19th May 1855. Perkins Bacon to Mr Edward Barnard

69 Fleet Street

19th May 1855

Sir,

We beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter requiring to know the reasons for the non fulfilment of our Contract for the supply of Postage Stamps &c required by the Government of New South Wales & desiring that we should use every exertion to have the order completed without further delay

We deeply regret the delay which has taken place & think you are entitled to know the cause why we have sometimes of late been so wanting in our usual punctuality. When we undertook to supply our Home Government with Postage Stamps we did not anticipate any thing like the demand which began & continued annually to increase, and therefore prepared ourselves with but one original die; but from the one die we have had to prepare and produce over 50,000 engravings on steel. This die experienced no visible deterioration for many years, but about two years since the plates from it showed signs of weakness, which continued and gradually increased until those that formerly produced 100,000 good impressions latterly gave only 20,000 to 30,000. The time occupied in preparing these plates at first was great, but owing to these causes we have been kept incessantly occupied in their manufacture with the machinery appropriate to that purpose, as it was utterly impossible for the Government to suspend any part of their supply of stamps to the public, as required.

When we ascertained the origin of this falling off in the productiveness of our plates, & that it was not accidental which at first we suspected it to be, we obtained permission to prepare another original die similar to the first, from which we have now secured a sufficient number of flat dies to last for centuries, & these we could easily have done in the former instance had we supposed it would prove necessary. The plates are now even better than they were at first, but it has taken a long time to meet this extraordinary & unexpected drag upon us, which will however cease in two or three weeks, & we can promise the New South Wales 2d Postage plate, with its accompaniments, in 3 weeks, & the id & 3d in 6 weeks from the present time.

We have the honor to be

Sir, very respectfully

Your obedt Servts

Edward Barnard Esq &c. &c.

Source: De Worms Vol 1, p68.

Comment: Initially appears important as it shows that PB were under strain to keep up with the main business of supplying the penny red etc. Perhaps more important is the reference to a "sufficient number of flat dies" which I will expand upon here.

AP March 2015