Great Little Stamps

National Postal Museum

noreply@blogger.com (jayjay) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:32:00 +0000

National Postal Museum, museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., that explores the history of the United States postal service and celebrates the art of letter writing and the beauty and lore of postage stamps. The museum is home to the National Philatelic Collection, the nation’s largest and most comprehensive collection of stamps, postmarks, and related materials.

The museum opened in 1993 in the historic City Post Office Building, designed by Daniel Burnham and built in 1914. Exhibitions trace postal history as a reflection of the nation’s industrial, technological, and social progress.

The museum follows the development of national mail service, beginning with the American colonial era, when postal routes followed trails used by Native Americans. Exhibits also describe the operations of the Pony Express, the effect of urbanization and rural life on delivery systems, the importance of letters as windows on history, and the intriguing stories behind stamps and stamp design. The museum displays a rotating selection of more than 55,000 stamps.

For philatelic researchers, the museum offers a wealth of material, including certified plate proofs of stamps printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. It also has a master collection of U.S. postage stamps dating to 1847, and a large collection of revenue stamps, which are issued as proof of payment for special government taxes.

The museum’s library, a center for postal history and philatelic research, is among the largest of its kind in the world.

Stamps the Making

noreply@blogger.com (jayjay) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:22:00 +0000

Engraving and Printing
Bureau of, agency of the U.S. Treasury Department, established by the Appropriation Act of 1869. Actual printing of currency notes by Treasury employees began in 1863.
The bureau designs, engraves, and prints U.S. paper currency; Treasury bonds, bills, notes, and certificates of indebtedness; U.S. postage, customs, and revenue stamps; and engraved items for the various departments and agencies of the federal government.

All U.S. currency notes are printed from plates made from hand-tooled steel engravings; this type of printing is known as intaglio, the most difficult process to produce and to counterfeit. Annually, paper currency with a face value of more than $35 billion is printed, averaging about 16 million notes a day.
The bureau began producing U.S. postage stamps in 1894; previously the work had been done by private firms under government contract.

Watermark
Watermark, term for a figure or design incorporated into paper during its manufacture and appearing lighter than the rest of the sheet when viewed in transmitted light. Watermarks first appeared on papers produced in Italy around 1270, less than 100 years after the art of papermaking was introduced to Europe by Muslims from the Middle East.

The watermark was made when the semifluid paper pulp (mixture of cotton or other fibers) was being drained on a grid of laid (warp) and chain (woof) wires. Fine wires forming the desired design were tied on top of the grid and impressed into the pulp. This impression made the paper thinner, and therefore, more transparent, where it appeared.

Early in the 19th century, papermakers began to solder the watermark wires to the grid frame, thus insuring uniformity of impression and aiding in the detection of counterfeiting and forgery. The first British postage stamps of 1840 bore a watermark, but stamps of the United States were not so marked until 1895. When paper began to be machine-made, the watermark wiring was simply transferred to the grid cover of the dandy roll, a turning cylinder that passed over the paper.

Postal history of India

noreply@blogger.com (jayjay) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:29:00 +0000

Postal System History

The history of India's postal system begins long before the introduction of postage stamps.

The antecedents have been traced to the systems of the Persian Empire instituted by Cyrus the Great and Darius I for communicating important military and political information.

The Atharvaveda records a messenger service. Systems for collecting information and revenue data from the provinces are mentioned in Chanakya's Arthashastra (ca. 3rd century BC).
In ancient times the kings, emperors, rulers, zamindars or the feudal lords protected their land through the intelligence services of specially trained police or military agencies and courier services to convey and obtain information through runners, messengers and even through pigeons.

The chief of the secret service, known as the postmaster, maintained the lines of communication ... The people used to send letters to [their] distant relatives through their friends or neighbors.

For centuries it was rare for messages to be carried by any means other than a relay of runners on foot. A runner ran from one village or relay post to the next, carrying the letters on a pole with a sharp point.

His was a dangerous occupation: the relay of postal runners worked throughout the day and night, vulnerable to attacks by bandits and wild animals.

These mail runners were used chiefly by the rulers, for purposes of information and wartime news. They were subsequently used by merchants for trade purpose. It was much later that mail runners came to be in use for the carriage of private mail.

The postal history of India primarily began with the overland routes, stretching from Persia to India. What began as mere foot-tracks that more than often included fords across the mountaneous streams, gradually evolved over the centuries as highways, used by traders and military envoys on foot and horses, for carriage of missives.

The Arab influence of the Caliphate came about with the conquest of Sind by Muhammad bin Qasim in 712 A.D. Thereupon, the Diwan-i-Barid or Department of Posts established official communication across the far-flung empire. The swiftness of the horse messengers finds mention in many of the chronicles of that period.

The first Sultan of Delhi, Qutb-ud-din Aybak (Persian: قطب الدین ایبک) was Sultan for only four years, 1206 - 1210, but he founded the Mamluk Dynasty and created a messenger post system. This was expanded into the dak chowkis, a horse and foot runner service, by Alauddin Khilji in 1296.

