This article could have just as easily been titled, "I just found some stamps in an old desk..." or "I found my old stamp collection up in the attic from when I was a kid..." or some similar theme. This is intended for someone who knows next to nothing about stamp collecting, has come into possession of some stamps and wishes to know what they are worth. As with all collectible items, stamps are worth what someone is willing to pay for them. Learning what that might be will require doing your homework. It is highly unlikely that you will instantly find someone who will give you enough for your retirement, but by searching through the philatelic world for the best place to sell your stamps, you could do very well.

The first step in educating yourself should be to check your local public library for a Scott or Minkus (or other) stamp catalog. Check the catalog out from the library, take it home, and compare your stamps to the listings. Read the introductory paragraphs in the catalog to see how stamps' values are determined and how you should judge the stamps. Remember that stamp catalog values are for excellent examples of each given stamp and that stamps with heavy cancels or tears or pieces missing will bring much less, if anything at all. And remember that most unused stamps released since 1940 aren't worth much more than face value if you're trying to sell them; a lot of those you can use for postage. Also be aware that a dealer will likely pay less than half catalog value, since he has to make his profit margin and cover his expenses to stay in business selling stamps.

After you've consulted a catalog, if you don't know any stamp collectors to ask, check your local yellow pages for stamp dealers. Find three or four if you can and ask them to take a look at your stamps. This process will take time, and you will have to go to their locations to get them to look at your stamps. Or if a stamp show is held in your area, go to the show and ask dealers there. In the stamp business, as in any collectibles area, you need to find the right dealer for the material you have. The "right" dealer will know to whom he can resell your material. As you "do your homework" by asking several dealers about value, you will begin to get an idea of the true worth of your stamps. You will have to use your own judgement to evaluate the honesty of those you ask, but you will find that most are honest, even if they're not knowledgeable.

If your stamps turn out to be fairly valuable (hundreds or thousands of dollars), it might be worth your while to offer the material at auction. As with finding a dealer, you'd need to do your homework on auction houses to find the best place to offer your stamps. The point of all this is that the more time you spend "doing your homework," the better price realization you are likely to get for your stamps. You may find that after only a short search for information you will learn that what you have isn't worth much. That is the most likely outcome. However, if the collection was put together by a knowledgeable collector, it may well have "goodies" that have appreciated tremendously over the decades. There's only one way for you to find out if that's true: Do your homework!! After doing your homework, you may find yourself fascinated to the point you will not only be the owner of an old collection but a builder of a new and better collection!

How is a postage stamp made?

Background

The postage stamp is a relatively modern invention, first proposed in 1837 when Sir Rowland Hill, an English teacher and tax reformer, published a seminal pamphlet entitled Post Office Reform: Its Importance and Practicability. Among other reforms, Hill's treatise advocated that the English cease basing postal rates on the distance a letter traveled and collecting fees upon delivery. Instead, he argued, they should assess fees based on weight and require prepayment in the form of stamps. Hill's ideas were accepted almost immediately, and the first English adhesive stamp, which featured a portrait of Queen Victoria, was printed in 1840. This stamp, called the "penny black," provided sufficient postage for letters weighing up to .5 ounce (14 grams), regardless of distance. To encourage widespread use of stamps, letters mailed without them were now charged double at the point of delivery. After Britain, Brazil became the next nation to produce postage stamps, issuing stamps made by its currency engraver in 1843. Various cantons in what later became Switzerland also produced stamps in 1843. United States postage stamps (in five and ten cent denominations) were first authorized by Congress in 1847 and came on the market on July 1 of the same year. By 1860, more than 90 countries, colonies, or districts were issuing postage stamps.

Most early stamps were of a single color-the United States, for example, did not produce multicolored stamps until 1869, and they did not become common until the 1920s. The penny black and other early stamps needed to be separated with a scissors; perforated stamps did not appear until 1854 in England and 1857 in the United States. However, though larger stamps are occasionally produced, the penny black's original size, .75 by .875 inch (1.9 by 2.22 centimetres), has remained standard.

Initially, stamps were manufactured by the same businesses that provided a country with currency, or by a country's mint. Yet it soon became apparent that printing stamps is unlike minting money in that the different paper types call for different printing pressures. Consequently, printing stamps became a discrete activity, though one still sometimes carried out by companies that made currency. In ensuing years, methods of producing stamps mirrored the development of modern printing processes. Today, stamp making processes utilize much of the finest printing technology available.

In the United States, the decision to produce a stamp is made by a Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee, which meets regularly in conjunction with staff from the Post Office. The committee is responsible for determining what stamps will be produced, in what denominations, and at what time. Suggestions for stamps come from throughout the country, although the committee itself might recommend a particular design. Most frequently, however, there is a large pool of recommendations with which to work. In some cases, suggestions are accompanied by drawings and pictures which might form the basis for the stamp being considered.

Once the committee decides that a particular stamp will be produced, it commissions an artist to design it or modify a submitted design. It then decides, primarily on the basis of workload, whether the stamp should be produced by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing or by outside contractors, who have been used much more extensively since the late 1980s. It's possible for a common stamp in great demand (such as an everyday first class mail stamp) to be made by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and by several contractors. Currently, perhaps ten to fifteen American firms are capable of manufacturing stamps that meet Post Office standards.

Specifications for the stamp, such as color, size, design, and even the printing process itself are then drawn up in consultation with the original artist or designer. If the stamp is to be contracted out, a "request for proposal" appears in the Commerce Business Daily, a U.S. government publication which lists contracts available to non-government firms. After the stamp is printed, samples will be sent to the International Bureau of the Universal Postal Union in Switzerland, where they are marked as samples (commonly perforated with a word such as "specimen") and then distributed to member nations to help postal workers recognize other countries' legitimate postage.

In addition to requirements for the picture or design on a stamp, other requirements, all of which can be met at a printing plant, are sometimes added to a stamp's specification. The most common one is phosphor tagging, in which an invisible mark that can be read only by a special machine is placed on a stamp. The tagging facilitates the automated sorting of mail.

Other requirements might be for such things as printing the stamp on chalked paper to prevent reuse of a stamp by cleaning or washing off a cancellation. When a canceled stamp printed on chalked paper is wetted, the picture will blur as the cancellation mark is wiped off, cuing postal workers to the fact that the stamp is no longer valid.

Raw Materials

Although stamps were originally printed on sheets of paper that were fed into presses individually, the paper now used comes on a roll. The two kinds of paper most commonly used to print stamps are laid and wove paper, the former with ribbed lines and the latter without. While other nations use both types, the United States presently uses only wove. Either laid or wove paper might feature watermarks, faint designs that result from differences in the pressure applied to various parts of a roll of paper during the production process. Commonly used in other counties, watermarked paper has not been utilized in the United States since 1915.

The Manufacturing Process

At the printing plant, the process begins with the delivery of paper for stamps, with the glue already applied to the back. Two printing processes are most often used in making stamps, the intaglio process (which includes the gravure process), and the offset process. It is not unusual, however, for a particular stamp's specifications to call for the use of both methods.

Intaglio, perhaps the oldest means of producing stamps, is also the most time-consuming. However, because this method creates stamps with more distinct images, the process has not been pushed aside by newer, faster, and less expensive methods. Intaglio involves engraving, scratching, or etching an image onto a printing plate, which in turn transfers that image onto paper. In one well-known intaglio process, called gravure, the image is first transferred onto the plate photographically, and then etched into the plate. This section, however, will focus on an engraving process.

Creating the master die

* The engraving method of intaglio begins with the creation of a "master die" in which the design of the stamp is engraved, in reverse. The design is in the lowered portion of the die-the raised portion of the die will not be reproduced in the final product. This is an exacting hand process, in which the engraver is carefully cutting a mirror image of the original drawing for the stamp. It might be several weeks before the engraver is satisfied that he or she has created the perfect duplicate.

* After the die has been completed, it is heated to harden the engraved image. In the next step, the hardened intaglio is transferred to a transfer roll, which consists of soft steel wrapped around a rod-shaped carrier, or mandrel, and which resembles a shortened rolling pin. The transfer roll is machine-pressed against the master die, and rocked back and forth until the master die has created a relief impression on the transfer roll. At this point, the relief is a positive impression (no longer in reverse). The process is repeated until the desired number of reliefs has been created on the transfer roll.

Preparing the printing plate

* Like the master die, the transfer roll is hardened by heating. It is then pressed against a printing plate, leaving another relief, again in reverse, on the printing plate. If there are several reliefs on a transfer roll, all can be passed to the printing plate. Several printing plates can be made from the same transfer roll if the decision is made to use more than one machine to produce a particular stamp. The impression on the plate is in the form of grooves rather than a raised image.

* Once the plate is ready for use, it is fastened into the printing press and coated with ink. Inking is done automatically by several processes including spraying ink through small jets or moving an ink-covered roller across a plate. The plate is then wiped by a blade called the doctor blade, leaving ink only in the grooves.

* The plate then presses against the paper, leaving a positive impression of the reverse image that was originally copied onto the master die.

* If more than one color is involved, separate colors are handled by a process known as selective inking. A particular color of ink is applied by a piece of hard rubber that comes in contact with only the section of the stamp that is to receive that color. After the ink is applied in one area, another piece of rubber, with another color for another area, is used to ink another portion of the plate.

Offset lithography

* The offset method of printing is less expensive than intaglio and can also produce very fine results, and it is a common choice for many stamps. In this method, a picture or design is first made photochemically on an aluminum plate. Once attached to the printing press, the plate is alternately bathed in ink and water: the photochemical image gets ink, while the non-image parts are dampened with water, which acts as a repellent to the ink and ensures that only the image will be transferred to the paper. Next, the plate presses against a rubber "blanket," which carries a reverse image of the final picture. In turn, the rubber blanket contacts the paper, producing the final positive image.

Perforation

* Perforations can be made either during the printing process by an adjacent machine or, less commonly, by a separate machine afterwards. In the first method, the sheet of paper is passed through a machine which uses little pins to punch the perforation holes through the paper in a horizontal and vertical grid. After pushing through the paper, the pins meet a matching metal indentation on the other side. After being perforated, the stamps move out of the press. In the other method of producing perforations, called rouletting, a wheel similar to a pizza cutter but with pins is rolled across one side of the stamped paper after it has been removed from the printing press, laying down a row of holes. Though originally a hand-operation, this method of perforation is now automated.

Quality Control

Stamps are inspected at every stage of the printing process, by the people who are running the stamps and by inspectors whose only responsibility is to observe the process and remove errors before the stamps proceed to the next step.

Printing machines are hugely complex, and errors in the printing process are a fact of life. Misfed paper, clogged inking apparatus, variations in pressure, changes in ink quality, incorrectly adjusted mechanisms, and a host of other problems can be minimized but not always eliminated. Even changes in the humidity of the pressroom can affect the press and the paper enough to produce less-than-perfect results.

Several of the most spectacular errors of the past occurred because presses were manually fed; in other words, individual sheets of paper were inserted into the press by hand. If a sheet of paper required an impression from a second press (to add a second color), and the sheet was turned accidentally, the resulting stamps featured misplaced blotches of color. This type of error does not occur today because presses are roll-fed: rather than being fed into a press sheet by sheet, paper is fed in from a continuous roll.

Most errors are detected, and the flawed stamps destroyed, under tight security controls in the printing plant. Enough errors slip through, however, to make the collecting of "error stamps" an interesting specialty for some stamp collectors.

The Future

One twentieth-century innovation that has significantly diminished the use of stamps is the postage meter. Developed in New Zealand in 1902, meters were introduced in the United States twelve years later. In addition to their use by the federal Post Office, meters are now leased by private companies that send out large amounts of mail. These meters allow companies to post and mail letters without using stamps. Particularly popular with businesses that send out bulk mailings, meters now "stamp" over one half of the mail posted in the United States. However, individuals continue to use postage stamps, which remain not only functional but popular, as can be seen in the excitement generated by such recent stamps as those commemorating World War II, Elvis Presley, and Princess Grace of Monaco.

Where to Learn More about Stamps

Books

Lewis, Brenda Ralph. Stamps! A Young Collector's Guide. Lodestar Books, 1991.

Olcheski, Bill. Beginning Stamp Collecting. Henry Z.Walck, 1991.

Scott 1993 Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue. Vol. 1: Basic Stamp Information, pp. 20A-26A. Scott Publishing Co., 1992.

Periodicals

Healey, Barth. "Tactical Technology Fights Counterfeiters." New York Times. May 16, 1993, p. N22.

Patota, Anne. "Coil Stamp Provides Test for Pre-Phosphored Paper." Stamps. May 16, 1987, p. 458.

Schiff, Jacques C., Jr. "Much to Learn about Printing." Stamps. July 4, 1992, p. 10.

"Computer Enhances National Guard Color." Stamps. November 8, 1986, p. 418.

"Postage Stamp Design: Creating Art Works the Size of Your Thumb." Stamps. November 5, 1988, p. 217.

Art Encyclopedia: Postage Stamp

Small piece of pre-gummed paper that, when affixed to an item of mail, indicates that postage costs have been prepaid. The postage stamp originated in Britain in 1840 as part of the reform of the postal system instigated by Sir Rowland Hill (1795-1879), who is also credited with the design of the first stamp, the Penny Black, which was first sold in London on 1 May 1840 (it was not officially valid until 6 May, although examples of premature use are known). This design government stamp affixed to mail to indicate payment of postage. The term includes stamps printed or embossed on postcards and envelopes as well as the adhesive labels. The use of adhesive postage stamps was advocated by Sir Rowland Hill; it was adopted in Great Britain in 1839. Zürich (Switzerland) and Brazil issued stamps in 1843 and by 1850 the custom had spread throughout the world. Although the postmasters of several cities had previously issued provisional stamps, the first U.S. official issue was in 1847. Stamps are usually printed from engraved steel plates or cylinders, or by typographic or lithographic means. Besides regular stamps, which date from 1847, the U.S. government also issues commemorative stamps, which celebrate events or persons; memorial stamps in honor of officials who die in office; airmail stamps; and special stamps, e.g., special delivery, postage due, and revenue stamps. Self-adhesive, or “self-stick,” stamps were introduced in the United States in 1974 but were not successful; they were reintroduced in 1994 and now comprise the vast majority of U.S. stamps issued. The computer age came to U.S. postage stamps in 1999, when, as PC Postage, they became available for purchase and downloading on the Internet. The popularity of philately has led some governments to issue a great many stamps, usually commemoratives. Some small countries, like San Marino, receive much of their revenue by issuing stamps attractive to collectors.

