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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 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 stream of new stamps was produced by countries that sought to advertise their distinctiveness through their stamps.
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.
Philatelic literature is written material relating to philately, primarily information about postage stamps and postal history.
The Scott catalogue of postage stamps, published by Scott Publishing Company, now a subsidiary of Amos Media, is updated annually and lists all the stamps of the world that its editors recognize as issued for postal purposes. It is published in fourteen large volumes that include twelve volumes containing all the countries of the world that have ever issued postage stamps, the United States Specialized Catalog, and the 1840–1940 Classic Specialized Catalogue. The numbering system used by Scott to identify stamps is dominant among stamp collectors in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
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.
A stamp catalog is a catalog of postage stamp types with descriptions and prices.
The Mauritius "Post Office" stamps were issued by the British Colony Mauritius in September 1847, in two denominations: an orange-red one penny (1d) and a deep blue two pence (2d). Their name comes from the wording on the stamps reading "Post Office", which was soon changed in the next issue to "Post Paid". They are among the rarest postage stamps in the world.
The Vatican post office has operated its own postal service and issued its own postage stamps since 1929.
The United Nations Postal Administration (UNPA) is the postal agency of the United Nations. It issues postage stamps and postal stationery, denominated in United States dollars for the office in New York, in Swiss francs for the office in Geneva and in euros for the office in Vienna. As such, UNPA is the only postal authority that issues stamps in three different currencies.
The Hawaiian Missionaries are the first postage stamps of the Kingdom of Hawaii, issued in 1851. They came to be known as the "Missionaries" because they were primarily found on the correspondence of missionaries working in the Hawaiian Islands. Only a handful of these stamps have survived to the present day, and so they are amongst the great rarities of philately.
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 postage stamps and postal history of Israel is a survey of the postage stamps issued by the state of Israel, and its postal history, since independence was proclaimed on May 14, 1948. The first postage stamps were issued two days later on May 16, 1948. Pre-1948 postal history is discussed in postage stamps and postal history of Palestine.
Mauritius, a small island in the southwest Indian Ocean, is important to the world of philately for a number of reasons. Its first two postage stamps issued in 1847, called the "Post Office" stamps, are of legendary rarity and value. They were the first stamps issued in any part of the British Empire outside of Great Britain. The unique cover bearing both “Post Office” stamps has been called "la pièce de résistance de toute la philatélie" or "the greatest item in all philately". The cover was sold at auction, in Zurich, on 3 November 1993, for 5.75 million Swiss francs, the equivalent of about $4 million – the highest price ever paid for a single philatelic item up to that time. In addition, Mauritius is well known for the subsequent locally produced issues known as "primitives," also prized 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.
Plating refers to the reconstruction of a pane or "sheet" of postage stamps printed from a single plate by using individual stamps and overlapping strips and blocks of stamps. Likewise, if a sheet 10 or 20 postal cards is typeset, the variations of the letters or design elements may allow reconstruction or plating of the sheets based on these differences.
The Tuvan People's Republic issued postage stamps between 1926 and 1936. They were popular with stamp collectors in the Western world in the mid-twentieth century because of the obscurity and exoticism of Tannu Tuva and the stamps' quirky, colorful designs. The validity of many stamps purportedly issued by Tannu Tuva has been questioned by philatelists.
August Dietz was a philatelist, editor and publisher, who specialized in the study of mail and postal history of the Confederate States of America.
This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of Hawaii.
References
- The Glassine Surfer, a series of articles in The American Philatelist , found FICC worthy of mention is 2003.
- Alphabetilately cites FICC as a source of information.
- Images of the World extracted a short list of first issues from the official FICC list. The site also used FICC as a source on their trivia page.
- Stabroek News used FICC to get their facts straight in the article British Guiana postage stamps: Part 1 - 1850 - 1875
- Nick Blackburn's site Snap Dragon credits FICC as the "experts in the field" of first issues.
- Information from the FICC web site was used to support the article on Postage stamps and postal history of India.