Postmaster-General (and later Prime Minister) Joseph Ward had a plan to
place New Zealand in the forefront of civilised countries in the world, by
reducing postage charges for letters to one penny from New Zealand to
almost any country in the world - Australia, the United States, France and
Germany were among those countries who would not accept such letters,
fearful of having to reduce their own postal charges to match. Most of the
countries who would accept the letters did so without offering reciprocal
postal rates. This also halved the cost of mailing letters within New
Zealand.
On New Years Day 1901, the first day of the 20th century
and normally a bank holiday in New Zealand, Post Offices around the country
were open for the initial launch and within half an hour of opening, the
Wellington Post Office had sold around ten thousand of the
stamps.
Concern was raised in Government circles that Post Office
revenues would fall substantially with the reduction in postage rates, but
mail volumes increased sharply and 13 million more letters were sent in
1901 than in 1900. This increase in mail volume meant that by 1902 any
loses had been recovered.
The stamp was recess printed until 1908
when it was replaced by the surface printed Redrawn Pictorials. As well as
the sheets of 240 stamps, stamp booklets were manufactured and sold for the
first time containing 12, 24 or 30 stamps in panes of six with a halfpenny
surcharge to cover the extra production costs. Special coils of stamps for
a prototype stamp vending machine installed at the General Post Office in
Wellington were printed - these were a world first.
The stamp bears
the female figure of 'Zealandia', intended to become a figure of
national personification representing New Zealand in much the same way as
'Britannia' represents the United Kingdom. In the background a mail
boat is shown steaming past Mount Egmont / Taranaki.

There are three different designs of the penny universal
postage stamps which are easily confused. The
1901 Penny Universal (top left) has
vertical shading on the globe. The wake at the bow of the steamer is also
far more impressive on the
1901 Penny
Universal than later designs. The
1909 King Edward VII 'penny
dominion' (bottom) has a similar design to the
1907 Redrawn Pictorials penny (top
right) with 'Dominion of' added at the top of the stamp and
'universal postage' appearing on a scroll at the bottom of the
stamp. Both the
1909 King Edward
VII dominion and
1907 Redrawn
Pictorials penny stamps have diagonal shading lines on the globe behind
the figure of Zealandia.