Mideast & N. Africa Encyclopedia: Postage Stamps

The Islamic states of the Middle East had operated elaborate postal messenger systems since the seventh century, but it was Great Britain in 1840 that issued the world's first postage stamp. It depicted Queen Victoria. Postage stamps quickly spread, with the Ottoman Empire issuing its first stamp in 1863, followed by Egypt in 1866, Persia in 1868, Afghanistan in 1871, the Hijaz (now part of Saudi Arabia) in 1916, and Yemen in 1926. Elsewhere, British, French, and Italian colonial officials in the Middle East designed the first stamps for their jurisdictions.

Early Middle Eastern stamps, like Islamic coins before them, observed conservative Islamic tradition by rarely portraying human figures. Arabesque designs, calligraphy, or a crescent and star served as symbols instead. In 1876, Persia broke with tradition by showing its ruler on a stamp; the Ottomans did the same in 1913. Egypt, Iraq, and Transjordan followed during the 1920s; then Afghanistan, Syria, and Lebanon during the 1940s. Saudi Arabia, more isolated and conservative, waited until the 1960s.

Rulers appeared variously in traditional dress, in Western coat and tie, or in military uniform. Turkey's Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who secularized Turkey after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire by, among other things, outlawing Muslim head-wear, wore civilian dress on his stamps from 1926 on, but many soldiers-turned-president preferred military uniforms. After coming to power in 1979, Iraq's President Saddam Hussein appeared variously on stamps in coat and tie, army uniform, and Arab kafiyya. Some rulers promoted a cult of the leader on their stamps, with the hero towering above the masses he claimed to embody. Syria's Hafíz al-Asad, Egypt's Anwar al-Sadat, and Iraq's Saddam saturated stamps with their own portraits. Egypt's president Gamal Abdel Nasser was more reticent, and Husni Mubarak followed Nasser's rather than Sadat's example in this regard.

The first stamps of the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, Persia, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen bore inscriptions in only Arabic script. Although they were not French colonies, they soon added French, long the main language of world diplomacy. All later switched to English as their second language on stamps - except Afghanistan, which kept French, and Turkey, whose adoption of the Latin alphabet in 1928 made its Turkish-only stamps partly accessible to Westerners. French colonial possessions used French and British possessions English. French Algeria and Italian Libya used no Arabic on their stamps until independence (1962 and 1951, respectively). Hebrew has been the main language on Israel's stamps since independence in 1948, with English and Arabic as secondary languages.

European colonial stamps presented romanticized and orientalist colonial picturesque themes - pre-Islamic ruins, old mosques, colorful landscapes, and folk scenes. European officials first selected the pyramids and sphinx as symbols for Egyptian stamps, but many Egyptians came to identify, at least partially, with these pre-Islamic symbols. Egypt often commemorates ancient pharaonic treasures on stamps; folk costumes are also shown as part of a proud national heritage. Even so, stamps with such themes are often issued with Western tourists and collectors in mind.

Revolutions drastically changed stamp designs. "The people" - symbolic soldiers, peasants, workers, professionals, and women in both traditional and Western dress - celebrate liberation, modernization, and the drive for economic development. Stamps advertise such things as petroleum pipelines, factories, and broadcasting stations. Socialist countries commemorated land reform, the spread of health-care, and five-year plans. In addition to such symbols of material and social progress, Israel also depicts themes from biblical history, Jewish history, and Zionism.

The stamps of Israel and the Arab states also reflect their respective versions of the Arab - Israel conflict. Stamps commemorate the war dead, advertise the latest aircraft, and boast of specific victories. Most Arab countries have issued stamps deploring the Dayr Yasin massacre (as they describe the event) of 1948,mourn the plight of Palestinian refugees, and celebrate Palestinian resistance to Israel. Since Israel's occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967, the Dome of the Rock (in the Haram alSharif) has often appeared on stamps as a symbol of Arab and Islamic claims to Jerusalem. The stamps of Arab countries that depict maps omit the name Israel, showing only the borders and sometimes the name of pre-1948 Palestine. With its borders still unsettled and controversial, Israel's stamp designers make it a practice to avoid showing national maps.

During the 1950s and 1960s, pan-Arab themes tended to overshadow symbols of local territorial patriotism. Beginning in the 1970s, Islamic themes became popular - mosques, Qurʾans, hegira dates, and crescents - on stamps honoring the prophet Muhammad's birthday, the Islamic New Year, and the hajj. Islamic themes stand out above all on the stamps of the Islamic Republic of Iran since the 1979 revolution, depicting deceased Shiʿite holy men, martyrs killed in the jihad (holy struggle) against Iraq, and anti-American symbols.

Wikipedia: postage stamp

A postage stamp is evidence of pre-paying a fee for postal services. Usually a small paper rectangle or square that is attached to an envelope, the postage stamp signifies that the person sending the letter or package may have either fully, or perhaps partly, pre-paid for delivery. Postage stamps are the most popular way of paying for retail mail; alternatives include prepaid-postage envelopes and Postage meters.

History

Postage stamps were first introduced in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in May 1, 1840 as part of the postal reforms promoted by Rowland Hill. With its introduction the postage fee was now to be paid by the sender and not the recipient as heretofore, though sending mail prepaid was not a requirement. The first postage stamp, the Penny Black, first issued on the 1st of May for use from May 6, 1840, and two days later, the Two pence blue, with an engraving of the young Queen Victoria, were an immediate success though refinements, like perforations were instituted with later issues. At the time of the Penny Black, there was no reason to include the United Kingdom's name on the stamp, and it remains the case as the UK is the only country that does not identify itself on its stamps.

Other countries followed suit by introducing their own postage stamps; the Canton of Zürich in Switzerland issued the Zurich 4 and 6 rappen; although the Penny Black could be used to send any letter weighing less than half an ounce within the United Kingdom, the Swiss postage still calculated mail rates based on the distance travelled. Brazil issued the Bull's Eyes stamps in the 1843, using the same printer as that used for the Penny Black the Brazilian government opted for an abstract design instead of an image of Emperor Pedro II in order that his image would be not disfigured by the postmark. In 1845 some postmasters in the USA issued their own stamps, but the first officially issued stamps came in 1847, with the 5 and 10 cent stamps depicting Benjamin Franklin and George Washington. A few other countries issued stamps in the late 1840s, but many more, such as India, started in the 1850s and by the 1860s most countries of the world had issued postage stamps.

Following the introduction of the postage stamp in the United Kingdom the number of letters mailed increased from 82 million in 1839 to 170 million in 1841. Today an average of 21 billion items is delivered by post every year in the UK alone.

Postage stamp design

Stamps have been issued in other shapes besides the usual square or rectangle, including circular, triangular and pentagonal. Sierra Leone and Tonga were among the first countries to have issued self-adhesive stamps in these instances some in the shapes of fruit; Bhutan has issued a stamp with its national anthem on a playable record, etc. Stamps have also been made of materials other than paper, commonly embossed foil (sometimes of gold); Switzerland made a stamp partly out of lace and one out of wood; the United States produced one made of plastic, and the German Democratic Republic once issued a stamp made entirely of synthetic chemicals. In the Netherlands a stamp was issued made of silver foil.

Types of stamps

* Airmail - for payment of airmail service. While the word or words "airmail" or equivalent is usually printed on the stamp, Scott (the dominant U.S. cataloguing firm) has recognised as airmail stamps some U.S. stamps issued in denominations good for then-current international airmail rates, and showing the silhouette of an airplane. The other three major catalogs do not give any special status to airmail stamps.

* ATM, stamps dispensed by automatic teller machines (ATMs) whose sheets are paper currency sized and of similar thickness.

* carrier's stamp

* certified mail stamp

* coil stamps - tear-off stamps issued individually in a vending machine, or purchased in a roll that often comprise 100 stamps

* commemorative stamp - a limited run of stamp designed to commemorate a particular event

* Computer vended postage - advanced secure postage that uses Information-Based Indicia (IBI) technology. IBI uses a 2-dimensional bar code (either Datamatrix or PDF417) to encode the Originating Address, Date of Mailing, Postage Amount, and a Digital signature to verify the stamp's authenticity.

* Customised stamp - a stamp the picture or image in which can in some way be chosen by the purchaser, either by sending in a photograph or by use of the computer. Some of these are not truly stamps but are technically meter labels.

* Definitive - stamps issued mainly for the everyday payment of postage. They often have less appealing designs than commemoratives. The same design may be used for many years. Definitive stamps are often the same basic size. The use of the same design over an extended period of time often leads to many unintended varieties. This makes them far more interesting to philatelists than commemoratives.

* express mail stamp / special delivery stamp

* late fee stamp - issued to show payment of a fee to allow inclusion of a letter or package in the outgoing dispatch although it has been turned in after the cut-off time

* Local post stamps - used on mail in a local post; a postal service that operates only within a limited geographical area, typically a city or a single transportation route. Some local posts have been operated by governments, while others, known as private local posts, have been for-profit companies.

* military stamp - stamps issued specifically for the use of members of a country's armed forces, usually using a special postal system

* official mail stamp - issued for use solely by the government or a government agency or bureau

* occupation stamp - a stamp issued for use by either an occupying army or by the occupying army or authorities for use by the civilian population

* perforated stamps - while this term can be used to refer to the perforations around the edge of a stamp (used to divide the sheet into individual stamps) it is also a technical term for stamps that have additionally been perforated across the middle with letters or a distinctive pattern or monogram known as perfins. These modified stamps are usually purchased by large corporations to guard against theft by their employees.

* personalised - allow user to add his own personalised picture or photograph

* Postage due - a stamp applied showing that the full amount of required postage has not been paid and indicating the amount of shortage and penalties the recipient will have to pay. (Collectors and philatelists debate whether these should be called stamps, some saying that as they do not pre-pay postage they should be called "labels".) The United States Post Office Department issued "parcel post postage due" stamps.

* Postal tax - a stamp indicating that a tax (above the regular postage rate) required for sending letters has been paid. This stamp is often mandatory on all mail issued on a particular day or for a few days only.

* Self-adhesive stamp - stamps not requiring licking or moisture to be applied to the back to stick. Self-sticking.

* semi-postal / charity stamp - a stamp issued with an additional charge above the amount needed to pay postage, where the extra charge is used for charitable purposes such as the Red Cross. The usage of semi-postal stamps is entirely at the option of the purchaser. Countries (such as Belgium and Switzerland) that make extensive use of this form of charitable fund-raising design such stamps in a way that makes them more desirable for collectors.

* Test stamp - a label not valid for postage, used by postal authorities on sample mail to test various sorting and cancelling machines or machines that can detect the absence or presence of a stamp on an envelope. May also be known as "dummy" or "training" stamps.

* War tax stamp - A variation on the postal tax stamp intended to defray the costs of war.

* Water-activated stamp - for many years "water-activated" stamps were the only kind so this term only entered into use with the advent of self-adhesive stamps. The adhesive or gum on the back of the stamp must be moistened (usually it is done by licking, thus the stamps are also known as "lick and stick") to affix it to the envelope or package.

Dispensing

Since their inception there have been numerous innovative developments in how stamps are dispensed and sold. Usually, they can be purchased over the counter or from vending machines at post-offices or selected retail outlets, as "books" or loose stamps. They are traditionally made as a perforated sheet which is gummed on the reverse, so that the purchaser may tear off each stamp, moisten it (frequently by licking), and apply it to the envelope, but self-adhesive stamps are now commonplace.

IBI "stamps"

In the United States, the introduction of Information Based Indicia (IBI) technology has allowed newer ways to sell stamps. IBI is an encrypted 2-dimensional bar code that makes counterfeiting more difficult and easier to detect, offering value beyond postage. Unlike traditional postage meter indicia, each IBI is unique. The IBI contains security critical data elements as well as other information, such as point of origin and the sender. The IBI is human and machine-readable.

Prior to IBI being introduced, postage vault devices were used on personal computers to allow postage stamps to be printed from one's computer. The postage vault device is a tamper resistant postal security device to disable postage equipment when tampered with. The postage vault can be also identified as the means to store (and keep track of) monetary funds in the postage vault. You can think of this as prepaying for the right to print postage from your personal computer. The Internet is used to reset or replenish funds in the postage vault.

In March 2001, the United States Postal Service authorized Neopost Online and Northrop Grumman Corporation to test an innovative purchasing stamp system. This self-service stamp vending system allows the consumer to peruse through a variety of denominations and quantities, select the desired purchase and swipe his/her credit card to submit a purchase order. The stamp vending system then authorizes the purchase order, prints the stamp sheet(s) and finally dispenses them to the consumer. The ability to peruse, request, authorize, print, and dispense a stamp purchase using the Internet makes these the world's first browser-based stamps. This is the first instance where IBI was utilized on adhesive labels. The product from this self-service stamp vending system is aptly named by collectors as Neopost web-enabled stamps. These stamps were available from March 2001 through August 2003 and were denominated (fixed value) stamps.

In 2002 the United States Postal Service authorized Stamps.com to issue NetStamps. The NetStamps utilizes IBI technology and can be printed from personal computers with postal vaults. In 2004 the United States Postal Service introduced the Automated Postal Centers (APC). This kiosk provided non-denominated ($0.01 to $99.99) stamps. The intent of the APC is to reduce labor required to service consumers at the postal counters. Recently, personal pictures have been paired with IBI technology to provide a personalized stamp for the consumer. These stamps are custom made and require a period of time (days) to produce.