Sher Shah Suri (1541-1545) replaced runners with horses for conveyance of messages along the northern high road, today known as the Grand Trunk Road, which he constructed between Bengal and Sindh over an ancient trade route at the base of the Himalayas, the Uttarapatha.

After 1793, when Cornwallis introduced the Regulation of the Permanent Settlement, the financial responsibility for maintaining the official posts rested with the zamindars. Alongside these, private dawk mail systems sprang up for the commercial conveyance of messages using hired runners. Also, the East India Company created its own infrastructure for the expansion and administration of military and commercial power.

The runners were paid according to the distance they travelled and the weight of their letters.
The Post Office Act XVII of 1837 provided that the Governor-General of India in Council had the exclusive right of conveying letters by post for hire within the territories of the East India Company.

The mails were available to certain officials without charge, which became a controversial privilege as the years passed. On this basis the Indian Post Office was established on October 1, 1837.

British India had hundreds of Princely States, some 652 in all, but most of them did not issue postage stamps. The stamp-issuing States were of two kinds: the Convention States and the Feudatory States. The postage stamps and postal histories of these States provide great challenges and many rewards to the patient philatelist. Many rarities are to be found here. Although handbooks are available, much remains to be discovered.

Postal history of Indian states

" Orchha 19142 annas red brown "

The Convention States are those which had postal conventions (or agreements) with the Post Office of India to provide postal services within their territories.

The adhesive stamps and postal stationery of British India were overprinted for use within each Convention State.

The first Convention State was Patiala, in 1884, followed by others in 1885. The stamps of the Convention States all became invalid 1 January 1950.

Reference: Charles Stewart-Wilson, British Indian Adhesive Stamps (Queen's Head) Surcharged for Native States,

rev. ed. with B.G. Jones (1904)

The Feudatory States maintained their own postal services within their territories and issued stamps with their own designs.

Many of the stamps were imperforate and without gum, as issued. Many varieties of type, paper, inks and dies are not listed in the standard catalogs.

The stamps of each Feudatory State were valid only within that State, so letters sent outside that State needed additional British India postage.

Reference: David Heppell, Modern Indian States postage stamp forgeries

Stamps Development

noreply@blogger.com (jayjay) — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 20:57:00 +0000

Development of Stamps
Brazil became the second country to use adhesive postage stamps in 1843, and the United States was the third in 1847.
By 1860 most nations had adopted the use of the postage stamp.
Early designs imitated those of Britain.
Monarchies and their territories issued stamps with portraits of their reigning king or queen. The United States depicted George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, two deceased statesmen, on its first stamps.
Some countries used national symbols.

Nonportrait designs
became popular by the end of the 19th century, and stamps created to commemorate important events began to be issued.
Today almost all countries issue large, colorful pictorials, often solely for the revenue obtained from sale to collectors.
Portraits of presidents and others who have made significant contributions to American life have since been featured on U.S. stamps.
Portraits of living people, however, are forbidden—a person’s likeness cannot appear on a U.S. stamp until at least ten years have passed since his or her death.
The only exceptions are presidents, whose portraits may appear on stamps immediately after they die.

Postage stamps eventually took on a wide variety of special purposes.

Postage-due stamps
(or simply “dues,” as collectors call them)

were affixed to envelopes to indicate insufficient postage.

Special stamps for airmail
newspapers
military delivery
income tax
railway delivery
special handling
and all sorts of other purposes were created.

Semipostals, or charity stamps, became a popular way for governments to raise funds for various causes.
These stamps cost more than their postage value, with the difference going toward the charitable cause.

Stamps have historically shown a specified amount of prepaid postage.
But in recent years many stamps have been printed without denominations, the majority from the United States, which often prints huge quantities of one-ounce, first-class stamps in anticipation of a postage increase.
The exact amount of the increase is not known at the time the stamps are printed, so they are simply marked with a letter of the alphabet or some other designation to indicate they represent the going rate for a one-ounce letter.
The year of issue is commonly placed at the bottom of U.S. nondenominational stamps to avoid confusion.

The last major postage innovation of the 20th century was the development and wide distribution of self-adhesive stamps—stamps that do not have to be moistened.
Consumers love them for their convenience, but collectors hate them because they are difficult to store in a stamp album.
Eventually, the only “lickable” stamps will likely be those intended primarily for collectors and souvenir hunters, such as America’s enormously popular;

Elvis Presley stamps
James Dean stamps
Marilyn Monroe stamps

The 21st century is apt to bring major changes to the postal industry, due mostly to the growing use of e-mail and other electronic means of transmitting information.
As post offices become less and less important and postal revenues decline, stamps commemorating events and folk heroes will likely become more common as a means of increasing sales.

Stamp Act

noreply@blogger.com (jayjay) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 01:38:00 +0000

Stamp Act, act introduced by the British prime minister George Grenville and passed by the British Parliament in 1765 as a means of raising revenue in the American colonies.

