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Machine perforations replaced hand-cut postage stamps in the 1850s
Punched pinhole rows enabled swift tearing of individual adhesive postal stamps
Early adhesive postage stamps had to be manually cut from printed sheets using scissors or blades. In 1854, the British Post Office introduced machine-punched rows of tiny circular holes between stamps. Henry Archer invented this perforation technique, allowing postal clerks and customers to tear individual stamps cleanly without tools.
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Tags: post office, stamps, inventions
Machine perforations replaced hand-cut postage stamps in the 1850s: the short answers
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- Punched pinhole rows enabled swift tearing of individual adhesive postal stamps. The figure is taken from Library of Congress, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
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