A watermark is an identifying image or pattern in paper that appears as various shades of lightness/darkness when viewed by transmitted light, caused by thickness or density variations in the paper.
Watermarks have been used on postage stamps, currency, and other government documents to discourage counterfeiting. There are two main ways of producing watermarks in paper; the dandy roll process, and the more complex cylinder mould process.
In philately, errors, freaks, and oddities (EFO) refers to all the kinds of things that can go wrong when producing postage stamps. It encompasses everything from major design errors to stamps that are just poorly printed and includes both some of the most sought-after and expensive of all stamps and others that attract the attention of only a few specialists.
The postal history of Northern Epirus, a region in the western Balkans, in southern modern Albania, comprises two periods; 1912–1916 and 1940-41. Northern Epirus was under Greek administration during the First Balkan War (1912–1913), but it was then awarded to the newly founded Albanian state by the Florence Protocol (1913). During this period, Greek stamps were used. Greece withdrew from the region in early 1914. The people of Epirus were unwilling to be part of Albania, though, and launched a revolution. Under a provisional government, the independent Northern Epirus was formed in February 1914 and it eventually managed to gain full autonomy under nominal Albanian sovereignty, according to the Protocol of Corfu. Northern Epirus operated its own postal service and issued postage stamps, both official and unofficial, during that year.
The Russian post offices in China were a collection of post offices established by Imperial Russia in various cities of China beginning in 1870.
After World War I, the city of Fiume was claimed by both the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and Italy. While its status was unresolved, its postal system was operated by a variety of occupation forces and local governments.
The British post offices in China were a system of post offices set up by the United Kingdom in various treaty ports of China in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The British post offices in Morocco, also known as the "Morocco Agencies", were a system of post offices operated by Gibraltar and later the United Kingdom in Morocco.
In a geological context, crenulation or crenulation cleavage is a fabric formed in metamorphic rocks such as phyllite, schist and some gneiss by two or more stress directions causing the formation of the superimposed foliations.
Foliation in geology refers to repetitive layering in metamorphic rocks. Each layer can be as thin as a sheet of paper, or over a meter in thickness. The word comes from the Latin folium, meaning "leaf", and refers to the sheet-like planar structure. It is caused by shearing forces, or differential pressure. The layers form parallel to the direction of the shear, or perpendicular to the direction of higher pressure. Nonfoliated metamorphic rocks are typically formed in the absence of significant differential pressure or shear. Foliation is common in rocks affected by the regional metamorphic compression typical of areas of mountain belt formation.
A dome is a feature in structural geology consisting of symmetrical anticlines that intersect each other at their respective apices. Intact, domes are distinct, rounded, spherical-to-ellipsoidal-shaped protrusions on the Earth's surface. However, a transect parallel to Earth's surface of a dome features concentric rings of strata. Consequently, if the top of a dome has been eroded flat, the resulting structure in plan view appears as a bullseye, with the youngest rock layers at the outside, and each ring growing progressively older moving inwards. These strata would have been horizontal at the time of deposition, then later deformed by the uplift associated with dome formation.
The British post offices in Africa were a system of post offices set up by the United Kingdom to be used by its Middle East Forces and East Africa Forces in Africa during and after World War II.
This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of Lithuania.
The postage stamps of New Guinea, part of present-day Papua New Guinea, were issued up to 1942.
Bangladesh first issued its own postage stamps upon gaining independence in 1971. A set of eight stamps, with various motifs including a map of the country, were issued. Shortly after, stamps in eight values were overprinted "Bangladesh Liberated" in both English and Bengali were prepared in the United Kingdom, but only three values were issued in Bangladesh.
This is a survey of postage stamps and postal history of the German colonies and part of the postage stamps and postal history of Germany, as well as those of the individual countries and territories concerned.
Poczta Polska, the Polish postal service, was founded in 1558 and postal markings were first introduced in 1764. The three partitions of Poland in 1772, 1793 and 1795 saw the independent nation of Poland disappear. The postal services in the areas occupied by Germany and Austria were absorbed into those countries' postal services. In 1772 the area occupied by Austria was created into the Kingdom of Galicia, a part of the Austrian Empire. This lasted till 1918. The Duchy of Warsaw was created briefly, between 1807 and 1813, by Napoleon I of France, from Polish lands ceded by the Kingdom of Prussia under the terms of the Treaties of Tilsit. In 1815, following Napoleons’ defeat in 1813, the Congress of Vienna, created Congress Poland out of the Duchy of Warsaw and also established the Free City of Kraków. Congress Poland was placed under the control of Russia and the postal service was given autonomy in 1815. In 1851 the postal service was put under the control of the Russian post office department regional office in St Petersburg. In 1855 control was restored for a while to the Congress Kingdom but following the uprising in 1863 again came under Russian control from 1866 and continued until World War I. In November 1918 the Second Polish Republic was created.
This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of the Nyassa Company.
The following is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of Somalia. From the late 1800s to 1960, northwestern present-day Somalia was administered as British Somaliland, while the northeastern, central and southern part of the country were concurrently administered as Italian Somaliland. In 1960, the two territories were unified as the Somali Republic.