The push towards using IBI technology aids the United States Postal Service in finding new venues to sell stamps. It also reduces the burden of maintaining the mechanical machines to sell stamps. The United States Postal Service still relies on co-signing stamps to retailers and banks (via automatic teller machines (ATMs). They must be the same size and thickness as currency in order to be dispensed by the ATM.

Similarly, Royal Mail in the United Kingdom has recently launched a "Print-your-own-postage" service allowing the general public to purchase IBI-style codes online, and print them onto address stickers or directly onto envelopes, in lieu of using First Class postage stamps. This was much remarked-upon in the press as the first time a consumer "stamp" has not featured an image of the reigning monarch. It joins the existing "SmartStamp" subscription service, which performs the same function but is primarily aimed at business customers.

First day covers

On the first day of issue a set of stamps can be purchased attached to an envelope that has been postmarked with a special commemorative postmark. Known as a "First Day Cover", it can also be assembled from the component parts by stamp collectors, who are the most frequent users. These envelopes usually bear a commemorative cachet of the subject for which the stamp was created.

Souvenir or miniature sheets

Postage stamps are sometimes issued in souvenir sheets or miniature sheet containing just one or a small number of stamps. Souvenir sheets typically include additional artwork or information printed on the selvage (border surrounding the stamps). Sometimes the stamps make up part of a greater picture. Some countries, and some issues, are produced as individual stamps as well as in the sheet format.

Collecting

Stamp collecting is a popular hobby, and stamps are often produced as collectibles. Some countries are known for producing stamps intended for collectors rather than postal use. This practice produces a significant portion of the countries' government revenues. This has been condoned by the collecting community for places such as Liechtenstein and Pitcairn Islands that have followed relatively conservative stamp issuing policies. Abuses of this policy, however, are generally condemned. Among the most notable abusers have been Nicholas F. Seebeck and the component states of the United Arab Emirates. Seebeck operated in the 1890s as an agent of Hamilton Bank Note Company when he approached several Latin American countries with an offer to produce their entire postage stamp needs for free. In return he would have the exclusive rights to market the remainders of the stamps to collectors. Each year a new issue of stamps was produced whose postal validity would expire at the end of the year; this assured Seebeck of a continuing supply of remainders. In the 1960s certain stamp printers such as the Barody Stamp Company arranged contracts to produce quantities of stamps for the separate Emirates and other countries. These abuses combined with the sparse population of the desert states earned them the reputation of being known as the "sand dune" countries.

The combination of hundreds of countries, each producing scores of different stamps each year has resulted in a total of some 400,000 different types in existence as of 2000. In recent years, the annual world output has averaged about 10,000 types each year.

Earliest Postmark Associated with Franking

The earliest postmark associated with the franking privilege was a two line, unframed stamp inscribed AFFRANCHI/PAR ETAT (franked be State), struck in black or red on official correspondence from Paris in 1672. This stamp is all the more remarkable since it preceded any other handstruck postmark of France by twenty-three years. A considerable time elapsed before this was followed, in 1744, by a single line mark inscribed AFFAIRES DU ROY. During the Revolution, the use of franks proliferated rapidly, reflecting the turbulent nature of French politics at that time.

In Britain, parliamentary and official mail was carried free of charge, the privilege being granted by Royal Warrant as the revenue of the Post Office went to the Crown. In 1764, postal revenues were surrendered by the Crown to Parliament in return for a Civil List. The franking privilege, thereafter, had to authorised by Act of Parliament. This necessitated the introduction of special stamps inscribed FREE in May 1764. At first, these were undated but a date was incorporated in 1791. In 1799, a crown was also featured, and this was characteristic of the English franks until they were abolished in 1840 as part of the package of postal reforms introduced by Rowland Hill. Only one type of 'free' handstamp was ever used at Edinburgh (1772 - 1788) but Dublin had a most elaborate system. Ireland was, in fact, using distinctive franks from 1706 onwards, the most attractive being the 'mermaids' - so called from the female figure adorning their frame and probably derived from the figure on the heraldic harp.

Special Sunday postmarks were used in London and Dublin. It was a condition of the franking privilege that letters had to bear the date of posting, in the hand writing of the sender, and were not passed free of postage if posted on any other day. Since franked letters, if posted on a Sunday, were not franked till the following day, a special Sunday mark was impressed on them to explain the apparent difference between the handwritten date and the date in the frank. These marks were inscribed SUN or SUNDAY and, in the case of Dublin, were also applied to ordinary mail arriving in that city on a Sunday and not delivered until the following day. London also had special stamps instructing postmen to deliver the letter before 10am on Sunday morning. These 'Sunday Marks' survived the abolition of the franking privilege for several years.

Early Stamps of Mexico

Adhesive stamps were adopted by Mexico in August 1856 when a series of five was issued. All stamps of the Mexican republic, up to 1879, portrayed Don Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, leader of the revolt against Spain in the early nineteenth century. The earliest issue was lithographed in Mexico, but in 1864 the design was modified for a set of four recess-printed by the American Bank Note Company. These were overprinted 'Saltillo' or 'Monterrey' before issue to the public. Stamps without these overprints came from the remainder of stocks.

An empire, under French auspices, was proclaimed in April 1864 and the Austrian Archduke Maximilian was made emperor. The first stamps of the empire bore the eagle and serpent emblem but in 1866 - 1867, a series portraying Maximilian was issued. These stamps were usually issued with a district name and consignment number overprinted.

After the withdrawal of the French the republicans overthrew the erstwhile empire. Stamps of the first republican series were reintroduced overprinted 'Mexico' in Gothic script. A new Hidalgo series was issued in September 1868. The stamps may be found with thin or thick figures of value and both versions exist imperforate or perforated.

In 1879, Senor de la Pena designed a series portraying Benito Juarez, leader of the republican movement against Maximilian. Stamps of this series may be found with the usual medley of district overprints or with a second set of overprints. Such stamps, known to collectors as 'Habilitados' were returned to a central pool and overprinted a second time for distribution to offices, which had run out of certain denominations.

In 1914, a set of five stamps portraying President Madero was never released on account of the fall of the Madero government and the murder of the president. Venustiano Carranza recaptured Mexico City in January 1915 and ousted his rivals by August; the following month a general series of stamps for use throughout the country was reintroduced. They were designed with the coat of arms and various historic personalities. Cuauhtemoc, last of the Aztec rulers, was shown on the 2c stamp.

A lengthy series of ordinary and airmail stamps was released in December 1934 to celebrate the inauguration of President Cardenas. Although primarily commemorative, this series was retained for definitive use.

Errors Caused in Stamps Printing

In plate errors, it needs to be considered that printing plates, cylinders and clichés have to withstand high pressure and wear. When the material is worn, tears or bubbles may appear or a piece actually break away. Every such change will be immediately reflected in one or more stamps. Much depends on how quickly the error is detected and remedied.

When printing plates were originally grouped from individual clichés, and some fault occurred in one of the clichés, it was sufficient to replace the damaged cliché. As long as the cliché was produced from the original die everything was in order. Sometimes, a cliché was inserted upside down and a tete-beche reproduction resulted. There were also cases when a cliché was replaced by mistake, with a cliché of another stamp similar in appearance or of another value. This resulted in most interesting errors of colour and se-tenant stamps of different value.

With retouching, printing plates which are in one piece and in printing cylinders, it is impossible to change the damaged cliché. If a fault appears, the printers aim to correct it through retouching. With the help of a scorper, they re-engrave the blocked spots in order to try to remove the damaged areas. Even the smallest intervention of this nature changes, to some extent, the design of that particular stamp. In 1920, Czechoslovakia issued a set of definitives in two designs: the first was a dove carrying a letter in her beak and the second was an allegorical figure of a woman breaking her chains. The fifty heller stamp with the image of the chain-breaker was printed in red up to 1923, but from January 1922 to the end of 1925, it was also printed in green and the same printing plates as were used for the red stamps were used for the green. The thirty-ninth stamp in every sheet had a typical plate error - a white spot dubbed by philatelists as 'The Egg in the Waist'. This error can be found on both coloured stamps.

Double impressions occur if a worker handling a printing press mistakenly puts a sheet through the press twice; each stamp shows two impressions quite distinctly. This error is seldom seen as faulty sheets are usually discovered by checkers and then eliminated and destroyed.

Inverted printing. When stamps are printed in two or more colours, another printing error sometimes occurs: the worker, when putting a sheet of stamps into the press for a second time to print another colour, turns it by 180 degrees, and the second colour becomes inverted. In 1918, the first air-mail stamps of the United States were printed. The highest value of the set, twenty-four cents, had a deep carmine frame and a blue centre. One sheet of this stamp was printed with an inverted centre so that the aeroplane was flying upside down. Only one hundred copies of this error exist and they are highly prized by philatelists.

Mistakes on Stamps

Although a damaged stamp loses much of its value unless it is extremely rare, a stamp with a mistake in its design or printing usually gains, depending on how many were printed with the mistake. Some philatelists specialise in collecting stamps with mistakes, though apart from some common ones, they are expensive to acquire.

The 10pf green German stamp commemorating the death of the composer, Schumann, has music by Schubert in the background and the one and a half penny red of Fiji has a sailing canoe that should have a helmsman, but he is obviously absent. A 50cent red of North Borneo has the spelling of 'Jessleton' that should be spelt 'Jesselton'. Sarawak issued an orange 10cent stamp with an image of a scaly anteater walking on two legs, whereas in reality this animal can only walk on four legs. The 1d blue Guernsey, Bailiwick stamp has the line of latitude marked at 40.30degrees North which runs just north of Madrid, Spain. The accurate latitude should be 49.30 degrees North.

Stamps are carefully checked during printing and any that are found to have errors are meant to be destroyed. Some printer's errors, however, manage to make it to the public arena. Older printing machines could only print one colour at a time, which meant that the paper had to be taken out and fed through the machine several times during the course of printing. In a 4f green and red French stamp, the paper was put in the wrong way round for the centre picture to be printed and so it is 'inverted' or upside down. In 1d red British South Africa stamps, some were overprinted upside down. The bars should have blotted out the original value at the top of the stamps and the words 'Half Penny' in the overprint are obviously inverted. Even on modern, multicoloured stamps, it is possible for colours to be missed out completely if the ink supply fails. The New Zealand Centenary of Railways 1863 - 1963 is an example. The train should be red and the circle containing the face value is also meant to be red but, as the ink supply failed, both these areas remain white. New Zealand provides another example with the 3d blue + 1d for Red Cross Charity Stamp is meant to have a red flag. Some stamps escaped the watchful eye of the printer and emerged with the red missing and so the white flag is evident.

Perforation errors are also evident in some stamps. The 4d blue and white Postage Due stamp of Zambia is an example of where the perforators 'missed the mark' and perforated through one of the stamps. This is quite a rare error and can, therefore, make the stamp more valuable. When sheets of stamps are trimmed to go in booklets, perforations sometimes get cut off. This is fairly common and is unlikely to increase the value of the stamps significantly.

Postage Stamps and the Cold War

Stamps were the principal weapon in a cold war between Britain, Argentina and Chile which lasted more than thirty years. It was sparked off in 1933 when the Falkland Islands celebrated their centenary as a British colony with a lengthy set of stamps which included one three penny stamp showing a map of the islands.

Argentina, which had laid claims to the islands, retaliated by issuing a one peso stamp in 1936, which showed a map of South America, with Argentinian territory (including the Falkland Islands) shaded. At first, this stamp also showed the boundaries of the other South American countries. This was superseded by one omitting the boundaries because of the sensitivity of certain countries, particularly Bolivia and Paraguay, to the delineation of their frontiers.

The battle switched to the Antarctic in 1944 when Britain arranged to separate issues of stamps to be made in Graham Land, South Georgia, South Orkneys and South Shetland, followed by a joint issue for the Falkland Islands Dependencies in 1946 showing a map of the Polar Regions with British Territory delineated.

Again Argentina retaliated by issuing various stamps depicting maps of Argentina and her Antarctic possessions. The first of these appeared in 1947 and commemorated the forty-third anniversary of the first Argentinian Antarctic mail. Even the pre-war one peso stamp was redesigned to show the Antarctic territory, and in 1954, a stamp honoured the 'Orcadas del Sur' as the Argentinians called the South Orkneys.

Although territorial claims in the Antarctic were suspended under the terms of the Antarctic Treaty of 1961, both sides continued to snipe at each other philatelically. Many of the stamps of South Georgia, British Antarctic Territory, the Falkland Islands and its dependencies have featured maps stating unequivocally British sovereignty. Equally, Argentina has continued to depict its Antarctic Territory on postage stamps and, in 1964, issued a set of three stamps featuring maps of the Antarctic and 'Islas Malvinas' (the Falkland Islands) with Argentinian flags superimposed.

Chile's claim to a slice of Antarctica, overlapping with those of Britain and Argentina, was registered by stamps issued between 1947 and 1958.

Although the Cold War was definitely regarded as a major concern between USSR and USA following World War II, there was a significant cold war billowing on the philatelic front between Britain, Argentina and Chile.

'Specimen' and 'Cancelled' Stamps

One of the obligations of countries which are members of the Universal Postal Union is to inform all other members about new stamp issues. For this purpose, samples of new stamps are sent to the other postal administrations, free of charge. Some postal administrations overprinted these sample stamps with the word specimen to make their use for the franking of mail impossible. Texts and markings vary according to the country.

Stamps with the overprint 'specimen' were also presented to important personalities and institutions, which is how some of these varieties reached philatelists. Although they are not really postage stamps, since they cannot be used for franking, specialists are very much interested in them.

In France and other countries, it is customary for officials, including the Minister, to receive free of charge, imperforate copies of newly issued stamps. Much criticism has been voiced against this tradition, but in vain. Such imperforate copies are obviously interesting items and high prices are paid for them. Of a similar character are the so-called ministerial miniature sheets. These are newly issued stamps, imperforate, not printed in normal size sheets but in the form of miniature sheets. These ministerial miniature sheets are also presented to ministers and other celebrities. They have no franking value, but specialists are nevertheless on the look-out for them.

