railway Companies appeal especially to the specialist collector, who cannot fail to find great pleasure in classifying and arranging the numerous printings, as distinguished by difference in design, colour, paper, perforation or other detail. It was not until 1897 that any serious attempt was made by collectors to ascertain how many varieties of Railway Letter Stamps existed. In November of that year, Mr. C. F. Dendy Marshall read a paper on the subject before the London Philatelic Society, giving, as far as was then known, a list of all Companies issuing these stamps, and this initial effort soon led to other enquiries being made. It was then found that not only did the issues of different Companies vary, but also that those of the same Company often presented variations in colour, perforation, or other detail. The author was one of the first to attempt a complete collection of these different printings, but considerable difficulty was experienced in arranging them, and this difficulty - shared by other collectors - has continued down to the present day. It is with the object of assisting collectors to correctly classify their specimens that the compilation of this work has been undertaken. Through the courtesy of the Railway Companies, the author has in almost every case been furnished with complete lists of the printings made, showing dates of delivery and issue and quantities printed, and these have greatly facilitated classification of the numerous varieties, although, where control numbers are absent, the identification and description of each printing has often proved a very difficult matter. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.