The Stamp Act required all legal documents, licenses, commercial contracts, newspapers, pamphlets, and playing cards to carry a tax stamp.

The act extended to the colonies the system of stamp duties then employed in Great Britain and was intended to raise money to defray the cost of maintaining the military defenses of the colonies.

Passed without debate, it aroused widespread opposition among the colonists, who argued that because they were not represented in Parliament, they could not legally be taxed without their consent.

Members of the Sons of Liberty, a patriotic secret society, were particularly active in opposing the imposition of the stamp tax, and they led a campaign of physical violence in which many official stamp agents were attacked by mobs and their property destroyed.

Resolutions of protest against the act were adopted by a number of the colonial assemblies. The Virginia House of Burgesses passed five such resolutions offered by the American patriot Patrick Henry.

Opposition culminated in the convening of the Stamp Act Congress to consider organized means of protesting against the tax. Colonial businessmen agreed to stop importing British goods until the act was repealed, and trade was substantially diminished.

Refusal to use the stamps on business papers became common, and the courts would not enforce their use on legal documents. Opposed by the British business community, the act was repealed by the British Parliament on March 4, 1766, after the members of the House of Commons heard the arguments of Benjamin Franklin, Pennsylvania's representative in London.

Repeal was accompanied by the Declaratory Act, which affirmed the right of the British government to pass acts legally binding on the colonists.

The unity of the American colonists in their opposition to the Stamp Act contributed substantially to the rise of American nationalist sentiment, and the conflict between the colonists and the British government over the Stamp Act is often considered one of the chief immediate causes of the American Revolution.

Sons of Liberty, secret patriotic society organized in the American colonies in 1765 to oppose the Stamp Act. After the act was repealed in 1766, the society, which consisted of numerous local chapters, formed Committees of Correspondence to foster resistance to oppressive British economic and political actions. The Sons of Liberty also helped enforce the policy of nonimportation, by which American merchants refused to import goods carried in British ships, and in 1774 it took part in convoking the Continental Congress. Its leaders included Samuel Adams and Paul Revere.

IBI STAMPS

noreply@blogger.com (jayjay) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 00:39:00 +0000

In the United States, the introduction of Information Based Indicia (IBI) technology has allowed newer ways to sell stamps. IBI is an encrypted 2-dimensional bar code that makes counterfeiting more difficult and easier to detect, offering value beyond postage. Unlike traditional postage meter indicia, each IBI is unique. The IBI contains security critical data elements as well as other information, such as point of origin and the sender. The IBI is human and machine-readable.

Prior to IBI being introduced, postage vault devices were used on personal computers to allow postage stamps to be printed from one's computer. The postage vault device is a tamper resistant postal security device to disable postage equipment when tampered with. The postage vault can be also identified as the means to store (and keep track of) monetary funds in the postage vault. You can think of this as prepaying for the right to print postage from your personal computer. The Internet is used to reset or replenish funds in the postage vault.
In March 2001, the United States Postal Service authorized Neopost Online and NorthroP Grumman Corporation to test an innovative purchasing stamp system. This self-service stamp vending system allows the consumer to peruse through a variety of denominations and quantities, select the desired purchase and swipe his/her credit card to submit a purchase order. The stamp vending system then authorizes the purchase order, prints the stamp sheet(s) and finally dispenses them to the consumer. The ability to peruse, request, authorize, print, and dispense a stamp purchase using the Internet makes these the world's first browser-based stamps. This is the first instance where IBI was utilized on adhesive labels. The product from this self-service stamp vending system is aptly named by collectors as Neopost web-enabled stamps. These stamps were available from March 2001 through August 2003 and were denominated (fixed value) stamps.

In 2002 the United States Postal Service authorized Stamps.com to issue NetStamps. The NetStamps utilizes IBI technology and can be printed from personal computers with postal vaults. In 2004 the United States Postal Service introduced the Automated Postal Centers (APC). These kiosks provided non-denominated ($0.01 to $99.99) stamps. The intent of the APC is to reduce labor required to service consumers at the postal counters. Recently, personal pictures have been paired with IBI technology to provide a personalized stamp for the consumer. These stamps are custom made and require a period of time (days) to produce.
The push towards using IBI technology aids the United States Postal Service in finding new venues to sell stamps. It also reduces the burden of maintaining the mechanical machines to sell stamps. The United States Postal Service still relies on consigning stamps to retailers and banks (via automatic teller machines (ATMs). They must be the same size and thickness as currency in order to be dispensed by the ATM.

Similarly, Royal Mail in the United Kingdom has recently launched a "Print-your-own-postage" service allowing the general public to purchase IBI-style codes online, and print them onto address stickers or directly onto envelopes, in lieu of using First Class postage stamps. This was much remarked-upon in the press as the first time a consumer "stamp" has not featured an image of the reigning monarch. It joins the existing "SmartStamp" subscription service, which performs the same function but is primarily aimed at business customers.