It happens that new stamps are issued at a time when large supplies of the valid stamps are still available. In some countries, the very earliest stamps issued are still valid. Elsewhere, old stamps have been declared invalid for postage. There are serious reasons for such steps including a change of regime, incorporation of the country by some other nation or currency reform.

What happens to the remaining stamps? This problem is solved in several ways. In some places, sales of stamps continue at special counters to philatelists until the supply is exhausted. In other countries, the remainders are burned under official supervision or taken to a paper mill. It has happened that, for some reason - for instance during a war - there has been a stamp shortage. In such cases, old supplies of stamps have been brought out and used again, usually with an appropriate overprint.

Another way to make stamps invalid was for the stamps withdrawn from circulation to be overprinted with the word cancelled or with an overprint of black lines, or something similar, across the design which made them useless for postage. Philatelic specialists remain interested in this type of stamp as well.

Stamp Clubs

The first philatelic club was founded in 1856 in the United States of America, and its name was The Omnibus Club. In 1866, The Excelsior Stamp-Association was founded in St John's, Canada. Towards the end of the 1860s, the Suddeutscher Philatelisten-Verein was founded in Heidelberg. Most of these old philatelist organizations did not exist for long and were eventually superseded by other associations.

The oldest and most famous philatelic organization in the world has its headquarters in London. The Philatelic Society, London was founded in April, 1869. In 1906, King Edward VII gave permission for the society to use the prefix 'Royal'. In 1896, HRH Duke of York (later King George V) became President of the Royal Philatelic Society, London, an office which he continued until his accession to the throne in 1910, when he was pleased to announce that he would act as its patron. This royal patronage has continued, and today the society is honoured by the patronage of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

It was the philatelic societies who organized contacts between stamp collectors and provided them with the necessary conditions for their hobby. First of all, meetings of members were held. There they could buy, sell or exchange stamps. The first approval booklets appeared and the societies undertook their circulation. In many cases, societies sponsored the publication of stamp magazines and assisted in the publication of stamp albums and catalogues. Later, stamp exhibitions were held and the societies appointed experts to assist their members. Philatelic clubs and organizations became a permanent institution.

The place of philatelic clubs which were dissolved or gave up their activities for various reasons was taken by new ones, and today there is hardly a city in the civilized world where some organization of stamp collectors does not exist. The need for closer contacts, the exchange of stamps and also the exchange of knowledge and experience brought philatelists closer together and led eventually to the formation of larger bodies and national federations. In some countries, these federations have a membership of hundreds of thousands. One of the great tasks of philatelic clubs and societies is the education of the next generation of stamp collectors.

Long ago, proposals were put forward to establish a world wide organization of philatelists. These suggestions materialized in 1926 when a conference of representatives of national philatelic societies was held and The International Federation of Philately (FIP) was founded. At present, FIP counts among its members over forty national philatelic societies from countries in Europe, America, Asia and Africa. The headquarters of FIP are in Geneva. FIP looks after international contacts between philatelic organizations of different countries, co-ordinates international philatelic activities, for instance, international stamp exhibitions, organizes an international fight against stamp forgers and propagates philately. Furthermore, FIP is doing its best to facilitate the international exchange of stamps, ensure philatelic documentation and take an interest in the education of young philatelists.

Stamps of French West Africa

Separate issues of stamps in the French colonies of Dahomey, French Guinea, French Sudan, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal and Upper Volta were superseded in 1944 by stamps inscribed 'Afrique Occidentale Francais'. Hitherto stamps with this inscription or the abbreviation AOF had been used in these territories, but distinctive designs and the names of the colonies had been featured. A series for the Free French was followed in 1947 by a series depicting the scenery and peoples of the various regions. The 30c stamp shows a girl by the submersible bridge over the Bamako River in French Sudan. The stamps of French West Africa were gradually phased out in 1958 - 1959 as the component territories became independent and resumed separate issues of stamps.

Dahomey issued its own stamps from 1899 to 1944 while under French colonial administration. The colonial key plates of 1899 - 1900 were superseded by the West Africa omnibus designs in 1906 - 1907 and these, in turn, gave way to a distinctive series showing a native climbing a palm tree.

Guinea became an independent republic in October 1958 but did not begin issuing its own stamps until the following year. A set of four stamps and two miniature sheets were issued in October 1964 to mark the New York World's Fair. The stamps depicted the Guinea pavilion while the miniature sheets showed the Unisphere with the Guinea pavilion in the background. The stamps were reissued the following year in new colours with the date '1965' incorporated in the design. Since independence, Guinea has changed its definitive series at frequent intervals, using various themes. The series of 1971 illustrates various fish in denominations from 5 to 200f.

The independent Islamic republic of Mauritania began issuing its own stamps in 1960. The stamps reflect a catholicity of taste and interest, ranging from Soviet space achievements to Old Master paintings. The stamp portraying Martin Luther King was one of a pair of November 1968 dedicated to 'Apostles of Peace'. The other stamps portrayed Mahatma Gandhi. Since independence, Mauritania has issued numerous short thematic sets. A series from June 1965 was devoted to tourism and archaeology.

The colony of Upper Volta had a relatively brief existence between 1920 and 1933. In 1928, the colony issued stamps depicting three designs of a Hausa warrior, a Hausa woman and a Hausa horseman. Upper Volta was reconstituted as an independent nation in December 1958 and introduced a distinctive definitive series in April 1960. This series illustrated various animals and native masks. Each denomination from 50c to 85f featured a different type of mask from each region of the country.

Stamps of Southern Arabia

British interest in Arabia began in 1939, when the rock of Aden was captured by an expedition of the Honourable East India Company to suppress the pirates tyrannizing over the Indian Ocean. Similar expeditions stamped out piracy in the Persian Gulf and led to the creation of the Trucial States. The postal services in this British sphere of influence were, for many years, in the hands of the Indian authorities and ordinary Indian stamps were used, distinguished only by their postmarks. Kuwait (1923), Bahrain (1933) and Muscat (1944) began using Indian stamps suitably overprinted, while Aden (1937), in view of its status as a British crown colony, introduced stamps in distinctive designs. From then onward the usual pattern of former colonies and protectorates moving towards complete independence has been faithfully recorded in the stamps of the area.

De La Rue recess printed a set of twelve stamps in the uniform design featuring an Arab dhow, flanked by Arab knives and Islamic decorative motifs. The series had a relatively short life since it was felt that the king's portrait ought to be included and consequently the 'Dhows' were withdrawn after twenty months.

Waterlow and Sons used a slightly larger format for the series of 1939 incorporating the royal portrait. Six different designs were used, ranging from views of Mukalla and Aden Harbour, to a dhow and a patrolman of the Camel Corps. Three values, 3 and 14a and 10r depicted the capture of Aden by troops of the Honourable East India Company in 1839. The series was reissued in 1951, surcharged in the decimal currency of 100cents to the East African shilling.

In June 1953, the first definitive series featuring Queen Elizabeth II was issued. The colours were deepened in shade in 1955 and the vignettes of the higher values were changed from the original sepia to black. A gauge of perforations was introduced in 1956 and finally, the watermark was changed in 1965 - 1965. All of these changes added up to one of the most complex sets released in decades.

The move toward self-government was foreshadowed in the revised constitution granted in 1959. To mark the occasion, two stamps of the definitive series were overprinted, the 15c being entirely in Arabic and the 1.25s in English. The stamps of Aden were withdrawn on 31 March 1965, and were superseded by the issues of the Federation of South Arabia.

The Federation of South Arabia consisted of the former Aden colony, most of the colonies of the former Western Aden Protectorate and one sheikdom from the former Eastern Aden Protectorate. The federation continued to use ordinary Adenese stamps for the first two years and, in that period, the only distinctive stamps of the federation were the two stamps issued in November to mark the centenary of the Red Cross. The federation used the British colonial omnibus design, but modified it to omit the portrait of Queen Elizabeth. Subsequent colonial omnibus issues of the federation had the entwined crescent and star emblem substituted for the royal portrait.

The Colour of a Stamp

Stamps are printed in numbers running into millions and even hundreds of millions. It is impossible to print such large numbers in one run. Even nowadays, with the most modern technology and techniques, the printers do not always succeed in mixing exactly the same colour when they start a new run of printing. From time to time, it becomes necessary to clean the machines or the supply of ink runs out and a new supply has to be used, coming, perhaps, from another factory. If such problems have to be dealt with today, it is difficult to imagine how great the difficulties were in the classical stamp period when printing techniques were much more primitive.

This is how the different colour shades, which are of great interest to philatelic specialists, are produced. Often, for a new printing, new plates were used or the old plate was repaired. This is the origin of different types, as stamps are called which differ, as a result of reprinting, from the original issue.

Philatelists use a colour guide as an accessory to help them with the most difficult colour problems. Some of the common colour guides list about 160 squares with colour shades. In many cases, there is a hole in the centre of a colour to enable the philatelist to put the stamp in question underneath and to compare colours with printed squares. The name of the colour is printed underneath the square, usually in several languages, using the names of colours found in the most significant world catalogues.

Philatelists will often be at a loss as they may not be able to find the exact shade of their stamp in the colour guide. In such a case, they have to use their own judgement and decide which colour is nearest to the shade of their stamp. One can distinguish about 200 clear colour tones, but when colours are mixed, the number of shades can exceed 15000. Obviously, it is impossible to publish a colour guide listing such a vast number, or to produce in print all the finest shades or even to give them a name.

There are three basic shades: yellow, red and blue. If equal quantities of two of these colours are mixed, the results are green, orange and violet. Shades are obtained according to the proportion of the individual colour components. If all the basic colours are mixed, the result is black.

For the stamp collector, it is of importance to understand the system of listing colours in a catalogue. Whenever a combined name for a colour is given, the last named colour always predominates. For instance, yellowish-green means green with yellow added. On the other hand, greenish-yellow means yellow with green added. In the first case, green is predominant whereas in the second case, it is yellow.

Even the most comprehensive catalogues cannot go into all the details of colours. Therefore everything will depend on the collector: his experience, and most of all on the comparative material he has for making the right decisions on colours and shades concerned. This is frequently of great importance; there are many cheap and common stamps which have some colour shades that are rare and very expensive.

Thematic Collections of Stamps

Thematic collections are actually the youngest form of philately, based on a wealth of stamps with different motifs, issued all over the world. The first thematic collections were formed prior to the Second World War, but the great development within this field occurred after the war.

Thematic philately is still developing. It is clear that it differs from other philately in one basic point. Whereas for the philatelist forming a catalogue collection, the design and motif of the stamp is of inferior importance, for the thematic collector it is the most important element. The classical collector, particularly the specialist, is interested in the technical details of the stamp, in its perforation, paper and details of design. On the other hand, the thematic collector concentrates on the image on the stamp. He is interested in the meaning and so acquires knowledge in a variety of fields; he pursues variants of the factual and artistic expression of certain motifs and notes objective connections. He considers how he can apply the pictures to the basic theme and how he can illustrate the theme with the help of philatelic material. All through this work, the theme and its elaboration and the use and application of philatelic material are of equal importance.

One level of thematic collecting is subject collections and is distinguished by either the picture on the stamp - ships, flowers, prehistoric animals - or the purpose of the issue - Red Cross, Olympic Games, World Refugee Year. These collections are simply prepared without any libretto or guide line and without any detailed explanatory text. Usually whole sets of stamps are included. The simplest way or organizing such a collection is to arrange the individual stamps and sets with similar images according to the country of issue in alphabetical order, and within each country in chronological order based upon the catalogue and date of issue. A more ambitious way would be to organize the motifs on the basis of a specific key (flowers could be categorized according to botanical species).

A more demanding level in this style of philately is represented by thematic collections where a libretto is prepared, the collection provided with explanatory texts, and the stamp sets split up and distributed according to the requirements of the libretto. To form a good thematic collection, the philatelist must acquire a great deal of knowledge in the field of the selected theme. The collection as a whole must show the amount of creative work invested in the preparation and study of the theme as well as in the styling of the texts and the entire arrangement of the collection. Profound philatelic knowledge is an absolute requirement.

Every really good thematic collection represents a genuine, original achievement.

The Wide World of Stamps

It is necessary to identify the main attributes a stamp must have to be considered a postage stamp. A postage stamp must be issued by a postal administration of a State, or by the postal authorities of a part of this State, or by other authorities who are entitled to do so. A postage stamp must be issued officially and must prepay the cost of conveying an item of mail from the place of posting to the addressee in any part of the world by the regular services of any of the world's post offices.

Postage stamps do not have to be issued for the whole territory of a State (viz. the cantonal stamps of Switzerland, the stamps of the Canadian provinces), and do not have to be valid for the whole territory of a State (for example, the Czechoslovak 'service' stamps issued after 1945 which were valid only on the territory of Slovakia).

The issuing office must have postal sovereignty over the territory and also the means to transport mail. Therefore, stamps issued by governments in exile cannot be considered to be postage stamps. Although the overwhelming majority of postage stamps bear the name of the issuing State or country, this is not absolutely necessary. British stamps, for instance, have no text giving the name of the country; they just feature the portrait of the King or the Queen. After all, Great Britain was the first country to issue stamps and it is certainly entitled to this privilege.

Postage stamps usually have a text giving the franking value, but this is not absolutely necessary. Take for example the Austrian newspaper stamps with the head of Mercury of 1851. There are no value figures on the stamps; this was denoted by colour.

In addition to officially issued postage stamps there are other stamps worth attention. In various places during different periods, postal services were established which supplemented and enlarged the postal network of the State. For these purposes and the executive authorities, for instance the regional or local authorities or private companies and persons charged to supply these postal services, issued their own stamps. Although in these cases, there is no actual State postal service, such stamps are interesting for collectors. It is important to decide whether such issues are postage stamps, whether their issue really did serve a need, whether it was necessary and whether they were really used as payment for the delivery of mail. If these conditions are met, then such issues achieve the character of stamps and become items of philatelic interest.

