In philately, a cinderella stamp is a label that resembles a postage stamp, but which is not issued for postal purposes by a government administration. [1] 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. [2]
Named after Cinderella, a folk-tale underdog heroine who was treated as inferior within her family. Cinderella stamps similarly were considered inferior to postage stamps. [3]
As cinderella stamps are defined by what they are not, there are many different types and the term is usually construed fairly loosely. Items normally regarded as falling within the area are poster stamps, propaganda labels, commemorative stickers, stamps issued by non-recognised countries or governments, charity labels like Christmas seals and Easter seals, most telegraph stamps, some railway stamps, some local stamps and purely decorative items created for advertising or amusement. [4] [5]
Revenue stamps may be considered cinderellas, but as they are normally issued by an official government agency, they tend to be classified separately. [6] Some telegraph, railway and other stamps may also be issued by government agencies but still fall under the cinderella umbrella since they are not for postal purposes. [4] [5]
Local stamps have a long history and began to be issued soon after the invention of the postage stamp. Zemstvo stamps were issued in rural areas of the Russian Empire (c. 1860–1917), and local stamps have been issued in many other countries. Many local stamps, such as hotel stamps, performed a genuine postal function where the national post was lacking. Other locals, however, amount to nothing more than colourful labels.[ citation needed ]
In the United Kingdom many local carriage labels have been issued by offshore islands, which in some cases had a genuine use to pay for transport of the mail to the mainland by ferry. Others were produced simply to sell to collectors and tourists. Usually they had to be placed on the back of the envelope, with a conventional stamp on the front to pay for onward delivery by the official postal service. Islands for which such labels have been issued include the Summer Isles, Lundy, Eynhallow, and the Calf of Man.[ citation needed ]
While it is common to find patriotic sentiments on official stamps, the term propaganda stamp is usually used to mean unofficial stamps produced to promote a particular ideology, or to create confusion within an enemy state. Stamps with encouraging slogans have been attached to letters for prisoners of war, or troops serving abroad.[ citation needed ]
Sometimes stamps are issued by breakaway governments, governments in exile, or micronations in order to give themselves greater legitimacy; however, these stamps usually have no postal validity and are therefore cinderella items. [7] The Indian National Army (Azad Hind) produced ten stamps as part of their campaign.[ citation needed ]
From 1951 to 1966, UNESCO issued a series of 41 "gift stamps". Considered to be cinderellas, they were produced to raise money for the organization. [8] The series is unusual in being an international cooperative effort. Most are readily available from specialized dealers.
Illustrator and anarchist Clifford Harper, whose family had an occupational history in the postal service, designed stamps "for post-revolutionary post" bearing the image of anarchist figures such as Pierre-Joseph Proudhon ("property is theft"), Oscar Wilde, Emma Goldman and Emiliano Zapata. [9] Colin Ward, along with Harper, published a book in 1997 called Stamps: Designs For Anarchist Postage Stamps, containing an essay by Ward on the subject of anarchists and postage stamps. [10] Fund-raising stamps with anti-state messages have appeared within labor unions such as the ones printed by the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, and the Industrial Workers of the World. [11]
The Jewish National Fund had been publishing its own stamps since 1901, promoting the ideology of Zionism. [12]
In the United Kingdom, the railway letter service, a special facility offered by most British railway companies since 1891, produced a great variety of stamps and labels, which were originally an official requirement of the service. Current officially licensed Heritage railway-operated services include the Festiniog Railway Letter Service. United Kingdom railway letter stamps almost always specify a fee (often, even in Victorian times, priced higher than the current postage fee, which additionally had to be paid with regular postage stamps) for the use of this official and once-important British postal facility.[ citation needed ]
The design of cinderella items generally follows the principles of postage stamp design, but they may lack a country name, often replaced by the organization or cause being promoted, or a denomination. Sometimes a fictitious country or denomination may be present.[ citation needed ]
While many cinderella stamps are common, others were privately produced in limited numbers, are little-known, and can be quite rare. Cinderella stamps are not normally listed in the main stamp-collecting catalogues; if they are, it is usually in a separate appendix within the publication, and so they are sometimes called back of the book stamps. [13] Online catalogues include cinderella stamps and usually have them listed as one of the emission types. [14]
Revenue stamps are a recognised competitive category within the FIP (Fédération Internationale de Philatélie) and have their own commissioner, unlike other types of cinderella stamps.[ citation needed ]
There are cinderella stamp clubs in the United Kingdom and in Australia, both of which accept members worldwide.[ citation needed ] Cinderella philately has a specific name in many countries, such as Erinnophilie in France and Germany, or Erinnofilia in Italy.
Philately is the study of postage stamps and postal history. It also refers to the collection and appreciation of stamps and other philatelic products. While closely associated with stamp collecting and the study of postage, it is possible to be a philatelist without owning any stamps. For instance, the stamps being studied may be very rare or reside only in museums.