Stamp and Stamps Collecting

noreply@blogger.com (jayjay) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 23:34:00 +0000

STAMP & STAMPS COLLECTING

Postage stamps are adhesive labels affixed to letters or parcels to indicate that a specified amount of postage has been prepaid for delivery. Stamps are usually issued by a government or an agency representing a government, such as a national post office. The collecting and study of postage stamps and related items such as postcards is known as philately, a word derived from Greek meaning, literally, “love of what is free of further tax.” Stamp collecting is one of the most popular hobbies in the world.

COLLECTING

The hobby of collecting includes seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining whatever items are of interest to the individual collector. Some collectors are generalists, accumulating merchandise, or stamps from all countries of the world. Others focus on a subtopic within their area of interest, perhaps 19th century postage stamps, milk bottle labels from Sussex, or Mongolian harnesses and tack.

THE ITEMS COLLECTORS

collect may be antique, or simply collectible. Antiques are collectible items at least 100 years old; collectibles are less than antique, and may even be new. Collectors and dealers may use the word vintage to describe older collectibles. Most collectibles are man-made commercial items, but some private collectors collect natural objects such as birds' eggs, butterflies, rocks, and seashells.

TYPES OF COLLECTING

From the earliest years of the hobby, most philatelists have preferred to collect by country, specializing in the issues of one or more nations. Since about the mid-1950s, however, many philatelists have become interested in topical collecting, acquiring stamps illustrating certain themes or subjects. Among the wide range of pictorials are stamps devoted to sports, art and music, aviation, birds and flowers, literature, scouting, ships, and telecommunications

STAMPS

The idea for the adhesive postage stamp was first suggested by the English schoolmaster and civil servant Rowland Hill as one of the many postal reforms in Britain in 1837. Hill's conception, for which he was later knighted, was derived from similar labels that had been issued almost a century earlier in many parts of Europe as a way of collecting a tax on newspapers. In a treatise on post office reform, Hill also suggested that mail be prepaid, that charges be based on weight instead of the number of pages being sent, and that the rates be low enough to allow ordinary citizens to mail letters.

DEVELOPMENT OF STAMPS

Brazil became the second country to use adhesive postage stamps in 1843, and the United States was the third in 1847. By 1860 most nations had adopted the use of the postage stamp. Early designs imitated those of Britain. Monarchies and their territories issued stamps with portraits of their reigning king or queen. The United States depicted George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, two deceased statesmen, on its first stamps. Some countries used national symbols.
Nonportrait designs became popular by the end of the 19th century, and stamps created to commemorate important events began to be issued. Today almost all countries issue large, colorful pictorials, often solely for the revenue obtained from sale to collectors. Portraits of presidents and others who have made significant contributions to American life have since been featured on U.S. stamps. Portraits of living people, however, are forbidden—a person’s likeness cannot appear on a U.S. stamp until at least ten years have passed since his or her death. The only exceptions are presidents, whose portraits may appear on stamps immediately after they die.

POSTAGE STAMPS

eventually took on a wide variety of special purposes. Postage-due stamps (or simply “dues,” as collectors call them) were affixed to envelopes to indicate insufficient postage. Special stamps for airmail, newspapers, military delivery, income tax, railway delivery, special handling, and all sorts of other purposes were created. Semipostals, or charity stamps, became a popular way for governments to raise funds for various causes. These stamps cost more than their postage value, with the difference going toward the charitable cause.
Stamps have historically shown a specified amount of prepaid postage. But in recent years many stamps have been printed without denominations, the majority from the United States, which often prints huge quantities of one-ounce, first-class stamps in anticipation of a postage increase. The exact amount of the increase is not known at the time the stamps are printed, so they are simply marked with a letter of the alphabet or some other designation to indicate they represent the going rate for a one-ounce letter. The year of issue is commonly placed at the bottom of U.S. nondenominational stamps to avoid confusion.

THE LAST MAJOR POSTAGE

innovation of the 20th century was the development and wide distribution of self-adhesive stamps—stamps that do not have to be moistened. Consumers love them for their convenience, but collectors hate them because they are difficult to store in a stamp album. Eventually, the only “lickable” stamps will likely be those intended primarily for collectors and souvenir hunters, such as America’s enormously popular Elvis Presley, James Dean, and Marilyn Monroe stamps. The 21st century is apt to bring major changes to the postal industry, due mostly to the growing use of e-mail and other electronic means of transmitting information. As post offices become less and less important and postal revenues decline, stamps commemorating events and folk heroes will likely become more common as a means of increasing sales.