Such semi-official and private issues can be found used on their own or on mail or in combination with official stamps in places where such a local or private postal service was connected to the official network of postal services. Such mixed frankings are of great interest and very much sought after in the philatelic world.

Who are the Stamp Experts?

Every large organization of philatelists has its expert committee whose members are amateur or professional philatelists with great knowledge who systematically study the stamps and philatelic material of their sphere of interest or speciality. If someone aspires to become a philatelic expert, he has first to prove his abilities and qualifications. This is usually done by publishing specialized studies dealing with certain stamp issues, lectures and practical work. Even so, a future expert is at first usually accepted only as a candidate; and only after a specific period of time, during which he has to prove his qualification, is he accorded the title of an expert.

The field of philately has become so wide that it is impossible for anyone to be a specialist and expert in everything so each expert has his own special, and sometimes very limited, field. There are experts for the whole field of classical philately, experts for British stamps, experts for German or Italian States, experts in aero-philately and experts in areas specific to thematic collections. The best experts and specialists of a certain country are usually to be found in that particular country. They mainly collect their own country's stamps; these are available in sufficient numbers and most is known about their background, production, printing and use.

Expert committees need not be large bodies, and not all fields of philately are represented on them. That is why a close co-operation has been established between the expert committees of the individual national philatelic societies. Out of the lists of experts registered, the judges for large international stamp exhibitions are chosen.

Members of the expert committees have the right and obligation to examine stamps. When an expert finds that the stamp he is scrutinising is genuine, he may apply his signature (handstamp) to the back of the stamp. This is the practice on the Continent. In England, the examination is made by expert committees of the Royal Philatelic Society of London or the British Philatelic Association. If a stamp is genuine, a photograph is taken and a certificate issued with photograph and number. Another photograph is kept in the records of the committee for further reference.

When expert signatures are printed on the back of a stamp, their position, according to international rules, is of great significance. If an expert finds that a stamp is a forgery, it is his duty to mark it as such. Everybody handing in stamps for scrutiny must expect that, if they are forgeries, they will be marked to make it impossible to sell them as genuine.

The signature of internationally recognised experts in certain fields of philately is well known among specialists. Do not accept any signature on the back as proof of genuineness. It has been found that stamp forgers not only forged stamps and overprints but experts signatures as well. Every philatelist has the ability to acquire deep, specialized knowledge in his field of collecting which will bring him near the level of philatelic expert. There is only one way to achieve this - devoted study of specialized literature, following up everything published in that particular field, study of historical sources and, most importantly, a serious study of the stamps in question.

Postage stamps and postal history of Argentina

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Argentine postage stamps were first issued in 1862 by the National Postal Service, a federal entity that dates from 1854, following the establishment of the Republic in lieu of the former, failed Confederacy. A number of provinces and territories, particularly in the then-remote far north and far south, continued to issue their own postage brands and stamps for some time, afterwards; some of these issues have since become collectors' items.

The Classical Period: 1856-1892

Early provincial stamps

The first period in the political history of Argentine postage stamps is the so-called Classical one between the first stamps (1856) and the first commemorative ones (1892). The earliest Argentine stamps were issued by the separate provinces of Corrientes (1856-80), Cordoba (1859-62), and Buenos Aires (1858-59). The mere existence of these provincial stamps reflects the reality that Argentina was hardly a single organized country in that period, but rather a loose federation of some very independent provinces.

Corrientes Philately

Corrientes, a province in north-east Argentina, issued postage stamps from 1856 to 1878. The stamps were printed by typography and were crude copies of the first issue of stamps from France, which depicted the profile head of Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture. See this side by side comparison. They were individually engraved by hand, so that each die is noticeably different, and were printed in small sheets. All stamps were printed on brightly colored paper. The first stamp, issued in 1856, bore the denomination of one real in the lower panel. In 1860, the denomination was marked out by pen and the stamp was revalued at 3 centavos. Beginning in 1860, the value panel was erased and six more stamps were issued in two, three and (briefly) five centavos denominations, distinguished only by the color of the paper used. As locally produced "primitives", the early Corrientes stamps have long been prized by collectors. After 1880, stamps of Argentina were used.

Louis Stich, an expert on the Corrientes stamps, has explained the origin of the issue as follows: In 1856 there was an extreme shortage in paper or coins under 8 Reales. At the same time, the Corrientes Assembly authorized stamps for pre-paid postal use. The State Printing Bureau decided to print stamps to serve both for postal use and for small change. The director of the State Printing Bureau, Paul Emile Coni, supposedly could not locate anyone capable of cutting the stamp dies. At that time, a baker�s delivery boy, Matias Pipet, who had served as an apprentice to an engraver in Italy before arriving in Corrientes, said he could undertake the task. Coni, for reasons unknown, selected the French Ceres stamp as the design and the boy prepared the designs. The dies produced were "so extremely crude" that Coni was afraid to use them, but he eventually decided that he had no choice as the need for the stamps was urgent. Stich observed that "with each re-telling" of this story, "more fiction seems to replace the original facts."

The first argentine stamp

The first stamp of Argentina as a nation was a rather crude lithographed seal of the Confederation (Scott #1 to 4) in 1858, followed in 1862 by the seal of the Argentine Republic (Scott #5 to 7). From 1864 to the first commemorative in 1892 a total of 24 different designs were issued. The majority of these stamp designs were small portraits of famous men, principally of the Independence period. The stamps do not identify these heroes of independence, so they would have meant little to anyone who was not familiar with Argentine history. Bushnell has analyzed the proceres appearing on these stamps, and concludes that they were primarily of the liberal current in Argentine political history, reflecting the principal trend after the fall of the dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas in 1852. The dominant figure was one of the major figures of Argentine liberalism, Bernardino Rivadavia (Scott #61).

The Popper locals

One locally used postage stamp from this period bears mentioning because it shows Argentina's lack of national consolidation in the nineteenth century, especially in the distant reaches of the territory: the Tierra del Fuego local stamps. These were issued by a Rumanian mining engineer named Julius Popper, who in 1891 prepared his own postage stamps to cover the cost of postage from the scattered mining camps of Tierra del Fuego to the closest points of the Argentine or Chilean postal system in Sandy Point (Punta Arenas), on the Strait of Magellan, or Ushuaia on the Beagle Channel. The Popper locals were not recognized by the central government in Argentina or Chile, which required that their own stamps be added once letters from the Popper mining camps entered their postal system. The stamp itself is well-designed, with mining tools, the Tierra del Fuego label, and a partially hidden letter P for Julius Popper.

Argentina stamps since 1900

Portraying historical political and military figures like José de San Martín, Guillermo Brown and (during the early 1950s) deceased First Lady Eva Perón, Argentine postage issues remained little changed in their conservative, generally Art Nouveau aspect for much of the twentieth century.

Between October 1935 and the mid 1950s Argentina produced stamps known as the "Patriots and Natural resources issue". The low values illustrate major Argentinian patriots, such as former President Bernardino Rivadavia and the high value denominations show a selection of the country's natural resources that were the major contributors to the Argentine economy during the period. The series was printed on several papers; watermarked paper have the letters RA-for 'Republica Argentina' inside a circle, with rays surrounding the circle, while the unwatermarked papers vary in color and thickness.

In 1946, President Juan Perón nationalized the British-owned postal and telegraph services (many of their quintessentially British red mail drop boxes can still be seen in Buenos Aires, today). His Ministry of Public Services created what would later become EnCoTel (the "National Postal and Telegraph Entity") and, until its dissolution in 1997, this authority issued all Argentine postage stamps.

Argentine postage has, since the original facility's 1881 opening, been printed at the National Mint. One of the largest in the world, it also prints stamps and currency for a number of smaller Latin American nations, such as Bolivia, as well as other financial instruments.

Return to democracy

The conclusion of Argentina's last military regime in 1983 brought with it, among other things, a radical departure in the design of both currency and stamps. Argentine stamps have since been much more varied in style and theme, depicting zoological and phytological diagrams, art of various movements, photographic scenes of daily life and more unconventional subject matter.

A number of stamps were issued to celebrate the return to democracy after the military government with the inaugural of President Raúl Alfonsín (in office from 10 December 1983 to 9 July 1989). Culturally close to Argentina, Uruguay issued a stamp commemorating Alfonsín's state visit to that neighboring nation in November 1986.

Ceres Stamp Series (France)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Ceres series was the first postage stamp series of France, issued in 1849 as a representation of the French Republic.

Stamps of France

Second Republic, 1849/1851

The two first postal stamps issued in France were of the Ceres series. They were printed with the effigy of Ceres, goddess of growing plants in Roman mythology. She wore a garland of wheat and a bunch of grapes in her hair. The design, which avoided any specifically republican or Revolutionary connotations, was drawn by Jacques-Jean Barre, general engraver at the Paris Mint, under the supervision of Anatole Hulot, a civil servant who obtained the right to print the stamps at the Mint until 1876.

The issue on the first January 1849 marked the application of a postal reform similar to the one in the United Kingdom of May 1840: to simplify the nationwide postal rates between Metropolitan France, Corsica and French Algeria and to encourage the payment by the sender through the use of postage stamps.

In January 1849, the two first denominations were a 20 centimes black stamp and a 1 franc red. As the postal reform was extended to other rates (local, rural and newspapers), new denominations were issued.

As early as 1849, the first of these stamps that earned philatelic interests afterwards existed. Because the black cancellations can be masked and the 20 centimes black stamp easily reused, the issue of the 40 centimes blue in January was aborted and switched to orange. While the 20 centimes blue was first printed in Spring 1849, it never replaced its black counterpart because of a change of rates in July 1850. In December 1849, part of the much paler red of the 1 franc stamps were recalled by the postal administration because their tint was too close to the 40 centimes orange to be issued in February 1850. The lighter stamps were named "vermilion" by philatelists. Two half-stamps of each tint were stuck on the official order to retrieve the vermilion.

After the coup in December 1851, Prince-President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte decided to have his effigy on French stamps. The first denominations were issued progressively from September 1852 and throughout the Second Empire.

A poor imitation of the French stamps was used by the Corrientes Province local post in Argentina between 1856 and 1880.

Franco-Prussian War, 1870-1871

During the Franco-Prussian War, after Republicans abolished the Empire of Napoleon III on 4 September 1870, they faced the siege of Paris by the German armies and the lack of postage stamps from the former rule. Houlot had to print new Ceres stamps until the insurrection of the Paris Commune, in Spring 1871. The printer told afterwards he hid the Ceres series material and was forced by the insurgents to print Napoleon III stamps.

At the same time, in Bordeaux, where the provisional government fled, the printing of Ceres stamps was authorized from the 5 November 1870 to the 4 March 1871 to supply the post offices of non-occupied France. The stamps were printed in lithography (instead of typography) by Augue-Delile. Because of this choice, stamps differ repetitively from one another.

Third Republic

After the war, the Ceres head was kept until 1875, again printed only in Paris by Anatole Hulot. He had to use old material to create new denominations (like the low values created in Bordeaux) because Jacques-Jean's son, broke his association with Hulot in 1866.

In July 1875, the postal administration gave the printing of its postage stamps to the Banque de France to reduce the high cost and delays it accused Hulot. The stamp design was changed too: a competition launched in August 1875 was won by Jules-Auguste Sage with its Commerce and Peace uniting and reigning over the world allegory. The new stamps were issued in 1876.

1937-1941

For the philatelic exhibition of Paris in 1937, PEXIP, a minisheet of four bicolored Ceres stamps was issued.

The next year, in 1938, began a new Ceres series with high values (1.75 to 3 francs), alongside the Sower series and the Peace series. The head was kept into a new decorum. All these definitives retired in 1941 and replaced by Philippe Petain's effigies, the Iris and Mercury series.

Liberation, 1945-1947

In 1945, a redesign effigy of Ceres by Charles Mazelin was among the numerous definitive series to be issue in liberated France.

Since 1949, on commemorative stamps

The Jacques-Jean Barre's Ceres effigy had appeared again on stamps commemorating the philatelic and postal history of France:

* 1948: Stamp's Day stamp on stamp with effigy of Etienne Arago, director of posts in 1849;

* 1949: a vertical stripe of two Ceres stamps and two Mariannes by Gandon (the definitive series of the time) for the centenary of the first French postage stamp;

* 1949: inside a large white minisheet, was printed in intaglio a vermilion 10 franc Ceres stamp for the CIPEX exhibition in Paris;

* 1999: for the 150th anniversary, a booklet of five black Ceres and one red Ceres stamps on stamps;

* 1999: at the occasion of Philexfrance '99 in Paris, a stamp on stamp with the 20 centimes black and a holographic Ceres head.

The logo of the philatelic service of La Poste used the Ceres head.

In the French colonies

From 1849 to 1924, French Algeria used the same postage stamps and postal rates as in Metropolitan France. The Ceres series from France could be found cancelled in the French colony.

In 1850 and 1851 a little number of colonies used the Second Republic Ceres stamps.

From 1871 to 1877, imperforated Ceres stamps were sent to the colonies to replaced imperforated Napoléon III stamps. They served until the issue of imperforated Sage stamps in 1876. One mean to recognize the colonial Ceres stamps was the cancellation with a three letter code for each colony.

Ceres Stamp series (Portugal)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Ceres series of Portuguese postage stamps is a definitive series depicting the Roman goddess Ceres that was issued between 1912 and 1945 in Portugal and its colonies.

History and description

The Ceres stamps were the first issued after the proclamation of the Portuguese Republic, superseding stamps figuring king Manuel II that had been overprinted with the word "República" 1910-1911.

Drawn by Constantino de Sobral Fernandes and engraved by José Sérgio de Carvalho e Silva, the design represents the goddess Ceres, standing and looking forward, holding a billhook in one hand and a sheaf of grain in the other. The inscriptions are "REPUBLICA PORTUGUESA" and "CORREIO" (for Portuguese Republic and Post). It was printed in typography by the Portuguese mint, Casa da Moeda.

