Krzysztof Penderecki

The postal stamp or postage stamp is a piece of paper generally coated with an adhesive and which is used to prove that the shipper paid the stamping from a mail.

The collection and the study of the postal and tax stamps are called the Philatélie.

History

On the revenue stamp and the excise tax whose invention preceded and inspired that by the postage stamp, to see Revenue stamp, Papier stamped and mobile Revenue stamp.

The postage stamp is a invention British, Rowland Hill and James Chalmers within the framework of important a postal Réforme. The first stamp mobile was emitted by the British royal post offices in 1840 in the shape of a portrait of the queen Victoria and being worth a Penny, of black color.

Disadvantages of the old postal system

This invention was a revolution in the postal system. Before 1840, it is usually the recipient who pays the cost of transport by the stations of the envelope which is addressed to him, and at a very high price. So much of recipients refuse the too expensive letters, while conveyers deprived with cheaper compete with the post office unduly. The little story wants that Rowland Hill became aware of the perverse effects of this system for the incomes of the stations when one day, in an inn, he noticed the waitress receiving of a factor a fold of promised in marriage sound. The young woman not being able, seems it, to allow the expenditure, Hill proposed to regulate it. She acknowledged to him that to correspond free, its been engaged and she drew small symbols on the envelope to communicate.

The postal reform British

To avoid transport with loss of the folds, Hill proposed in 1837, in his report/ratio " Post Office reform, Its importance and practibility" to make pay the shipper, but at the very reduced price of 1 penny (" Penny postage"). This shipper would prove that he had discharged stamping well by using a official envelope with 1d, or (according to a later proposal of Chalmers) by sticking a postal stamp on the envelope, that the administration of the stations would cancel with a seal ink to avoid any re-use. The postal reform required by Hill spent three years to lead because of the opposition of the postal administration which took into account only the initial shortfall for the post office, without taking account of the stimulative effects of the postal reform on the development of the trade and the development of the instruction. This reform entered finally into force on May 6th, 1840, 6 days after the availability of the public, as of on May 1st, 1840, of the first stamp, the 1 penny black with the effigy of Victoria, the " Penny black" drawn by Henry Corbould, as well as first envelope of port paid drawn by Mulready.

This substitution of the " Port payé" with the " Port dû" , with a considerable lowering of the price of transport, involved an immediate increase, and each year increasingly important, volume of the correspondences.

This success, immediate to the United Kingdom, was followed in the rest of the world. The first countries to have reformed their postal and emitted system postal stamps were:

Extension of the postal reform to France

As it is seen, in France, where, since 1837, the adoption of a similar reform had been proposed, it was necessary to wait 9 years, so that, following the Revolution of 1848, the resistance of the administration of the stations could be surmounted by Arago, and the paid port at a cheap rate instituted by a vote of the National Assembly of August 24th, 1848.

Still this port-paid it was fixed at 20 centimes, i.e. with the double of the British tariff of 1 penny. It is pursuant to this reform that was emitted, on January 1st, 1849, the first French postage stamp, the 20 centimes black, with the standard Cérès of Barre.

See also: Stamps of France 1849

Graphic elements

A stamp increases a certain number of necessary informations to its postal use. A decorative illustration can appear, it allows either the identification of the transmitting country (case of the Allégorie S and the royal portraits), or to like the shipper, to the recipient or the collector (see commemorative Timbre for example).

The mentions necessary are:

  • the name of the transmitting country. The Universal postal union imposes that he is written in Latin alphabet so that the fold can be conveyed abroad. Only the the United Kingdom, as a first country transmitting postage stamp, posts only the effigy of its sovereign.
  • the facial value to know if stamping is enough with forwarding to the fold.

Mentions can appear on the stamps of certain countries:

  • a mention of the type “Stations” pointing out the postal use to distinguish from the revenue stamps. This mention can be the name of the postal company (in France, “La Poste”).
  • names of the creators of the stamps under the illustration: the draftsman on the left, the engraver on the right.
  • the name of printing works, sometimes registered with the bottom of the stamp, the medium under the illustration.

Matters

The near total of the stamps are printed on Papier, even if certain postal administrations could use, by concern of promotion sometimes, other materials.

  • Some countries of Africa and the Persian Gulf emitted stamps on sheets of Or.
  • the Bhutan emitted stamps out of plastic (and relief), in vinyl, paperboard, scented paper, paperboard with effect three dimensions, genuine silk and even in metal sheetings.
  • Of the noble metals can also be used punctually. In 2000, the French post office emitted a stamp in the honor of the Métallurgie representing a Eiffel Tower in money (layer deposited hot of 0,3 mm) and the ARIANE rocket.
  • Certaines postal administrations competes of originality in the emission of stamps created in special matters: stamps out of steel in Bhutan, stamps out of wooden (Djibouti, Gabon, Switzerland), silk stamp (Bhutan), aluminum stamps (Tonga), lace stamps (Italy) and becomes fluffy about it (Sierra Leone).

Techniques of impression

Principal articles

Problem of the forgers

It should be noted that the knowledge of the techniques of impression is extremely useful not only for the printers of the official stamps, but as for the forgers as those aim at misleading the tax department, the post office or the collectors.

