A new design of the 1d revenue stamp was issued in 1878.
The design was based on the Great Britain Inland Revenue stamp.
The die was engraved by W.R.Bock and A.E.Cousins.
The plate had 240 impressions in four panes of 60 and the stamps
were printed at the Government Printing Office in Wellington.
The 1d lilac was issued on 15 June and was replaced by the 1d blue
on 14 December 1878.
Both stamps were on paper watermarked NZ and star and were perf
12 x 11½.
In February 1882, it was announced that the 1d revenue stamps could be used
postally and that has greatly increased the interest in
(and cost of) these issues.
Very few of the 1d lilac were actually postally used, but that has
not stopped many
optimistic collecters claiming that the stamps in their
collection are amongst this small number.
The vertical pair of the 1d blue
shows a marked discontinuity in the
perforations in the two stamps indicating that the
perforation machine was re-adjusted between perforating the
two rows.
In April 1882 the
second side-face stamps
were issued.
As they could be used for both postal and revenue
purposes, there was no longer any need for low-value revenue stamps.
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The above information is taken from The Postage Stamps of
New Zealand Vol 6, published by the
Royal Philatelic Society of New Zealand in 1977.
All scans were made by the author.