The series were issued between February 16, 1912 and 1931. During their period of issue, they went through several changes:

1918-1919 - overprint with new denominations
1929 - overprint "Revalidado"
1930 - re-engraving by Arnoldo Fragoso

The 1926 series was printed in lithography, engraved by Eufénio Carlo Alberto Merondi and printed by the British firm De La Rue. The author's names are not printed on this series.

The Ceres stamps were declared obsolete September 30, 1945, having been superseded in 1943 by the Caravel series of definitives.

In the colonies

Ceres stamps were issued in the Portuguese colonies as well, in a key plate design with the denominations and name of the colony printed in black.

However, in the Azores and Madeira Islands, the Ceres stamps in use were Portuguese ones overprinted with the archipelago's name. In 1928, Madeira received intaglio printed stamps with typographic denominations; they were made by Perkins Bacon in London.

Stamp catalog

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A stamp catalog (or stamp catalogue) is a catalog of postage stamp types. Although basically just a list of descriptions and prices, in practice the catalog is an essential tool of philately and stamp collecting. Stamp catalogs are part of philatelic literature.

History

The first stamp catalog was published in France by Oscar Berger-Levrault on 17 September 1861 and the first illustrated catalog by Alfred Potiquet in December 1861 (based on the earlier work).

The first catalogs in Great Britain were published in 1862 by Frederick Booty, Mount Brown, and Dr. John Edward Gray. The first in the United States was The Stamp Collector's Manual by A.C. Kline (a pseudonym for John William Kline), also 1862.

Catalogs today

Originally catalogs were just dealers' price lists, and in some cases, that is still one of their functions. Over time, as philately developed, catalogs tended to accumulate additional supporting details about the stamps, such as dates of issue, color variations, and so forth. As their use by collectors became widespread, the catalogs came to define what was and was not a legitimate stamp, since many collectors would avoid stamps not described in their catalog. In recent year, the Internet has become a common resource for stamps information. Some catalogs have an on-line version while others are available only on-line.

The following printed catalogs have a worldwide coverage:

Michel
Minkus
Stanley Gibbons
Scott
Yvert et Tellier

These are large undertakings, since there are thousands of new stamps to describe each year, and the prices of all stamps may go up or down. (In the case of publisher that are not dealers, the prices are estimated by collection of data from dealers and auctions.)

In addition, the catalog publishers usually put out specialized volumes with additional details, generally by nationality; Michel has a specialized German catalog, Scott a specialized US, and so forth.

Many countries have their own "national catalogs", typically put out by a leading publisher or dealer in that country. Postal administrations may themselves put out catalogs, although they tend to be aimed at less-experienced collectors, and rarely supply fully-detailed stamp data. Notable country catalogs include:

Anfils (Spain)
Brusden-White (Australia)
Facit (all countries of Scandinavia)
Fischer (Poland)
ISC catalog (Brunei, Malaysia & Singapore)
Ma (China)
Sakura (Japan)
Sassone (Italy)
Yang (Hongkong)
Yvert et Tellier (France)
Zumstein (Switzerland)

Building on this idea, many specialized catalogs have been published, for instance to list and value different kind of postmarks used in a particular country during a single era.

It is worth noting that older catalogs are widely used by collectors for several reasons:

Older catalogs may contain information not found in current catalogs
Stamps issued in recent years (1950-2005) have less variations than older stamps. Older catalogs cover the older issues.
Many collectors use a catalog for stamp identification instead of valuation. Therefore, outdated prices are less important.

Michel catalog

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Michel catalog (MICHEL-Briefmarken-Katalog) is the largest and best-known stamp catalog in the German-speaking world. First published in 1910, it has become an important reference work for philately, with information not available in the English-language Scott catalog.

The catalog started out as a price list for the dealer Hugo Michel of Apolda. By 1920 it was split into two volumes, for "Europe" and "overseas", and eventually grew to a present-day size of about a dozen volumes covering the entire world, with additional specialized volumes bringing the total to some forty catalogs. It extensively covers specialized Germany collecting including the complex WW2 era stamps of Germany, occupied territories, and provisional stamps.

Unlike Scott, Michel does not issue a complete set of catalogs every year, instead updating only several of the volumes. Michel is also more detailed, with quantities issued, sheet formats, and so forth. Also of significance to some collectors is its coverage of countries and periods omitted by Scott for editorial or political reasons. For instance, US embargoes against Cuba, Iraq and North Korea, are reflected by Scott's failure to show market values for those countries' stamp issues (as late as 2002, Scott did not supply any information at all about North Korean stamps), and Michel is one of few sources for that information.

Michel also documents stamps issued apparently with little or no intent of being used to pay postage and stamps issued by regions or areas with dubious political status. Scott excludes many issues that were unlikely to be actually used to pay postage.

Stanley Gibbons

Stamp catalogues

The first Stanley Gibbons stamp catalogue was a penny price list issued in November 1865 and issued at monthly intervals for the next 14 years. The company produces numerous catalogues which are largely defined by country, region or specialism, many of which are reissued annually. The catalogues lists all known adhesive postage stamp issues and include prices for used and unused stamps.

Prices

Unlike other catalogues, Stanley Gibbons state that their catalogue still represents a normal retail stamp dealers price list. In other words, if they had that exact stamp in stock in the exact condition specified, the current catalogue price is the price that they would sell it for. Of course, many items are unavailable or out of stock. Gibbons also impose a minimum charge for the supply of any stamp of £1, regardless of the value given in the catalogue and this represents a charge for service.

This contrasts with most other catalogues which are produced by firms that do not sell stamps and therefore attempt to give a price based on an average of market values in the country where the catalogue is published.

Catalogue range

The range includes the following catalogues:

Stamps of the World. (A simplified catalogue on which all the others are based.)
Commonwealth & Empire Stamps. (A specialised catalogue up to, currently, 1970. Known as Part 1.)
Individual specialised catalogues for Commonwealth countries. (e.g. Canada, Australia. The same content as Part 1 but up to date.)
Individual specialised catalogues for Foreign (non-Commonwealth) countries. (e.g. France, United States, parts 2 to 22.)
Collect British Stamps and versions for the Channel Islands and Isle of Man. (Simple colour catalogues.)
The Great Britain Concise catalogue. (Intermediate level of detail.)
The Great Britain Specialised catalogues (multi-volume). (Highly specialised for the expert.)

All are based on the same numbering system drawn from Stamps of the World, apart from the British Specialised catalogues which have their own numbering system.

Scott catalogue

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Scott catalogue of postage stamps, published by Scott Publishing Co, a subsidiary of Amos Press, is updated annually and lists all the stamps of the entire world which its editors recognize as issued for postal purposes. It is published in six large volumes (as of 2008) and is also produced in non-printable CD and DVD editions. The numbering system used by Scott to identify stamps is dominant among stamp collectors in the United States and Canada.

The first Scott catalogue was a 21-page pamphlet with the title Descriptive Catalogue of American and Foreign Postage Stamps, Issued from 1840 to Date, Splendidly Illustrated with Colored Engravings and Containing the Current Value of each Variety. It was published in September 1868 by John Walter Scott, an early stamp dealer in New York, and purported to list all the stamps of the world, with prices for each. A notice inside does caution the reader that "it is simply impossible for any one to always have every stamp" in stock. The original catalog has been reprinted.

In subsequent years, the Scott company gave up dealing in stamps but continued to publish the catalog, gradually providing more detail as the hobby evolved and collectors became more sophisticated. In addition to the factual information about the stamps, the catalog includes price information based on market analysis and reported sales from the previous year. As of 2006, and despite annual changes to save space, the catalog was more than 5,000 pages.

The Scott numbering system assigns plain numbers for regular mail stamps, and uses capital letter prefixes for special-purpose types, such as "B" for semi-postals and "C" for airmail. The numbers are generally consecutive; there are gaps among older stamps, where some numbered types were later renumbered, and among newer stamps where Scott has left numbers unassigned in the anticipation of additional stamps in a series. If more stamps than expected appear, Scott will add a capital letter as suffix, or if the change is very recent, it will renumber stamps. Minor variations, such as shades or errors, get a lowercase letter; so the "C3a" above indicates a variation (error in this case) on the third US airmail stamp.

Because of its commercial importance the publishers of the Scott Catalogue claim copyright on their numbering systems, and grant only limited licences for their use by others. The inconsistency with which Scott enforced these licences resulted in a lawsuit by Krause Publications (publishers of the Minkus Catalogue) for copyright infringement. After Krause filed a defence the suit was settled out of court, and Krause continued to reference the Scott numbers. It has been speculated that Scott was not successful. Attempts by philatelists to establish an alternative have not yet been successful.

Editors of this, the dominant catalog in the US, have great influence over what is and is not considered to be a valid postage stamp. For instance, in the 1960s the countries of the United Arab Emirates issued many stamps that were likely never actually on sale in a post office, so Scott does not list them. One must go to a Michel catalog, for instance, to see them described. The lack of a Scott listing, though, means that most American dealers will refuse to trade in such stamps.

Similarly, Scott does not list most stamps from countries embargoed by the US government, or in some cases lists them but with no prices. To some extent, this is unavoidable, since the ban on importation means that Scott's editors are unable even to acquire copies of the stamps to be described. Moreover, since US dealers and collectors are unable to buy the stamps legally, they are unlikely to have any need of the data. (Again, interested persons typically use Michel or other catalogs instead.) The policy changes with government policy; stamps of Libya and North Vietnam recently reappeared in Scott after an absence of some years.

The dominance of Scott is such that US collectors know many of the numbers by heart, and dealers need only mention the number in their price lists. For instance, United States no. "C3a" is instantly recognized as the Inverted Jenny, a rare US airmail inverted error stamp.

The contents of each volume (in current editions) are as follows :

Volume 1: United States and Countries A-B
Volume 2: Countries C-F
Volume 3: Countries G-I
Volume 4: Countries J-O
Volume 5: Countries P-Si
Volume 6: Countries So-Z

Scott Specialized Catalogue of United States Stamps and Covers

Scott Publishing Co also produces a related volume which more comprehensively lists all United States Postage Stamps and Postal History. It is generally known as the "Scott Specialized" and is regarded by many as the definitive single volume reference to USA postage stamps. The catalogue provides more detail than Volume One, with particular emphasis on varieties and errors. A new edition of the catalogue is produced annually with a particular edition year date generally indicating production in the middle of the previous year. Biannual Valuing Supplements are also issued in the Spring and Fall.

Scott Classic Specialized Catalogue: Stamps and Covers of the World

Scott Classic Specialized Catalogue: Stamps and Covers of the World is limited to stamps and covers that were produced between 1840-1940 or for the British Common Wealth nations to 1952. It covers all postage stamp producing nations in one volume for those years.

Products

Yvert et Tellier's major product is a stamp catalog which is a reference for stamps and countries that are most collected by French philatelists: France, Andorra, Monaco, and the former French colonies and their philatelic history as independent states. In France, it is one of the most important philatelic publishing companies, along with Cérès and Dallay.

Continuing the old association between Louis Yvert and Théodore Champion, the Ancienne Maison Théodore Champion edits monthly and yearly a colour catalog of newly issued stamps from all over the world. Usually, Yvert catalogs for non-European countries were printed in black and white, but in 2008 they started with full color prints.

It is one of the international references as well, with Michel, Scott and Stanley Gibbons. The Yvert catalogs list stamps issued by all countries in the world, but for non-European countries, the volumes are organized in alphabetic order whereas the German company Michel uses a geographical classification.

History

Genesis and management successions

During the 1890s in Amiens, the Yvert family's printing works is the property of Louis Yvert, grandson of the founder, and his chief printer Théodule Tellier; Tellier kept the company running after the premature death of Louis' father. Louis did not like being in charge of the legimist paper founded by his father, L'Écho de la Somme. He discovered stamp collecting thanks to Tellier, a philatelist, who had already added a small philatelic newspaper, L'Écho de la timbrologie, to the papers printed by the company.

In 1895, Yvert and Tellier started getting involved in philatelic books. In November 1896 they published a worldwide catalog of stamps and a stamp album. The success was immediate because of their logical and permanent numbering, in contrast to most of their contemporaries, who changed the numbers in their catalogues upon discovering forgotten stamps.

In 1900, Yvert et Tellier associated with Paris stamp dealer Théodore Champion, who sold unused stamps from all over the world. He fixed the prices of the stamps sold by the company. After Champion's death in 1955, Pierre Yvert and the brothers Ladislas and Alexandre Varga bought Champion's company and the new firm continued to fix Yvert et Tellier's prices.

In April 1913, Tellier sold his share of the company to Louis Yvert because of the loss of his young grandson. Due to their friendship, Yvert decided that the catalog would continue to be named Yvert et Tellier.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Yvert prepared his two sons and his son-in-law to run the firm. Henri ran the printing works, his brother Pierre directed L'Écho de la timbrologie, and Jean Gervais took care of the publishing.

Pierre Yvert's and Jean Gervais' two grandsons have run the company since the 1990s.

Recent commercial history

Since 2001 the apparition of the Dallay catalog has had a major effect on the French philatelist public by providing larger pictures of stamps and information not found in the Yvert et Tellier catalogs, such as the name of the artiste and/or engraver, first date of issue, use, etc. Yvert has been fighting on two fronts: it has successfully defended the rights to its numbering system, and it distributes a free CD-ROM with its French stamp catalog.

Nevertheless, in March 2005, by urging of the French Conseil de la concurrence, Yvert agreed to sell the use of the Yvert stamp numbers to other publishers.

In June 2006 Yvert et Tellier published a new catalog of French stamps, a cheaper pocketbook version containing just pictures and prices, as did Cérès, the second main philatelic publishing company in France.

Philatelic literature

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Philatelic literature is written material relating to philately, primarily information about postage stamps and postal history.