Originality of the impression

The postal administrations show originality in the impression of the stamps, by using modern technologies of impression:

  • Effect of embossing creating a relief by pressing paper.
  • Impression with an inflating ink: stamp on lace in France.
  • Stamp being used as ticket of lottery with number with the Japan or to scrape.
  • Use of fluorescent ink for stamps on Halloween (France).

Varieties

A postal stamp becomes a Variété when it is different from the normal version of the stamp, because of a problem of impression. The varieties are sought by the philatelists because of their scarcity since they are accidental and that controls with printing works should destroy them all.

Examples of varieties:

  • Change of colors: variation (of orange pale with orange sharp for an orange stamp) with the error (blue instead of red).
  • Omission or inversion of a color: polychrome stamp where lack a color.
  • Head-digs: a stamp was printed with back on a sheet.
  • Change of illustrated of the drawing: a metal stereotype being used for the impression could be badly engraved or deteriorated. For example, “MOROCCO” becomes with impression “MAROO”. The stereotype can be striped and left a fine feature of ink on the stamp in addition to those of the drawing of origin.
  • Varieties of Overload (double overloads, reversed, with horse) .

Forms

The various postal administrations showed originality to the length of their history in the form of their emissions of postal stamps, especially with the development of the Philatélie.
  • the Quadrilatère is the form of the major part of the postage stamps, especially Rectangle. The British Penny Black and the 20 centimes black French are of rectangular form. The Trapèze is rarer.
  • the Triangle was especially used in various countries of Latin America, then by certain French-speaking countries of Africa in the Années 1960. But its employment remains before very famous for the first emission, in 1853, of the British colony of the Cape.
  • the Rhombus, less widespread than the triangle, after first appearances in French Dimension of Somalis, was started again, during the years 1930, by the autonomous republic of Touva, in Soviet Mongolia, at mainly philatelic ends.
  • the round stamp, not very widespread, except on the postal entireties, because lending itself badly to the impression in sheets, was popularized more recently in France with the emission of the stamp commemorating the Football world cup 1998. The printing works of the postage stamps made profitable besides its manufacturing machine tool of the round stamps by emitting in 1998 on the same subject an Andorran stamp , then for the New Caledonia and in 2002 for the following World cup.

The advent of the self-adhesive stamps allows the use of the usual systems of impression and cutting, all in incentive to diversify the possible shapes of certain stamps: Heart (festival of the St. Valentine's day in France)…

Page layout

In general, each stamp is a unit of image, not overflowing on the stamp being neighborly it on the printed sheet.

  • the varieties of page layout are involuntary errors of the printer, and are thus very required collectors:

    • head-spades when a stamp is with back compared to the remainder of the sheet.
    • errors of value: at the 19th century, each stamp of the sheet is printed starting from a metal plate. The printer included by error a plate of another value.

  • original Page layout and volunteer:

    • the posts of the Netherlands are usual dependant stamps. For example, to celebrate the national bovine breeding, two cows brown and black are with horse on two stamps. The collector, if he wants the cows complete, must buy several stamps.
    • For the series on the gardens, the French post office created a block-layer integrating the landscapes of the two timbrifiés gardens and the parts external of the layer having the shape of gate of public gardens which the collector could fold up on the two gardens.

  • the block-layers put in scene one or more stamps around a topic. For a series on the animals of the farm (France, 2003), the draftsman prepared a scene of farm with four animals which will form four stamps included on this layer.

Forms of sale

  • the stamps with the unit are generally cut out by the agents of the stations within sheets of one hundred stamps. In the years 1840 - 1850, the stamps is cut out with the chisel, then are invented techniques to perforate the sheets by vertical and horizontal lines. These holes make it possible to detach the stamps more easily, and teeth gave them (forms left by the holes after cutting).

  • the books of stamps made it possible to the customers to have on a hard-bound support of the stamps at its free disposal. The current books of stamps are required for publicities which they carry or the composition of the stamps inside.

    • There exist also commemorative books of stamps. In France, it is currently emitted by it two per annum (famous personalities and festival of the stamp).
    • By their more practical side, the self-adhesive stamps are always provided in notebook.

  • block-layers (see above Page layout).

  • the rollers or casters of fifty current stamps or more.

Demonstrations of promotion

To ensure the promotion of their emissions and to draw from the additional incomes, the postal administrations organize demonstrations.

  • the First day of emission: the day before and also the two days before its official emission, the stamp can be bought in certain places, generally dependant about the stamp. On the spot, the temporary post office obliterates the stamp with a special seal which can carry an illustration and the mention “First Day”.
  • In several countries, takes place of the days of the stamp. In France, once per annum, this day become the Fête of the stamp is the occasion of an emission Premier day available in a hundred of French cities. La Poste uses the same topic several years of sharpened for fidéliser the collectors, in particular the young people. Since the beginning of the years 2000, they are the characters of band-drawn who are with the honor: Lucky Luke, Astérix, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, Titeuf, Harry Potter lately. Previously, there were the mail vans, the advance of the mail and the old types of everyday usage.
  • international exhibitions where, in margin of the exposed collections, merchants of stamps and postal administrations are also present. They are also the pretext with the emission by many countries of special programs carrying the logo of the exposure. In France, the principal international philatelic exposure was called Philexfrance .

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