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.
The Washington Bicentennial stamps of 1932 are postage stamps issued by the United States government in 1932 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of U.S. President George Washington's birth. Twelve stamps were issued as a collection, with each one depicting the President in a different period in his life.
The history of postal service of the United States began with the delivery of stampless letters, whose cost was borne by the receiving person, later also encompassed pre-paid letters carried by private mail carriers and provisional post offices, and culminated in a system of universal prepayment that required all letters to bear nationally issued adhesive postage stamps.
The Yacht issue was a series of postage stamps, bearing the image of the German Kaiser's yacht, SMY Hohenzollern II, that were used in all of Germany's overseas colonies. Millions of the stamps were produced and they were the principal means of postage for all German imperial overseas possessions in the years 1900–1915. German colonies at that time were Samoa, Marshall Islands, Mariana Islands, Caroline Islands, Kiautschou, Togo, Kamerun, German New Guinea, German South-West Africa, and German East Africa.
The Liberty issue was a definitive series of postage stamps issued by the United States between 1954 and 1965. It offered twenty-four denominations, ranging from a half-cent issue showing Benjamin Franklin to a five dollar issue depicting Alexander Hamilton. However, in a notable departure from all definitive series since 1870, the stamp for a normal first-class letter—the 3-cent value—did not present the portrait of a president, but instead offered a monocolor image of the Statue of Liberty. Moreover, two-color renderings of the Statue of Liberty appeared on both the 8 cent and 11 cent stamps; and it is from these three denominations that the Liberty issue takes its name. Pictures of other national landmarks, such as Bunker Hill and Mount Vernon, are found on several values, while the rest of the stamps follow tradition, containing portraits of well-known historic Americans. The six denominations in the set that illustrate buildings were all designed in landscape format, resulting in a free intermixture of landscape and portrait orientation for the first time in a definitive U.S. issue.
Postage stamps and postal history of the Canal Zone is a subject that covers the postal system, postage stamps used and mail sent to and from the Panama Canal Zone from 1904 up until October 1978, after the United States relinquished its authority of the Zone in compliance with the treaty it reached with Panama.
The Presidential Issue, nicknamed the Prexies by collectors, is the series of definitive postage stamps issued in the United States in 1938, featuring all 29 U.S. presidents who were in office between 1789 and 1928, from George Washington to Calvin Coolidge. The presidents appear as small profile busts printed in solid-color designs through 50¢, and then as black on white images surrounded by colored lettering and ornamentation for $1, $2, and $5 values. Additional stamps in fractional-cent denominations offer busts of Benjamin Franklin and Martha Washington, as well as an engraving of the White House. With its total of 32 stamps, this was the largest definitive series yet issued by the U. S. Post Office.
The Columbian Issue, often known as simply the Columbians, is a set of 16 postage stamps issued by the United States to commemorate the World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago during 1893. The finely-engraved stamps were the first commemorative stamps issued by the United States, depicting various events during the career of Christopher Columbus and are presently much valued by collectors.
The postal history of Turkey and its predecessor state, the Ottoman Empire, dates to the 18th century when foreign countries maintained courier services through their consular offices in the Empire. Although delayed in the development of its own postal service, in 1863 the Ottoman Empire became the second independent country in Asia to issue adhesive postage stamps, and in 1875, it became a founding member of the General Postal Union, soon to become the Universal Postal Union. The Ottoman Empire became the Republic of Turkey in 1923, and in the following years, its postal service became more modernized and efficient and its postage stamps expertly designed and manufactured.
In philately the Admirals are a series of definitive stamps issued by three countries of the British Commonwealth which show King George V, King of the Great Britain and the British Dominions. The stamps are referred to as the Admirals because King George is depicted in his Admiral of the Fleet uniform. The stamps were issued by Canada (1911–28), New Zealand (1926), and Rhodesia (1913–24).
Presidents of the United States have frequently appeared on U.S. postage stamps since the mid–1800s. The United States Post Office Department released its first two postage stamps in 1847, featuring George Washington on one, and Benjamin Franklin on the other. The advent of presidents on postage stamps has been definitive to U.S. postage stamp design since the first issues were released and set the precedent that U.S. stamp designs would follow for many generations.