Background to philatelic literature

Consider a letter found pressed between the pages of an old book, sent from a relative working in a remote part of the world. How did the letter get from there to here? Was there a company mail boat that carried it, or was there a remote town with its own post office? Was the sender in an independent country, or a colony too small to issue its own stamps? Why did the recipient's country accept the expense of carrying the letter the rest of the way, and if it didn't, how did it arrange to get paid for delivering the letter? Come to think of it, how did the letter cross the border? Philatelic and postal history research answer these sorts of questions, and the results are then published in a variety of books and journals.

Main types of philatelic literature

Philatelic literature is generally divided into the following categories:

Stamp catalogues

Single country catalogues
Worldwide catalogues
Geographic area catalogues (e.g. Africa)
Time period catalogues (e.g. Reign of King George V)
Specialized catalogues (e.g. postmarks, plate blocks, perfins, etc)

Periodicals

Journals
Society newsletters

Auction catalogues
Books
Bibliographies of philatelic literature
Background material - Non philatelic material useful to stamp collectors. For example, currency exchange rates, maps, newspapers etc.

The stamp catalogue

Perhaps the most basic sort of literature is the stamp catalogue. This is basically a list of types of postage stamps along with their market values.

The first stamp catalogue was published in France by Oscar Berger-Levrault on 17 September 1861 and the first illustrated catalogue by Alfred Potiquet in December 1861 (based on the earlier work).

The first catalogues in Great Britain were published in 1862 by Frederick Booty, Mount Brown, and Dr. John Edward Gray. The first in the United States was The Stamp Collector's Manual by A.C. Kline (a pseudonym for John William Kline), also 1862.

Some catalogues, like the Michel catalogue and various one-country catalogues, offer a great deal of information going beyond the basic properties of each stamp type.

The single country book

Another common sort of book is the comprehensive "Stamps and Postal History" of a single country. These go beyond the basic date, denomination, and market price seen in the catalogues, explaining why particular stamps were issued, where and how they used, and more generally how the country's postal system worked in various periods.

The specialised study

The next level of specialization is remarkable both for the level of minutiae and the number of works that have been published. Specialists write monographs summarizing everything that is known about a single type of stamp - the history of its design, the printing process, when and where the stamp was sold to the public, and all the ways it was used on mail. If the stamps is particularly rare (the Inverted Jenny or the missionary stamps of Hawaii), the book may actually include a census of every single copy known to exist. As might be expected, the audience is small, and the print runs of these books are small too. Classic works out of print may be much-sought-after, sometimes even more than the stamps they are describing!

Other kinds of specialized work include comprehensive studies of postal usage in limited areas and times, perhaps mail in Montana Territory before it became a state, or mail from missionaries in Uganda before it became a British colony.

The philatelic journal

In addition to books, there are a great number of philatelic journals. The first stamp magazine was the Monthly Intelligencer from Brimingham, England, followed shortly by many others. The journals and newsletters of clubs and societies also have an important role in philatelic literature. Many journals only run for a few numbers and then cease but they often contain information found nowhere else and therefore are valuable sources for philatelists.

Some popular philatelic periodicals are:

The American Philatelist - worldwide topics with a focus on USA
Canadian Stamp News - worldwide topics with a focus on Canada
Deutsche Briefmarken Zeitung (Germany)
Gibbons Stamp Monthly (UK) - worldwide topics with a focus on Great Britain and British Commonwealth
Linn's Stamp News (USA) - worldwide topics with a focus on USA

Philatelic bibliography

The scale and complexity of philatelic literature is such that it has its own journal, the Philatelic Literature Review, published quarterly by the American Philatelic Research Library.

There are also a number of libraries devoted solely to philatelic literature. (see link below)

Postage stamp

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A postage stamp is adhesive paper evidence of a fee paid for postal services. Usually a small rectangle attached to an envelope, the stamp signifies the person sending it has fully or partly paid for delivery. Postage stamps are the most popular way of paying for retail mail; alternatives include prepaid-postage envelopes and postage meters. The study of postage stamps is philately. Stamp collecting is the hobby of collecting stamps.

History

Although James Chalmers and Lovrenc Košir lay claim to the concept of the postage stamp, postage stamps were first introduced in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in May 1, 1840 as part of postal reforms promoted by Rowland Hill. With its introduction the postage fee was to be paid by the sender and not the recipient, though sending mail prepaid was not a requirement. The first stamp, the Penny Black, put on sale on 1 May, was valid from 6 May, 1840; two days later came the Two pence blue. Both show an engraving of the young Queen Victoria and were a success though refinements like perforations were instituted later. At the time, there was no reason to include the United Kingdom's name on the stamp, and the UK remains the only country not to identify itself by name on the stamps (the monarch's head is used as identification).

Stamps were not officially perforated until January 1854, except in the parliamentary session of 1851, when stamps perforated by Mr. Archer were issued at the House of Commons. In 1853, the Government paid Mr. Archer £4,000 for the patent.

Other countries followed with their own stamps: the Canton of Zürich in Switzerland issued the Zurich 4 and 6 rappen on 1 March, 1843. Although the Penny Black could send a letter less than half an ounce anywhere within the UK, the Swiss continued to calculate mail rates on distance. Brazil issued the Bull's Eye stamps on 1 August, 1843. Using the same printer as for the Penny Black, Brazil opted for an abstract design instead of a portrait of Emperor Pedro II so that his image would be not be disfigured by the postmark. In 1845 some postmasters in the U.S. issued their own stamps, but the first official stamps came in 1847, with 5 and 10 cent stamps depicting Benjamin Franklin and George Washington. A few other countries issued stamps in the late 1840s. Many more, such as India, started in the 1850s and by the 1860s most countries had stamps.

Following the introduction of the stamp in the UK the number of letters increased from 82 million in 1839 to 170 million in 1841. Today 21 billion items are delivered by post every year in the UK.

Postage stamp design

Stamps have been issued in shapes besides rectangle, including circular, triangular and pentagonal. Sierra Leone and Tonga issued stamps in the shapes of fruit; Bhutan issued one with its national anthem on a playable record. Stamps have been made of embossed foil (sometimes of gold); Switzerland made a stamp partly of lace and one of wood; the United States produced one of plastic, and the German Democratic Republic issued a stamp of synthetic chemicals. In the Netherlands a stamp was made of silver foil. On paper, stamps have been produced by a variety of printing techniques such as lithography, line engraving, photogravure, intaglio and web offset printing.

First day covers

On the first day of issue a set of stamps can be purchased attached to an envelope with a commemorative postmark. Known as a First Day Cover, it can also be assembled from the component parts by stamp collectors, who are the most frequent users. These envelopes usually bear a commemorative cachet of the subject for which the stamp was created.

Souvenir or miniature sheets

Postage stamps are sometimes issued in souvenir sheets or miniature sheets containing one or a small number of stamps. Souvenir sheets typically include additional artwork or information printed on the selvage, the border surrounding the stamps. Sometimes the stamps make up a greater picture. Some countries, and some issues, are produced as individual stamps as well as sheets.

Collecting

Stamp collecting is a popular hobby. Collecting is not the same as philately, which is the study of stamps. A philatelist often does, but need not, collect the objects of study, nor is it necessary to closely study what one collects. Many casual collectors enjoy accumulating stamps without worrying about the tiny details. The creation of a large or comprehensive collection, however, may require some philatelic knowledge.

Stamp collectors are an important source of revenue for some small countries who create limited runs of elaborate stamps designed mainly to be bought by stamp collectors. The stamps produced by these countries far exceed the postal needs of the countries.

The hundreds of countries, each producing scores of different stamps each year, resulted in 400,000 types of stamp by 2000. Annual world output averages about 10,000 types.

Philatelic abuse

Some countries produce stamps intended primarily for collectors rather than for postal use.This contributes to the countries' revenues. This practice is condoned by collectors for places such as Liechtenstein and Pitcairn Islands that have conservative stamp policies. Abuses, however, are generally condemned. Among the most notable abusers have been Nicholas F. Seebeck and the component states of the United Arab Emirates. Seebeck operated in the 1890s as agent of Hamilton Bank Note Company and approached Latin American countries with an offer to produce their entire postage stamp needs free. In return he would have exclusive rights to market stamps to collectors. Each year a new issue was produced but it expired at the end of the year; this assured Seebeck of a continuing supply of remainders. In the 1960s printers such as the Barody Stamp Company contracted to produce stamps for the separate Emirates and other countries. These abuses combined with the sparse population of the desert states earned them the reputation of "sand dune" countries.

Some collectors have taken to philatelic investment. Rare stamps are among the most portable of tangible investments, and are easy to store.

Sheet of stamps

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A sheet of stamps or press sheet is a unit of stamps as printed, usually on large sheets of paper based on the size of the printing plate, that are separated into panes that are sold at post offices. Where more than one pane is on a printed sheet they are arranged in a table-like arrangement. The spaces between the single stamps are all of the same size and provide space for a cut or perforation.

Size and format

Today, a sheet of stamps is the most common way of arranging stamps on the impressed paper. The number of stamps on a sheet and the format of the sheet depend on the size and format of the individual stamps. Small stamps are usually printed on sheets of a hundred stamps, although the Penny Black, as with other pre-decimal sterling currency stamps, were printed in sheets of 240; larger stamps are printed on sheets of fifty, twenty-five or twenty, as is done by the USPS.

On November 13, 1994, the Deutsche Post changed the format of its emissions to sheets of ten stamps each, due to reasons of efficiency. The edges of these sheets are specially designed, making them a novel field of collecting.

Printing sheet

In fact, the term printing sheet refers only to a part of the actual printing sheet. This is because stamps are mostly printed in four connected sheets, to make best use of the stamp paper. At the post office counter, only the four separated printing sheets are sold. Therefore the sheet of stamps is also called a counter sheet or pane, though improperly called a sheet of stamps.

Gutters

The empty fields connecting the single counter sheets are called gutters. Normally they are separated in the middle after printing in order to obtain four counter sheets. The half empty fields or gutters then form the edge of the sheet. However from many issues, unseparated gutters with connected stamps of the neighbouring sheets come on the market (stamp - empty field - stamp). These gutters may be either empty or printed, if printed edges were intended.

The philatelist makes a distinction between horizontal and vertical gutters. A specific characteristic of the gutters is the heart of the printing sheet, where all four panes are connected. Gutters and hearts are very popular with collectors and reach high catalog prices, especially for classic issues.

Tête-bêche

Single counter sheets do not always have to be separated by empty fields. Issues which were not intended to have edges were naturally manufactured without empty fields. To be able to distinguish between the single sheets better, the stamps were printed rotated 180° to each other along the separation line. Philatelists describe the two stamps which are upside down in relationship to each other as tête-bêche. Some issues have tête-bêches as well as gutters.

Like gutters, tête-bêches are very popular with collectors due to their rarity.

Stamp arrangement and location

The stamps are arranged on the sheet in a table with rows and columns. Due to this arrangement, the location of each stamp can be precisely determined. The philatelist counts the single stamps horizontally from left to right, but the post counts them vertically from top to bottom. Accordingly, the third stamp in the sixth row of a sheet of 10 x 10 would be the 53rd stamp of the sheet for the collector, but the 26th stamp for the post.

The first postage stamps of the UK, the Penny Black, were printed in sheets of 20 rows and 12 columns, but the location on the sheet was indicated by different letters in the bottom corners of each stamp. An "A" in the lower left corner indicated the first row, a "B" the second one, the "C" the third one, etc. The columns were indicated according to the same scheme in the lower right corner. Thus the top left stamp had the letter combination "A" - "A", the bottom right stamp had "T" - "L". As a result, 240 different stamps were made for each plate used. This was intended to prevent forgery.

Sheet edge

The term "sheet edge" refers to the empty fields connected to the stamps and arranged around the sheet. These fields are often unprinted. However in many cases, quite a bit of interesting information can be found on them, e.g. printing dates or the like. The most important inscriptions printed on the edges of the sheet are:

number of the edition
sheet inscription (advertisements, information about the stamp issue, etc.)
printing dates
internal numbers
registration marks
plate numbers
banding
counter of the row value

Tête-bêche

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In philately, tête-bêche (French for "head-to-tail", lit. "head-to-head") is a joined pair of stamps in which one is upside-down in relation to the other, produced intentionally or accidentally. Like any pair of stamps, a pair of tête-bêches can be a vertical or a horizontal pair. In the case of a pair of triangular stamps, they cannot help but be linked "head-to-tail".Mechanical errors during the process of production can result in tête-bêches, but in most cases tête-bêches are produced for the purpose of collecting.

During the printing of stamps for booklets, the pages of stamps are usually printed in

multiples from a larger printing plate. This can result in tête-bêche pairs. It is unusual

for these pairs to find their way into the postal system, as they are cut into individual

booklet pages before binding into the distributed booklet. A block of 24 5d Machin

stamps, which should have been guillotined into four booklet pages, includes four

tête-bêche pairs. This was sold in 1970, in the normal course of business, by the

British Post Office and is exhibited by a member of the Royal Mail Stamp Advisory

Committee.

Coil stamp

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A coil stamp is a type of postage stamp sold in strips one stamp wide. The name derives from the usual handling of long strips, which is to coil them into rolls, in a manner reminiscent of adhesive tape rolls. A large percentage of modern stamps are sold in coil form, since they are more amenable to mechanized handling in large quantities than either sheet stamps or booklet stamps.

Coil stamps first appeared at the beginning of the 20th century. In the United States for instance, vending machines companies began to experiment with the automated dispensing of stamps. Early efforts to break sheets into strips manually did not work well, since they were prone to tearing and jamming, and soon the companies began to request imperforate sheets from the post office, cutting those into strips and punching holes of various shapes between each stamp. A variety of these "private coils" is known, some quite rare. The first US government-produced coils appeared in 1908, produced by pasting together enough imperforate sheets to make rolls of 500 or 1,000 stamps, cutting them into strips and perforating between. In the UK, coil stamps first appered in 1907, to supply newly installed stamp vending machines. As these were cut from complete sheets, they are perforated on all four sides. As each stamp was worth either a half or one old penny and 240 pence made up one pound sterling, the coils were in rolls of 960 or 480 each.