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. Then the stamp is affixed to the face or address-side of any item of mail—an envelope or other postal cover —which 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. Next the item is delivered to its address.
Stamp collecting is the collecting of postage stamps and related objects. It is an area of philately, which is the study 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 stream of new stamps was produced by countries that sought to advertise their distinctiveness through their stamps.
A postmark is a postal marking made on an envelope, parcel, postcard or the like, indicating the place, date and time that the item was delivered into the care of a postal service, or sometimes indicating where and when received or in transit. Modern postmarks are often applied simultaneously with the cancellation or killer that marks postage stamps as having been used. Sometimes a postmark alone is used to cancel stamps, and the two terms are often used interchangeably. Postmarks may be applied by handstamp or machine, using methods such as rollers or inkjets, while digital postmarks are a recent innovation.
A first day of issue cover or first day cover (FDC) is a postage stamp on a cover, postal card or stamped envelope franked on the first day the issue is authorized for use within the country or territory of the stamp-issuing authority. Sometimes the issue is made from a temporary or permanent foreign or overseas office. Covers that are postmarked at sea or their next port of call will carry a Paquebot postmark. There will usually be a first day of issue postmark, frequently a pictorial cancellation, indicating the city and date where the item was first issued, and "first day of issue" is often used to refer to this postmark. Depending on the policy of the nation issuing the stamp, official first day postmarks may sometimes be applied to covers weeks or months after the date indicated.
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 "postmark" refers specifically to the part that contains the date and posting location, but the term is often used interchangeably with "cancellation" as it may serve that purpose. 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.
A piece of postal stationery is a stationery item, such as a stamped envelope, letter sheet, postal card, lettercard, aerogram or wrapper, with an imprinted stamp or inscription indicating that a specific rate of postage or related service has been prepaid. It does not, however, include any postcard without a pre-printed stamp, and it is different from freepost for preprinted cards issued by businesses. In general, postal stationery is handled similarly to postage stamps; sold from post offices either at the face value of the printed postage or, more likely, with a surcharge to cover the additional cost of the stationery. It can take the form of an official mail issue produced only for the use of government departments.
Postal history is the study of postal systems and how they operate and, or, the study of the use of postage stamps and covers and associated postal artifacts illustrating historical episodes in the development of postal systems. The term is attributed to Robson Lowe, a professional philatelist, stamp dealer and stamp auctioneer, who made the first organised study of the subject in the 1930s and described philatelists as "students of science", but postal historians as "students of humanity". More precisely, philatelists describe postal history as the study of rates, routes, markings, and means.
An airmail stamp is a postage stamp intended to pay either an airmail fee that is charged in addition to the surface rate, or the full airmail rate, for an item of mail to be transported by air.
A plate block is a block of stamps from the edge of the sheet which shows the plate or cylinder from which the stamps were printed.
Topical or thematic stamp collecting is the collecting of postage stamps relating to a particular subject or concept. Topics can be almost anything, from stamps on stamps, birds, trains and poets on stamps, to famous physicians and scientists, along with historical people and events on stamps, which is often a standard theme for many stamp issuing countries.
A revenue stamp, tax stamp, duty stamp or fiscal stamp is a (usually) adhesive label used to designate collected 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.
Illegal stamps are postage stamp–like labels issued in the names of existing independent countries or territories used to defraud postal administrations, stamp collectors, and the general public. Often, but not always, a member nation of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) will have asked the UPU to issue an "International Bureau Circular" advising others of the illegal stamps. According to the UPU, the market is estimated to be at least $500 million per year.
This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of Transnistria, an unrecognized breakaway territory of Moldova and the de facto independent Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic.
Holiday stamps are a type of postage stamp issued to commemorate a particular religious festival or holiday.
A triptych is a philatelic term which was borrowed from the art world and having the same meaning: a set of three panels hinged together. It is used to describe three se-tenant postage stamps of related design that make up a complete single design.
The beginnings of the postal history of Tonga can be traced to the Wesleyan missionaries, who landed in the islands in 1826, and sent regular communications back to London and Sydney from the day of their arrival. The Tongan Post Office was established in 1887, but even before then postage stamps featuring the image of King George Tupou I were produced in New Zealand.
This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of Georgia.
World Stamp Show-NY 2016 was an international exhibition of stamp collecting held at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City from May 28 to June 4, 2016. It was the first international stamp show to be held in New York since FIPEX in 1956.
Wolfgang Baldus is a German graphic designer, artist, and philatelic writer. He is known for authoring and publishing books on cinderella stamps in the series History and Background Stories of Unusual Stamps and for his works on the philatelic forgeries and propaganda parodies produced by both sides during the First and Second World Wars.
