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.
This is a list of philatelic topics.
The Prince Consort Essay was a surface printed printer's sample stamp created in 1851 as an example of the surface printed stamps that Henry Archer proposed to print and perforate under contract with the British government at a lower price than the current printing firm of Perkins Bacon. The Prince Consort stamps were provided by the artist Robert Edward Branston, from an engraving executed by Samuel William Reynolds.
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.
A dummy stamp is a stamp-like label which is not valid for postal use. Dummy stamps are a form of cinderella stamp and the two principal types are test or training stamps, used to test postal equipment or train postal workers, and printer's sample stamps created to promote or demonstrate the printing capabilities of a stamp printer.
In philately, an essay is a design for a proposed stamp submitted to the postal authorities for consideration but not used, or used after alterations have been made. By contrast, a proof is a trial printing of an accepted stamp.
In philately a Die Proof is a printed image pulled directly from the master die for an engraved stamp.
Geoffrey Clive Akerman was an English philatelist. In 2001, Akerman and Gavin H. Fryer won the Crawford Medal from The Royal Philatelic Society London for their work "The Reform of the Post Office in the Victorian Era and Its Impact on Economic and Social Activity". He won numerous other awards for displays at stamp exhibitions. In 2009, Akerman won the Revenue Society Research Medal.
Bolivia was formerly known as Upper Peru and became an independent republic on 6 August 1825. It has produced its own postage stamps since 1867. Stamps from Bolivia are marked as Correos de Bolivia. Tensions between Chile and Bolivia have influenced both countries' stamps and postal history.
'Seahorses' is the name used to refer to the United Kingdom high value definitive postage stamps issued during the reign of King George V.
The first revenue stamps of Bahrain were issued in 1924. Before then Indian revenue stamps were used on documents. Revenue stamps have been used for Land Registry documents, drivers permits and the Dhow Registry.
The first revenue stamps in the United States were used briefly during colonial times, among the most notable usage involved the Stamp Act. Long after independence, the first revenue stamps printed by the United States government were issued in the midst of the American Civil War, prompted by the urgent need to raise revenue to pay for the great costs it incurred. After the war ended however, revenue stamps and the taxes they represented still continued. Revenue stamps served to pay tax duties on items that came under two main categories, Proprietary and Documentary. Proprietary stamps paid tax duties on goods like alcohol and tobacco, and were also used for various services, while Documentary stamps paid duties on legal documents, mortgage deeds, stocks and a fair number of other legal dealings. Proprietary and Documentary stamps often bore these respective designations, while in several of the issues they shared the same designs, sometimes with minor variations. Beginning in 1862 the first revenue stamps were issued, and would continue to be used for another hundred years and more. For the first twelve years George Washington was the only subject featured on U.S. revenue stamps, when in 1875 an allegorical figure of Liberty finally appeared. Revenue stamps were printed in many varieties and denominations and are widely sought after by collectors and historians. Revenue stamps were finally discontinued on December 31, 1967.
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 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 Board of Inland Revenue Stamping Department Archive in the British Library contains artefacts from 1710 onwards, and has come into existence through amendments in United Kingdom legislation.
The Postal Union Congress (PUC) £1 stamp is one of a series of postage stamps of Great Britain issued in 1929. It is one of the classics of British philately and has been described as one of the most beautiful British stamps ever issued. The stamp was only the second British commemorative stamp to be issued. The first were the British Empire Exhibition postage stamps of 1924–25.
The Davies Collection is a collection of Libyan revenue stamps from 1955 to 1969, formed from material from the Bradbury Wilkinson Archive, and presented to the British Library Philatelic Collections by John Neville Davies in 1992.
Argentina has been one of the most prolific issuers of revenue stamps. Stamps have been issued by both the Argentine Republic and individual Argentine provinces and covered a wide range of duties from taxes on documents to hat taxes. The stamps form one of the most complex studies in revenue philately and have been exhaustively catalogued by Clive Ackerman in six volumes. However, new discoveries continue to be made.
Revenue stamps of British Guiana refer to the various revenue or fiscal stamps, whether adhesive or directly embossed, which were issued by British Guiana prior to the colony's independence as Guyana in 1966. Between the 1860s and 1890s, the colony issued Inland Revenue and Summary Jurisdiction stamps, while revenue stamps and dual-purpose postage and revenue stamps were issued during the late 19th and 20th centuries. In around the 1890s or 1900s, British Guiana possibly issued stamps for taxes on medicine and matches, but it is unclear if these were actually issued. Guyana continued to issue its own revenue stamps after independence.