BEGINNING A COLLECTION

Some novice collectors start purchasing items that appeal to them, and then slowly work at acquiring knowledge about how to build a collection. Others (more cautious or studious types) want to develop some background in the field before starting to buy items. The term antique generally refers to items which were made at least 100 years ago or more. In some fields, such as antique cars, the time frame is less stringent — 25 years or so being considered enough time to make a car a "classic" if not an antique. In the area of furniture, some experts claim that a true antique must be at least 150 years old.
In general, then, items of significance, beauty, values or interest that are "too young" to be considered antiques, fall into the realm of collectibles. But not all collectibles are limited editions, and many of them have been around for decades: for example, the popular turn-of-the-century posters, Art Deco and Art Nouveau items, Carnival and Depression era glass, etc. In addition, there exists the "contemporary collectibles" category, featuring items like plates, figurines, bells, graphics, steins, and dolls.
Many collectors enjoy making a plan for their collections, combining education, stimulation and experimentation to develop a personal collecting style. And even those who reject the notion of "planned collecting" can refine their "selection skills" with some background information on the how-to's of collecting.

COLLECTING PROCEDURES

One of the attractions of stamp collecting is the ease of starting a collection. With access to enough incoming mail, especially from abroad, a person can build a collection without any expense. Literally tens of thousands of stamps, however, including many of the older issues, are priced very cheaply.
Little special equipment is required. A collector needs only an album to house the collection, some hinges or other types of mounts to attach the stamps to the pages, and a pair of stamp tongs with which to handle them. Stamps and accessories can be purchased easily. Nearly every city has a one or more professional stamp dealers. Thousands of other dealers operate exclusively by mail or the Internet.
Exchanging duplicate stamps is one of the greatest pleasures in philately. The best way to find trading partners is to join a school or other local stamp club.When collectors have accumulated a number of valuable stamps, they must take precautions for safe storage, preferably in a bank safety deposit box. If the stamps are in mint condition, they should not be overlapped; through changes in humidity, overlapping stamps may stick together and become seriously damaged. Collectors also should keep accurate written inventories of all their philatelic material.

OMNIBUS

An omnibus issue is any group of stamps, generally with the same design, released by a number of stamp-issuing authorities to mark the same occasion. The British Commonwealth has by far produced the greatest number of omnibus issues, the first being the George V Silver Jubilee series of 1935, another being the series released on July 29, 1981, to commemorate the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Frances Spencer.

Collecting of Postage stamps

noreply@blogger.com (jayjay) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 23:27:00 +0000

Stamp collecting is the collecting of postage stamps and related objects, such as covers, (envelopes or packages with stamps on them).It is one of the world's most popular hobbies, with estimates of the number of collectors ranging up to 20 million in the United States alone.

"STAMPS"

1. A device or instruments for stamping.
2.The impression or mark made by stamping or imprinting.
3. A distingtived character, indication, or mark.
4. The act of stamping.
5. A stamps or printed paper affixed in evidence that a Tax has been paid.

Test Stamps

noreply@blogger.com (jayjay) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 07:59:00 +0000

A test stamp, dummy stamp, or training stamp, is a label resembling a postage stamp that is used by postal authorities for testing equipment and/or training postal workers. They generally have the same size and shape as regular stamps, but with a minimal design. Although not normally made available to the general public, some are in private hands, and it is a recognized stamp collecting specialty.In the United Kingdom test stamps for coil dispensing machines are sometimes known as poached eggs, because of their design. They are printed the same size and format as the definitives and perforated in the same manner. The amount of ink used is also the same as actual postage stamps, so that they can be used to test the machines with material as close as possible to the actual postage stamps. The colour of these test stamps was changed from green to black after 1937 when some test coils were accidentally left in a machine and used as half-penny stamps. At the time of this colour change, text was also added to the centre of the labels indicating their use.In Germany test stamps were used between 1915 and 1930 to show advertisers in stamp booklets what their advertisement would look like. Small series of booklets were produced with large coloured numbers instead of the stamps for this purpose. These booklets are now very rare.

Postage Stamp Gum

noreply@blogger.com (jayjay) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 07:24:00 +0000

In philately, gum is the substance applied to the back of a postage stamp to enable it to adhere to a letter or other mailed item. The term is generic, and applies both to traditional types such as gum arabic and to synthetic modern formulations.
The use of gum was part of the original proposal by Rowland Hill, and has been universal from the beginning. There have been a number of stamp types that were issued ungummed, typically due to emergency situations when gum was not available, such as Italy in 1944, Kraków issue of Poland in 1919, Latvia in 1919. Other reasons have included lack of access to gum (the typewritten "Cowries" of 1895 Uganda), extreme tropical climate (1873 Curaçao and Suriname), and intent to sell only to collectors (as with the US "Farley's Follies" souvenir sheets of 1933). The manual gluing-on of postage is such an extreme consumption of time (and "time is money" to businesses with a lot of mail) that these situations are always temporary.
Originally, gumming took place after printing and before perforation, usually because the paper had to be damp for printing to work well, but in modern times most stamp printing is done dry on pregummed paper. There have been a couple of historical instances where stamps were regummed after being perforated, but these were unusual situations.
On early issues, gum was applied by hand, using a brush or roller, but in 1880 De La Rue came up with a machine gumming process using a printing press, and gum is now always applied by machine. The gum is universally spread as uniformly as possible, but a 1946 local issue by the town of Finsterwalde in Germany used an economy process where the back of the stamp had a regular pattern of circular bare patches.
The greatest manufacturing problem of the gumming process is its tendency to make the stamps curl, due to the different reaction of paper and gum to varying moisture levels. In the most extreme cases, the stamp will spontaneously roll up into a small tube. Various schemes have been tried, but the problem persists to this day. In Swiss stamps of the 1930s, Courvoisier used a gum-breaking machine that pressed a pattern of small squares into the gum, resulting in so-called grilled gum. Another scheme has been to slice the gum with knives after it has been applied. In some cases the gum solves the problem itself by becoming "crackly" when it dries.

