album · page iv · noem (packet service)
three pence · issued 1869 · printed by harbinger & sons, kessel
five years after the blue twopence, noem added a higher value for letters going by packet boat — the small, slow steamers that crossed to the continent twice a week, weather permitting. weather seldom permitted. the brown is the colour of the packet's own paintwork: not handsome, but durable.
the ship in the vignette is not a real ship. it is a composite, drawn from three sketches the engraver made one winter while waiting at the mole. the rigging is wrong in a way only sailors notice. nobody at the post office noticed for forty years.
this denomination remained in use, with minor recoloration, until the reorganisation of 1898 — when noem merged its civil and packet posts and printed a new series with the harbour shown from above.
field-note · the brown ink fades quickly in sunlight; specimens stored in albums for a century turn the colour of weak tea.
see also · two-pence blue · old noem · 1d red · the ferry · harbour · the drawer