A postage stamp booklet (also called stamp book) is a booklet made up of one or more small panes of postage stamps in a cardboard cover. Booklets are often made from sheets especially printed for this purpose, with a narrow selvage at one side of the booklet pane for binding. [1] From the cutting, the panes are usually imperforate on the edges of the booklet. 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.
Luxembourg was the first country to issue booklets, in 1895, followed by Sweden in 1898, the United States in 1900 and Great Britain in 1904. [1] The idea became popular and quickly spread around the world.
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. [2] Such sheets, in fact, were created to produce the earliest United States booklets, printed from special plates that yielded sheets of 180 or 360 stamps for cutting into panes of six stamps each. (Normal sheets containing 400 stamps were deemed unusable for booklets because they could not be cut into six-stamp panes without leaving waste.) Booklet stamps so produced usually have one, two, or three straight edges (although some booklet panes have been printed three stamps across, and the middle stamps will have perforations all around). The first two U. S. booklet issues (1900 and 1903) offered only stamps denominated at the normal letter rate (2¢), but in 1907 booklets were introduced containing 1¢ stamps suitable for post cards.
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.
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 addressee.
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 never-ending stream of new stamps was produced by countries that sought to advertise their distinctiveness through their stamps.
An envelope is a common packaging item, usually made of thin, flat material. It is designed to contain a flat object, such as a letter or card.
For postage stamps, separation is the means by which individual stamps are made easily detachable from each other.
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.
A Christmas stamp is a postage stamp with a Christmas theme, intended for use on seasonal mail such as Christmas cards. Many countries of the world issue such stamps, which are regular postage stamps and are usually valid for postage year-round. They usually go on sale some time between early October and early December, and are printed in considerable quantities.
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.
The history of postage stamps and postal history of Malaysia, a state in Southeast Asia that occupies the south of the Malay peninsula and Sarawak and Sabah in the north Borneo, includes the development of postal services in these periods:
A souvenir sheet or miniature sheet is a postage stamp or a small group of postage stamps still attached to the sheet on which they were printed. They may be either regular issues that just happen to be printed in small groups, or special issues often commemorating some event, such as a national anniversary, philatelic exhibition, or government program. The number of stamps ranges from one to about 25; larger sheets of stamps are simply called "sheets" with no qualifier.
The Machin series of postage stamps is the main definitive stamp series in the United Kingdom, used since 5 June 1967. It is the second series to figure the image of Elizabeth II, replacing the Wilding series. The last issue was on 4 April 2022, four months before her death on 8 September.
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.
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 CIA invert is a one-dollar value postage stamp error issued by the United States Postal Service. It is one stamp from the Americana series that were produced between 1975 and 1981. The $1 colonial rushlight holder stamp was first issued on July 2, 1979, and one pane of 100 stamps was issued with the dark brown inverted. The lamp candle holder, candle outline and text are inverted relative to the flame. About 95 copies have been accounted for. The stamp's Scott catalogue number is 1610c. This was the first United States stamp issued with a major design element printed upside down since the Dag Hammarskjöld invert error of 1962. As these $1 stamps were printed in sheets of 400, three additional panes of 100 stamps certainly existed at one time, but no trace of these has been discovered.
Definitive postage stamps of Ireland are the regular series of definitive postage stamps issued by the Irish Free State between 1922 and 1937 and by Republic of Ireland since 1937. Nine distinctly different series of designs have been released; additionally the watermark was changed for two issues and the currency was changed on three occasions while the designs remained the same.
Postage stamps of Pakistan are those issued since Pakistan's independence in 1947. Pakistan Post has issued more than 600 sets and singles totalling more than 1300 stamps. Immediately after the independence of Pakistan in 1947, the new Pakistan government was preoccupied with setting up the government so British Indian stamps continued in use without an overprint as was the practice in other countries.
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.
Between 1851 and 1860, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, an independent Italian state until 1859 when it joined the United Provinces of Central Italy, produced two postage stamp issues which are among the most prized classic stamp issues of the world, and include the most valuable Italian stamp.
The Washington–Franklin Issues are a series of definitive U.S. Postage stamps depicting George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, issued by the U.S. Post Office between 1908 and 1922. The distinctive feature of this issue is that it employs only two engraved heads set in ovals—Washington and Franklin in full profile—and replicates one or another of these portraits on every stamp denomination in the series. This is a significant departure from previous definitive issues, which had featured pantheons of famous Americans, with each portrait-image confined to a single denomination. At the same time, this break with the recent past represented a return to origins. Washington and Franklin, after all, had appeared on the first two American stamps, issued in 1847, and during the next fifteen years, each of the eight stamp denominations available featured either Washington or Franklin.
The Crown Agents Philatelic and Security Printing Archive was deposited with the British Museum from the 1960s, though the first recorded deposit from the Crown Agents was in 1900. The archive consists of a range of philatelic and written material which were the Crown Agents' working records. It is the most comprehensive record of British Colonial and Commonwealth stamp issues of the last 100 years.
The Series of 1902, also known as the Second Bureau Issue, is a set of definitive postage stamps in fourteen denominations ranging between one cent and five dollars, produced by the U. S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing and issued by the United States Post Office. Two denominations appeared in November and December 1902 and the other twelve were released between January and June 1903. These stamps were assigned the Scott Catalogue numbers 300 through 313. Also considered part of the series is a fifteenth stamp which appeared in November 1903—a second version of the 2¢ value, the original having faced severe criticism. This series, particularly noted for its exceptional ornateness and opulence of design, remained in circulation until late 1908, when it was superseded by the Washington-Franklin Issues.