Semi-postal design

noreply@blogger.com (jayjay) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 07:12:00 +0000

A semi-postal stamp or semipostal stamp is a postage stamp issued to raise money for some purpose (such as a charitable cause) and thus sold over and above the cost of postage. Typically the stamp shows two denominations separated by a plus sign, but in many cases the only denomination shown is for the postage rate, and the postal customer simply pays the higher price when purchasing the stamps.

The first semi-postal was actually a postal card; to commemorate the Uniform Penny Post in 1890, the United Kingdom issued a card with a face value of one penny, but sold it for sixpence, with the difference given to a fund for postal workers. The first semi-postal stamps were issued by the Australian colonies of New South Wales and Victoria, who both marked the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1897 with stamps denominated in pennies, but sold for shillings, a 12x increase over the face value.

Semi-postals became widespread in European countries at the beginning of the 20th century. In many cases they have become standard annual issues, such as the pro juventute series of Switzerland started in 1913. Many countries issued semi-postal stamps to raise money for the Red Cross in World War I. The surcharges are typically a fraction of the face value; at one points the Fédération Internationale de Philatélie was officially boycotting stamps with surcharges greater than 50 percent of face value, saying that such issues were exploitive of stamp collectors.

By contrast, the United States is a relative newcomer to semi-postals, with its first semi-postal being the breast cancer research stamp issued in July 1998. Several more have been issued since then.

Reproducible mark

noreply@blogger.com (jayjay) — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 23:39:00 +0000

Ancient Seal Seals and stamps have been used to close agreements, record transactions, and authorize documents for thousands of years. One of the earliest forms of printing, seals consisted of a raised or carved design in a rock that was pressed into wet clay or wax to create a distinctive and reproducible mark.

Sealing wax in a letter, Fonseca Padilla Family Coat of Arms, Jalisco, México.

Present-day impression of a Late Bronze Age seal

Armigerous signet ring

Signet rings, generally bearing a coat of arms

Portrait of the reigning King or Queen (Stamps)

noreply@blogger.com (jayjay) — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 23:27:00 +0000

Brazil became the second country to use adhesive postage stamps in 1843, and the United States was the third in 1847. By 1860 most nations had adopted the use of the postage stamp. Early designs imitated those of Britain. Monarchies and their territories issued stamps with portraits of their reigning king or queen. The United States depicted George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, two deceased statesmen, on its first stamps. Some countries used national symbols.
Nonportrait designs became popular by the end of the 19th century, and stamps created to commemorate important events began to be issued.

Today almost all countries issue large, colorful pictorials, often solely for the revenue obtained from sale to collectors. Portraits of presidents and others who have made significant contributions to American life have since been featured on U.S. stamps. Portraits of living people, however, are forbidden—a person’s likeness cannot appear on a U.S. stamp until at least ten years have passed since his or her death. The only exceptions are presidents, whose portraits may appear on stamps immediately after they die.

Postage stamps eventually took on a wide variety of special purposes. Postage-due stamps (or simply “dues,” as collectors call them) were affixed to envelopes to indicate insufficient postage. Special stamps for airmail, newspapers, military delivery, income tax, railway delivery, special handling, and all sorts of other purposes were created. Semipostals, or charity stamps, became a popular way for governments to raise funds for various causes. These stamps cost more than their postage value, with the difference going toward the charitable cause.

Stamps have historically shown a specified amount of prepaid postage. But in recent years many stamps have been printed without denominations, the majority from the United States, which often prints huge quantities of one-ounce, first-class stamps in anticipation of a postage increase. The exact amount of the increase is not known at the time the stamps are printed, so they are simply marked with a letter of the alphabet or some other designation to indicate they represent the going rate for a one-ounce letter. The year of issue is commonly placed at the bottom of U.S. nondenominational stamps to avoid confusion.

The last major postage innovation of the 20th century was the development and wide distribution of self-adhesive stamps—stamps that do not have to be moistened. Consumers love them for their convenience, but collectors hate them because they are difficult to store in a stamp album. Eventually, the only “lickable” stamps will likely be those intended primarily for collectors and souvenir hunters, such as America’s enormously popular Elvis Presley, James Dean, and Marilyn Monroe stamps. The 21st century is apt to bring major changes to the postal industry, due mostly to the growing use of e-mail and other electronic means of transmitting information. As post offices become less and less important and postal revenues decline, stamps commemorating events and folk heroes will likely become more common as a means of increasing sales.