Later a rotary press was adopted, which eliminated the pasting stage. The cylindrical plate used on a rotary press has a seam where ink tends to accumulate, resulting in joint line pairs.

The perforations of coil stamps are usually found along the right and left sides ("vertical perf"), but they have also been produced with perforations along the top and bottom ("horizontal perf").

A recent innovation enabled by self-adhesive technology is the linerless coil stamp. While most self-adhesive stamps have backing paper, linerless coils are like a roll of adhesive tape. Such rolls tend to be enormous, with thousands of stamps, and tend to be used only by large mailing operations.

While in most countries coil production is restricted to the workaday stamps used in large quantities, Sweden has produced coil versions of most of their stamps since 1920.

Postage stamp booklet

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A postage stamp booklet is a set of one or more small panes of postage stamps, usually totalling about 10–20 stamps, folded over and placed in a cardboard cover. Smaller and easier to handle than a whole sheet of stamps, in many countries booklets have become a favored way to purchase stamps.

Booklets of telegraph stamps are known to have been issued by the California State Telegraph Company in 1870, and by Western Union in 1871, and on 14 October 1884 an A.W. Cooke of Boston received Patent 306,674 from the United States Patent Office for the idea of putting postage stamps into booklets.

However, Luxembourg was the first country to issue booklets, in 1895, followed by Sweden in 1898. The idea became popular, and spread worldwide shortly in the first part of the 20th century.

Originally booklets were produced manually, by separating sheets into smaller panes and binding those. These are not distinguishable from the sheet stamps. Later, the popularity of booklets meant that it was worthwhile to produce booklet panes directly; printing onto large sheets, then cutting into booklet panes each with a small number of stamps, and perforating between the stamps of each pane. These kinds of stamps usually have 1, 2, or 3 straight edges, although some booklet panes have been printed 3 stamps across, and the middle stamps will have perforations all around.

Some countries, such as Sweden, routinely issue a single stamp design in coils, booklets, and sheets. The complete stamp collection will contain examples of each of these. Some collectors specialize in collecting the booklets themselves, or whole panes from a booklet; these often sell at a premium over the equivalent number of stamps. The oldest types of booklets were not much noticed at the time, nearly all used for postage, and intact booklets are quite rare today.

Postage stamp separation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For postage stamps, separation is the means by which individual stamps are made easily detachable from each other.

Methods of separation include:

perforation - cutting rows and columns of small holes
rouletting - small horizontal and vertical cuts
diecutting - cut paper to shape using a metal die - used for self-adhesive stamps.

Early years

In the early years, from 1840 to the 1850s, all stamps were imperforate, and had to be cut from the sheet with scissors or knife. This was time-consuming and error-prone (as mangled stamps of the era attest). Once reliable separation equipment became available, nations switched rapidly. Imperforate stamps have been issued occasionally since then, either because separation equipment was temporarily unavailable (in newborn nations for instance), or to makers of automatic stamp vending equipment (the United States did this in the 1900s and 1910s), as novelties for stamp collectors (particularly when stamps are issued in souvenir sheets), or as errors.

In 1848, Henry Archer patented a "stroke process" for the perforation of stamps, and in 1854 a "rotary process" was patented by William Bemrose and Henry Howe Bemrose. The common aspect of the two processes was the use of rows of small round pins ("combs") to punch out the holes. The processes have been refined since then, but are basically still the ones in use in the 21st century. The key decision for the perforator is the spacing of the holes; if too far apart, the stamps will not separate easily, and the stamps are likely to tear, but if too close, the stamps will tend to come apart in normal handling.

In a few cases the size of the holes has been a factor. In the case of certain stamps produced by Australia for sale in rolls rather than sheets (coil stamps) a pattern can be seen on the stamp's short side of two small, ten large and two small holes.

The standard for describing perforation is the number of holes (or the "teeth" or perfs of an individual stamp) in a 2-centimeter span. The finest gauge ever used is 18 on stamps of the Malay States in the early 1950s, and the coarsest is 2, seen on the 1891 stamps of Bhopal. Modern stamp perforations tend to range from perf 11 to 13 or so.

Stamps that are perforated on one pair of opposite sides and imperforate on the other have most often been produced in coils instead of sheets, but they can sometimes come from booklet panes. Booklet panes can be associated with any combination of one, two or three imperforate sides. Sheet edges can produce any one imperforate side or two adjacent imperforate sides when the stamp comes from the corner of the sheet.

Variations include syncopated perforations which are uneven, either skipping a hole or by making some holes larger. In the 1990s, Great Britain began adding large elliptical holes to the perforations on each side, as an anti-counterfeiting measure.

Rouletting uses small cuts in the paper instead of holes. It was used by a number of countries, but is rarely if ever seen on modern stamps. Varieties, often described by philatelists in French terms, include straight cuts (percée en lignes, and percée en lignes colorées with inked cutting bar), arc (percée en arc), sawtooth and the serpentine roulettes (percée en pointe) used by the early stamps of Finland.

A few types of stamps have combined rouletting and perforation, for instance South Africa in 1942.

Late 20th Century

The first self-adhesive stamp was issued by Sierra Leone in 1964, and by the 1990s these stamps came into wide use. These are inevitably diecut, meaning that the stamps themselves are cut entirely apart, held together only by the backing paper. At first the backing paper was itself solid, but in a repeat of history, is now slightly rouletted so as to facilitate tearing off blocks of stamps without having to remove them from the backing. Since the diecut goes all the way through the stamp, any shape will work, and the original self-adhesives were straight-edged. However, the tradition of perforation is so strong that more recent self-adhesives have a wavy diecut simulating the perforation. It can be recognized by studying the edge of the stamp closely; true perforations will have torn paper fibers on each tooth, while simulated perforations are smooth.

For the stamp collector, perforations matter, not only as a way to distinguish different stamps (a perf 10 may be rarer and more valuable than a perf 11 of the same design), but also as part of the condition of stamps. Short or "nibbed" perfs are undesirable and reduce value, as are bent or creased perfs. Although the collector could count the number of holes using a ruler, the usual practice is to use a perforation gauge, which has preprinted patterns of holes in a selection of common perforations, requiring one merely to line up the stamp's perforations with the closest match.

As is inevitable for a mechanical process like perforation, many things can go wrong. Blind perfs are common, occurring when a hole is not completely punched out, as are offcenter perfs that cut into the design of the stamp, sometimes very badly. Occasionally pairs or larger groups of stamps may be imperforate between meaning that they are not separated on all sides. Although it is very common to have different gauges of perforation horizontally and vertically, in rare circumstances a stamp may have different perforations on opposite sides; in the case of US stamps only a handful of these are known to exist. The various types of perforation errors are collectively known as misperfs.

Revenue stamp

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A revenue stamp, tax stamp or fiscal stamp is a type of adhesive label used to collect taxes or fees on various items. Many countries of the world have used them, for documents (often called stamp duty), tobacco products, liquor, drugs, playing cards, hunting licenses and other kinds of things.

While revenue stamps often resemble postage stamps, they were not normally intended for use on mail and therefore did not receive a postal cancellation. (Some countries did issue stamps valid for both postage and revenue, but this practice is rare now). Revenue stamps can display cancellation markings, three types being by manuscript signature of the person canceling the stamp (usually with date), by hand stamp identifying the canceling agent (also usually with date), or by punch; otherwise, they may be simply affixed to a product in such a way so as to be invalidated or destroyed upon its unpackaging.

Description

Revenue stamps are securities, usually printed by the finance ministry of the relevant country. In many countries, they are as detailed in their design as banknotes; they are often made from the same type of paper as banknotes and many contain holograms and other anti-counterfeit devices. The reason for these measures is that excise duty is extremely expensive, in most EU countries accounting for around half the market price of the product.

History

The use of revenue stamps goes back further than that of postage stamps; the stamps of the Stamp Act of the 18th century were revenues. Their use became widespread in the 19th century, partly inspired by the success of the postage stamp, and partly motivated by the desire to streamline government operations, the presence of a revenue stamp being an indication that the item in question had already paid the necessary fees. Revenue stamps have become less commonly seen in the 21st century, with the rise of computerization and the ability to use numbers to track payments accurately.

There are a great many kinds of revenue stamps in the world, and it is likely that some are still uncataloged. Both national and subnational entities have issued them. While some use a single design for all forms of fee payment, others have introduced distinct designs usable for only a single type of item. In certain periods government have combined the uses of postage and revenue stamps, calling them "postal fiscals" or inscribing them "Postage and Revenue".

By Category

Court Fees

One of the earliest uses of adhesive stamps to pay tax was the Court Fee system, set up in the Indian feudal states as early as 1797, almost 50 years before the first postal stamps.

Although India is only one of several countries that have used tax stamps on legal documents, it was one of the most prolific users. The practice is almost entirely stopped now, partly due to the prevalence of forgeries which cost the issuing government revenue.

Tobacco and Alcohol

In many countries, excise duty is applied by the affixation of excise stamps to the products being sold. In the case of tobacco and alcohol, the producer buys a certain quantity of such stamps from the government and is then obliged to affix one to every packet of cigarettes or bottle of spirits produced.

The excise stamp is usually placed on the box/bottle in such a way as to be both easily visible and easily destroyed upon the unpackaging of the product.

Gambling

Gambling was for a time subject to stamp duty, whereby a revenue stamp had to be placed on the ace of spades - which eventually led to the elaborate designs that evolved on this card in most packs. Stamp duty was applied to playing cards, ostensibly because cards were defined as being a type of document (as it was originally only documents which were subject to stamp duty), however this could also be seen as a type of excise duty on gambling, since it was not only cards that were taxed by the Stamp Act of 1765, but also dice.

Philatelic fakes and forgeries

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In general, philatelic fakes and forgeries refers to labels that look like postage stamps but are not. Most have been produced to deceive or defraud. Learning to identify these can be a challenging branch of philately.

To a large extent the definitions below are consistent with those given in the introduction to various recent editions of the Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue. "We use the term "forgery" to indicate stamps produced to defraud collectors (properly known as forgeries) and to defraud stamp-issuing governments (properly known as counterfeits). "Fake" is used to indicate the alteration of a genuine stamp to make it appear as something else. Fakes might refer to cancels, overprints, added or clipped perforations, stamp design alterations, etc." Although some philatelists stick to precise definitions of these terms, one should not assume that this is the case with every writer.

Questions are often raised about when a stamp is legitimately produced for postage. The following quotation may be helpful:

“

Stamps are legitimate if they are recognized internationally in practice, even if they are not recognized expressly, as by a treaty or international agreement. This is the same principle of international law that applies to the recognition of nation-states. A nation becomes a nation-state when the international community begins treating it as such. For Karabagh which is not a member of the UPU but which does get its mail delivered, this demonstrate that the stamps it issues are neither propaganda labels nor part of a money-making scam. ^[

”

History of philatelic fakes and forgeries

The first postage stamp was issued in Great Britain in 1840, and twenty years later, the first postage stamp forgery -- in the sense of a stamp created to fool philatelists into thinking that it is a genuine one -- appeared on the market. Jean de Sperati is among the master forgers in the history of philately. The Vancouver Island forgery refers to a stamp that was originally issued in 1865. To produce his forgery, de Sperati bleached a real, cheaper stamp of the same vintage. He then used a process called photolithography to make an almost perfect copy of the stamp. In his lifetime, Jean de Sperati forged over 500 stamps. He sometimes signed his work in pencil on the back. His forged stamps are now often worth more than the originals.

Classification

Stamp-like objects, not all of which are really fakes and forgeries, are described below for the sake of developing a better understanding of such claims.

Postal forgeries or counterfeits

Those who produce counterfeits appeal to a very different market than philatelists. They depend on their stamps being produced in large quantities in order to be able to recover their investment. The person who would use them must feel that he can purchase them for a price that is significantly lower than what he would pay at a legitimate post office. This makes the most common current stamp used for everyday mailing a prime target for counterfeiting activity.

The earliest forgeries are all postal, and the Penny Black was the first stamp to be copied already in its first year in 1840.Partial forgery consists of changing colors or changing the numericals of stamps to imitate a higher value stamp. Other tricks consisted of methods to make the marker disappear (chemically erasing, placing a second stamp on it if it just hits a corner. The Spanish Post Office had to change its stamps almost annually between 1850 to 1879 to stay ahead of the forgers.

Notable postal forgeries include:

France: 20c (1870), 15c (1886), sower 25c (1923)
Germany: 10pf (1902), 10pf (1910)
Great Britain: 1s (1872), 4d World Cup Winners (1966)
Australia: 2d Sydney Harbour Bridge (1932)
USA: 13c Liberty Bell (1980)

As a curiosity postal authorities have published their own forgeries, thus the British Post Office forged its own 1d stamps in 1856 to see if its features were fraud-proof.

Protective measures

Postal services developed early on measures to protect the integrity of their stamps. Some of these steps are similar as used to protects against forged currency. Major steps include:

Watermarks
Special paper
Delicate engraving
Printing methods
Special ink for post marks
Insertion of silk threads
Secret marks either visible or invisible to the microscope
Re-issue of stamps

It may not be possible to distinguish between a philatelic and postal forgery if the stamps are unused merely by looking at them; the techniques utilized in producing them are identical. However, if the stamps bear cancellations, they may be more readily distinguished. If a stamp has a forged cancellation, it necessarily is a philatelic forgery since it was obviously made for sale to collectors, not to be used to send a letter. If the cancellation is genuine, it is likely a postal forgery, but not necessarily, since sometimes forgers have used genuine cancellation devices to "cancel" forged stamps. A helpful distinction may be to have one of these stamps on an envelope that actually went through the mail, but that too requires caution. Counterfeits that reach the philatelic community are fairly scarce, and that alone makes them more valuable. There is more than enough incentive for an unscrupulous individual to fake a counterfeit us