Clair Aubrey Huston was an accomplished and chief postage stamp designer at the United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) early in the 20th century. He was the great-grandson of Michael Leib (1759–1822), an American physician and politician. Huston worked at the BEP for more than 21 years and was the designer of numerous United States postage issues. Entire series of stamp issues were designed by Houston, including the Washington-Franklins and the Regular Issues of 1922. Huston often used paintings and sculptures of famous American artists like Gilbert Stuart as models for his stamp designs. One of the postage issues Huston is most noted for is the 24 cent Curtis Jenny airmail stamp of 1918, whose image became famous when the biplane was printed upside down. In another aeronautical design, six years earlier Huston had pictured an airplane on the 20 cent parcel post issue. This was the first postage stamp in the world to depict such a machine.
The 1930 Graf Zeppelin stamps were a set of three airmail postage stamps, each depicting the image of the Graf Zeppelin airship, exclusively issued by the United States Post Office Department, USPOD, in 1930 for delivery of mail carried aboard that airship. Although the stamps were valid for postage shipped via the Zeppelin Pan American flight from Germany to the United States, via Brazil, the set was marketed to collectors and was largely intended to promote the route. 93.5% of the revenue generated by the sale of these stamps went to the Zeppelin Airship Works in Germany. The stamps were also issued as a gesture of good will toward Germany. The three stamps were used briefly and then withdrawn from sale where the remainder of the stock was destroyed by the Post Office. Due to the great depression and the high cost of the stamps most collectors and the general public could not afford to purchase or use them. Consequently, only about 227,000 of the stamps were sold, just 7% of the total made, making them relatively scarce and highly prized by collectors.
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 1869 Pictorial Issue is a series of definitive United States postage stamps released during the first weeks of the Grant administration. Ten types of stamp in denominations between one cent and ninety cents were initially offered in the series, with eight of these introduced on March 19 and 20, 1869 and the two greatest values being distributed somewhat later. During May, however, the Post Office began distributing a revised version of the 15-cent stamp, in which the original, poorly aligned frame had been modified ; and collectors consider this eleventh stamp an integral part of the Pictorial Issue.
Charles Ransom Chickering was best known as the freelance artist who designed some 77 postage stamps for the U.S. Post Office while working at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington, DC. His career as a professional artist began while working as an illustrator for the U.S. Army recording and drawing medical illustrations of the wounded and dead during the First World War. He continued the practice in civilian life and became a noted artist-illustrator who worked for a number of prominent magazines, including The Saturday Evening Post, which were very popular during the pre-television era of the 1920s to 1940s. After the Second World War Chickering began working for the U.S. Post office designing U.S. Postage stamps, some of which became famous. Later in life he became a designer and illustrator for first day cover cachets that were also popular among stamp and postal history collectors.
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.
Coil waste is a type of U.S. stamp made from damaged or unusable printing stock intended for use as coil stamps and is a term applied to several stamp issues of the late 1910s and early 20s. Sometimes in the printing of coils on rotary presses, a number of stamps from the run were deemed unusable for coil production. Instead of discarding these, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing processed them through the flat-plate perforating machine to finish them as fully perforated stamps. These finished products are known as coil waste. While seemingly identical to normal fully perforated issues, coil waste stamps are distinguishable by their size: their designs are slightly wider or longer than normal because rotary press printing slightly stretches an image.
The history of Virginia through the colonial period on into contemporary times has been depicted and commemorated on postage stamps accounting for many important personalities, places and events involving the nation's history. Themes are particularly rich in early American and new nation history, historical landmarks, and Virginia-born presidents.
The U.S. Parcel Post stamps of 1912–13 were the first such stamps issued by the U.S. Post Office Department and consisted of twelve denominations to pay the postage on parcels weighing 16 ounces and more, with each denomination printed in the same color of "carmine-rose". Their border design was similar while each denomination of stamp bore its own distinctive image in the center (vignette). Unlike regular postage items, whose rates were determined by weight in ounces, Parcel Post rates were determined and measured by increments in pounds. The new stamps were soon widely used by industry, farmers and others who lived in rural areas. Partly owing to some confusion involving their usage, their exclusive use as Parcel Post stamps proved short lived, as regular postage stamps were soon allowed to be used to pay parcel postage rates.