New York,Dublin,Oxford,Japan,Hongkong

noreply@blogger.com (jayjay) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 07:56:00 +0000

Small-town Post office Aurora, New York

General Post office, Dublin
The Main Post office in Oxford
Post office , Kanazawa Japan
The Old Wan Chai Post office, Hongkong

Stamps United states of America

noreply@blogger.com (jayjay) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 11:58:00 +0000

Province of Afghanistan

noreply@blogger.com (jayjay) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 23:22:00 +0000

Earliest Oil Paintings Feb. 19, 2008 -- The oldest known oil painting, dating from 650 A.D., has been found in caves in Afghanistan's Bamiyan Valley, according to a team of Japanese, European and U.S. scientists.

The discovery reverses a common perception that the oil painting, considered a typically Western art, originated in Europe, where the earliest examples date to the early 12th century A.D.

Famous for its 1,500-year-old massive Buddha statues, which were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001, the Bamiyan Valley features several caves painted with Buddhist images.

Damaged by the severe natural environment and Taliban dynamite, the cave murals have been restored and studied by the National Research Institute for Cultural Properties in Tokyo, as a UNESCO/Japanese Fund-in-Trust project.

"Since most of the paintings have been lost, looted or deteriorated, we are trying to conserve the intact portions and also try to understand the constituent materials and painting techniques,"

Yoko Taniguchi, a researcher at the National Research Institute for Cultural Properties in Tokyo, told Discovery News.

"It was during such analysis that we discovered oily and resinous components in a group of wall paintings."

Painted in the mid-7th century A.D., the murals have varying artistic influences and show scenes with knotty-haired Buddhas in vermilion robes sitting cross-legged amid palm leaves and mythical creatures.

Most likely, the paintings are the work of artists who traveled on the Silk Road, the ancient trade route between China, across Central Asia's desert to the West.

The researchers analyzed, with different methods, hundreds of samples. Three different centers -- Tokyo's National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in France and the Los Angeles-based Getty Conservation Institute -- carried out the tests.

Infrared microscope, micro X-ray diffraction, and micro X-ray fluorescence produced accurate chemical images of the paintings. Gas chromatography confirmed and refined the identification of organic compounds.

"We discovered that a particular group of caves were painted with oil painting technique, using perhaps walnut and poppy seed drying oils. They also have multi-layered structure as if they were like canvas paintings of Medieval period," Taniguchi said.

Synchrotron beam analysis made it possible to identify the compounds used in the different layers of painting.

"These layers are very thin, and it was really important to analyze each of them selectively. Indeed, the paintings are done with a mixture of several ingredients. They are never present as a pure compound," Marine Cotte, a researcher at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France, told Discovery News.

Analysis showed the layers were made up of natural resins, proteins, gums, oil-based paint layers and, in some cases, a resinous, varnish-like

Multi-Layered

"It is amazing how the ancient people knew the nature of materials well, such as protein, gum, resin, oil, pigments and dyes, and also how to prepare and combine them effectively,"
Hidemi Otake, a painting conservator at the National Research Institute for Cultural Properties of Japan, told Discovery News.

Murals in many of the Bamiyan caves featured various painting materials and techniques that had been employed through the ages.

"Some caves have rough wall surfaces and matte finishes, and others have very smooth surface, and some have a transparency and shininess. Some paintings have glaze-like layers on top of paint," Otake said.

According to top Afghan archaeologist Zemaryalai Tarzi, president of the Association for the Protection of Afghan Archaeology, the discovery is important as it testifies Afghanistan's rich cultural heritage.

"My Japanese colleagues are conducting scientific research and an inventory of these fragments with courage and perseverance. But the discovery is yet not as important or significant as what the murals of Bamiyan used to be before their disappearance and destruction,".

Tarzi was Afghanistan's director general of archaeology and preservation of historical monuments until 1979, when he was forced to flee the country a few months before the Soviet invasion. He believes further research is necessary to establish the possible role of India and China in developing the technique.

"It would be very important to know if one can attribute this invention to Bamiyan alone," Tarzi said.
source: Discovery channel News

Postage Stamps

noreply@blogger.com (jayjay) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 07:43:00 +0000

Postage stamp design is the activity of graphic design as applied to postage stamps. Many thousands of designs have been created since a profile bust of Queen Victoria was adopted for the Penny Black in 1840; some considered very successful, others less so.

A stamp design includes several elements required for it to accomplish its purpose satisfactorily. Most important is the denomination indicating its monetary value, while international agreements require a country name on almost all types of stamps. A graphic design is very nearly universal; in addition to making counterfeits harder to produce and aiding clerks in quick recognition of appropriate postage, postal customers simply expect stamps to carry a design.

