The world’s first adhesive postage stamps were issued by Great Britain in 1840, as the “Penny Black” depicting Queen Victoria. It began designating British stamps by the depiction of the country’s sovereign. Great Britain is the only country allowed by international postal regulations to omit a text name of the issuing country.
In 1966 Arnold Machin sculpted a bust of Queen Elizabeth for the Royal Mail. It has been in continuous use since then, and has been reproduced some 320 billion times. Three copies of the original bust were known to exist, but recently a fourth one was discovered at the Machin family home.
