Lundy is an English island in the Bristol Channel. It forms part of the district of Torridge in the county of Devon.
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage, who then affix the stamp to the face or address-side of any item of mail—an envelope or other postal cover —that they wish to send. The item is then processed by the postal system, where a postmark or cancellation mark—in modern usage indicating date and point of origin of mailing—is applied to the stamp and its left and right sides to prevent its reuse. The item is then delivered to its addressee.
Stamp collecting is the collecting of postage stamps and related objects. It is an area of philately, which is the study or study and collection of stamps. It has been one of the world's most popular hobbies since the late nineteenth century with the rapid growth of the postal service, as a never-ending stream of new stamps was produced by countries that sought to advertise their distinctiveness through their stamps.
A cancellation is a postal marking applied on a postage stamp or postal stationery to deface the stamp and to prevent its reuse. Cancellations come in a huge variety of designs, shapes, sizes, and colors. Modern cancellations commonly include the date and post office location where the stamps were mailed, in addition to lines or bars designed to cover the stamp itself. The term "postal marking" sometimes is used to refer specifically to the part that contains the date and posting location, but the term is often used interchangeably with "cancellation." The portion of a cancellation that is designed to deface the stamp and does not contain writing is also called the "obliteration" or killer. Some stamps are issued pre-cancelled with a printed or stamped cancellation and do not need to have a cancellation added. Cancellations can affect the value of stamps to collectors, positively or negatively. Cancellations of some countries have been extensively studied by philatelists, and many stamp collectors and postal history collectors collect cancellations in addition to the stamps themselves.
The postal and philatelic history of Canada concerns postage of the territories which have formed Canada. Before Canadian confederation, the colonies of British Columbia and Vancouver Island, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland issued stamps in their own names. The postal history falls into four major periods: French control (1604–1763), British control (1763–1841), colonial government control (1841–1867), and Canada, since 1867.
In philately, a cinderella stamp is "virtually anything resembling a postage stamp, but not issued for postal purposes by a government postal administration". There is a wide variety of cinderella stamps, such as those printed for promotional use by businesses, churches, political or non-profit groups. The term excludes imprinted stamps on postal stationery.
A revenue stamp, tax stamp, duty stamp or fiscal stamp is a (usually) adhesive label used to collect taxes or fees on documents, tobacco, alcoholic drinks, drugs and medicines, playing cards, hunting licenses, firearm registration, and many other things. Typically, businesses purchase the stamps from the government, and attach them to taxed items as part of putting the items on sale, or in the case of documents, as part of filling out the form.
Martin Coles Harman was an English businessman who, in 1925, bought the island of Lundy and proclaimed himself King.
The postage stamps of Ireland are issued by the postal operator of the independent Irish state. Ireland was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland when the world's first postage stamps were issued in 1840. These stamps, and all subsequent British issues, were used in Ireland until the new Irish Government assumed power in 1922. Beginning on 17 February 1922, existing British stamps were overprinted with Irish text to provide some definitives until separate Irish issues became available. Following the overprints, a regular series of definitive stamps was produced by the new Department of Posts and Telegraphs, using domestic designs. These definitives were issued on 6 December 1922; the first was a 2d stamp, depicting a map of Ireland. Since then new images, and additional values as needed, have produced nine definitive series of different designs.
The Hawaiian Missionaries are the first postage stamps of the Kingdom of Hawaii, issued in 1851. They came to be known as the "Missionaries" because they were primarily found on the correspondence of missionaries working in the Hawaiian Islands. Only a handful of these stamps have survived to the present day, and so they are amongst the great rarities of philately.
A Presentation Pack typically contains a full set of a new stamp issue, produced for philatelists and stamp collectors. It normally comprises a folded card containing detailed notes about the stamps, a card with clear strips for holding the actual stamps, all held within a clear sleeve. The packs are usually sold at a price a little above the stamps' face value.
L.N. and M. Williams were a philatelic writing partnership made up of brothers Leon Norman Williams and Maurice Williams (1905–1976).
In general, philatelic fakes and forgeries are labels that look like postage stamps but have been produced to deceive or defraud. Learning to identify these can be a challenging branch of philately.
The postage stamps and postal history of Israel is a survey of the postage stamps issued by the state of Israel, and its postal history, since independence was proclaimed on May 14, 1948. The first postage stamps were issued two days later on May 16, 1948. Pre-1948 postal history is discussed in postage stamps and postal history of Palestine.
Walter Morley (1863-1936) was a pioneering English philatelist, stamp dealer and philatelic author.
The British Library Philatelic Collections is the national philatelic collection of the United Kingdom with over 8 million items from around the world. It was established in 1891 as part of the British Museum Library, later to become the British Library, with the collection of Thomas Tapling. In addition to bequests and continuing donations, the library received consistent deposits by the Crown Agency and has become a primary research collection for British Empire and international history. The collections contain a wide range of artefacts in addition to postage stamps, from newspaper stamps to a press used to print the first British postage stamps.
The Landmark Trust Lundy Island Philatelic Archive was donated to the British Library by the Landmark Trust in 1991 and consists of artwork, essays, proofs and issued stamps of Lundy from 1969. The collection includes 48 handstamp postmark devices dating from 1929, when the postal service was introduced on Lundy Island and forms part of the British Library Philatelic Collections.
The first postal service took place using mail sent with captains of packet ships, using agents in the England and in the islands for the end delivery. The cost was normally 3d. The first pillar boxes in Britain were introduced in the Channel Islands as an experiment in 1852, to collect mail for the Royal Mail packet boats. The oldest pillar box in use in the British Isles is in Guernsey.
The Halfpenny Yellow is the first postage stamp issued by the Crown Colony of Malta. Depicting Queen Victoria, it was only valid for local postage and it was originally issued on 1 December 1860. It was the only stamp issued by Malta for two and a half decades, and during this period various reprints were made with differences in colour shade, perforation and watermark. When control of Malta's postal service was transferred to the islands' colonial government on 1 January 1885, the stamp was withdrawn and it was replaced by a set of definitive stamps.