This 2005 stamp of the Faroe Islands is a typical example of modern stamp design: minimal text, intense color, artistic rendering of a country-specific subject.(photo)

source: wikipedia encyclopedia

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Denominion

noreply@blogger.com (jayjay) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 07:40:00 +0000

The fundamental purpose of a stamp is to indicate the prepayment of postage. Since different kinds and sizes of mail normally pay different amounts of postage, the stamps need to carry a value. In a very few cases, the denomination has been omitted; for instance, during the tumults of 1949 China, undenominated stamps were issued, so as to allow the price of a stamp to fluctuate on a daily basis depending on the value of the gold yuan.

The usual form of the denomination is a number, optionally preceded or followed by a currency symbol.
A prominent denomination on a 1949 stamp of China.(photo)

Country Name

noreply@blogger.com (jayjay) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 07:35:00 +0000

This 1924 stamp of Ubangi-Shari includes no less than four country names: Republique Francaise and Moyen Congo (Middle Congo) on the base stamp, Afrique Equatoriale Francaise and Oubangui-Chari as overprints.
The second required element, at least for stamps intended to be used on international mail, is the name of the country. The first postage stamps, those of the United Kingdom, had no need for a name, and by agreement the UK remains the only country not required to name itself on its stamps. For all other UPU members, the name must appear in Latin letters. Many countries using non-Latin alphabets used only those on their early stamps, and they remain difficult for most collectors to identify today.

Graphic Design

noreply@blogger.com (jayjay) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 07:28:00 +0000

The first of many profiles of Queen Victoria

The graphic element of a stamp design falls into one of four major categories:
1. Portrait bust - profile or full-face
2. Emblem - coat of arms, flag, national symbol, posthorn, etc

3. Numeric - a design built around the numeral of value 4. Pictorial

Textual Elements

noreply@blogger.com (jayjay) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 07:24:00 +0000

Textual elements written in a variety of scripts on a stamp of Israel.

Nearly all stamps have some amount of text embedded in their design. In addition to the expected denomination and country name, textual elements may include a statement of purpose ("postage", "official mail", etc), a plate number, the name of a person being portrayed, the occasion being commemorated, the year of stamp issue, and national mottoes.
Occasionally designs use text as their primary design element; for instance, a series of US stamps from the 1970s featured quotations from the United States Declaration of Independence. In general however, text has come to be used more sparingly in recent years.

Hidden Elements and "secret marks"

noreply@blogger.com (jayjay) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 07:22:00 +0000

Sometimes designers include tiny elements into a design, sometimes at the request of the stamp-issuing authority, sometimes on their own. Stamps may have a year or name worked into a design, while the US stamp honoring Rabbi Bernard Revel has a minute Star of David visible in his beard.
Secret marks are small design alterations added to distinguish printings unambiguously. These usually take the form of small lines or marks added to clear areas of a design. Chinese stamps of the 1940s have secret marks in the form of slightly altered characters, where two arms might be changed to touch, when previously they were separate.

Shape and Size

noreply@blogger.com (jayjay) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 07:18:00 +0000

Postage stamps of various shapes and sizes, from Italy, Yemen Arab Republic, France, and Hungary.
The usual shape of a postage stamp is a rectangle, this being an efficient way to pack stamps on a sheet. A rectangle wider than tall is called a "horizontal design", while taller than wide is a "vertical design".
A number of additional shapes have been used, including triangles, rhombuses, octagons, circles, and various freeform shapes including heart shapes, and even a banana shaped stamp issued by Tonga from 1969 to 1985.
The usual size ranges from 10-30 mm in each direction, experience having shown this to be the easiest to handle. Many countries use only a limited selection of dimensions, to simplify automated machinery that handles stamps.
The smallest postage stamp on record was issued by Mecklenburg-Schwerin in 1856, and was a square, with sides measuring 10 millimeters.
The biggest stamps in history were used in the USA from 1865 and measured 52 by 95 millimeters, but were used exclusively for mailing newspapers.

Design Evolution

noreply@blogger.com (jayjay) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 07:15:00 +0000

Stamp design has undergone a gradual process of evolution, traceable both to advances in printing technology and general changes in taste. Design "fads" may also be observed, where a number of countries tend to imitate each other. This may be driven by printing houses, many of which design and print stamps for multiple countries.

Design Process

noreply@blogger.com (jayjay) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 07:04:00 +0000

This classic Art Nouveau design of 1900s France and her colonies continued in use into the 1920s.

Once a general subject has been chosen, the postal administration typically contracts an outside artist to produce a design.
In working up a design, the artist must take into account the rules and constraints as mentioned above, and perhaps additional requirements, such as membership in a series of related designs.

In addition, the artist must consider the consequence of working on a small "canvas"; for instance, traditional paintings often reduce into an amorphous blur, and so the stamp designer will opt to pick a single interesting and/or characteristic detail as the center of the design. Similarly, a stamp consisting of simply a portrait will mean little to many users, and the artist may opt to include a visual element suggesting the person's accomplishments, such as an architect's most famous building, or simply add the word "architect" somewhere in the design.

The artist then submits one or more designs for the postal administration's approval. The accepted design may undergo several rounds of modification before entering the production process. The design may also be abandoned, perhaps if circumstances have changed, such as a change of government.