GB QUEEN VICTORIA 1858, 2d BLUE, SG 45, Plate 9, LD-DL, USED

Early British stamps used a four-corner lettering tracking system to combat fraud and indicate exactly where a stamp sat on a full printer's sheet of 240 stamps.

• Bottom Corners (L - D): The bottom-left letter L indicates the vertical row, and the bottom-right letter D indicates the horizontal column. Because "L" is the 12th letter of the alphabet and "D" is the 4th, this stamp sat exactly at Row 12, Column 4 on the sheet.
• Top Corners (D - L): The top corners mirror and reverse the bottom letters. Top-left is D and top-right is L.

In philatelic terms, Plate 9 of the SG 45 issue is historically significant, but the specific LD-DL letter position is a normal, standard position on the sheet. However, Plate 9 stamps as a whole have several distinctive traits:

• The Design Milestone: Plate 9 belongs to the very first group of 2d Blue stamps to feature letters in all four corners. Before this era, the top corners featured simple stars.
• Thick White Lines: Plate 9 is from the early design run which featured notably thick white lines running horizontally above the word "POSTAGE" and below the words "TWO PENCE". Later iterations (Plates 13–15) modified this design with much thinner white lines.
• The Engraved Numbers: You can visually confirm it is a Plate 9 copy by looking at the intricate engine-turned borders flanking Queen Victoria’s face. The number 9 is delicately engraved vertically into the lace pillars on both the left and right sides.