About Stamps History of Philately Stamp Collecting History of Ukrainian Postage Stamps Postage stamps and postal history of Russia Stamps Terminology

Fastpost Stickers. A small sticker used on letters to show that the letter is being sent by New Zealand Post’s FastPost service.

First Day Cover (FDC). An unaddressed envelope on which the stamps are affixed. The stamps are postmarked or cancelled on the first day of the stamp issue, or the first day of an event recorded by the cancellation date.

Fiscal Cancellation. A cancellation of a stamp where the stamp is attached to a document in order to meet government charges (on Bills, deeds, etc). This cancellation is often done in pen or pencil rather than with the use of a date stamp.

Foxing. Unusual name used to describe very small marks of rust on a stamp.

Gutter. Some stamps are printed in sheets which have a printed or unprinted space through the middle, dividing the sheet into two sections or panes. A ‘gutter pair’ is two stamps, one on each side of the gutter.
Hagner System

Hair Line. The name for a scratch or a very thin line in the design of a stamp caused by damage to the plate or cylinder during printing, sometimes referred to as a scratched plate. Also a term given to a fine line printed across one corner of a stamp illustration when reproduced, in colour at full size, in a magazine or brochure – to stop anyone cutting out the stamp image and using it to pay for postage.

Handstamp. A type of postal marking, such as a cancellation on a stamp, which is applied by hand rather than by using a machine.

Hawid Mounts. Transparent acetate pockets in which stamps are placed for mounting on album pages.

Hinges. Small, gummed pieces of paper that are used to stick a stamp into a stamp collection book or folder.
Imperforate Stamps. Stamps which are printed in a sheet without perforations.

Imprint. Writing on the selvage of a sheet of stamps which identifies who designed, engraved, and /or printed it.

Imprint Block. A block of stamps which has a selvage imprint printed upon it.

Inverted Watermark. The watermark shows upside down when compared with the stamp design.

Letter Card. A folded card gummed on the outside edges and with an imprinted postage stamp.

Letterpress Printing. This method is the one most used today to overprint stamps. The design to be printed stands up from the rest of the plate. The ink is put on the raised up part and when the raised up part touches the paper, the design is printed.

Line Engraving. In this type of printing, the design is cut out of a steel plate as lots of fine lines. This is a type of recess printing.

Lithography Printing. As with photogravure printing, this type of printing uses lots of tiny dots to make up the design. But, where in photogravure printing the dots are all the same size, in lithography printing the dots are different sizes. The larger the dots, the deeper the colour that is printed and the smaller the dots the lighter the colour printed. As most newspapers are printed using lithographic printing, if you look at a newspaper photograph with a magnifying glass you will see the pattern of dots. On a stamp printed by lithography the lettering is not normally broken down into dots but, where the stamp is printed by photogravure, even the lettering is made up of lots of tiny dots. Lithography printing is done by printing from a completely flat printing plate that has the stamp design marked on it by a special photographic system.

Local Stamps. Local stamps are issued to pay the post office to deliver a letter locally. An example is special stamps used on letters sent from an offshore island to the mainland. This sort of stamp would be known as local carriage stamps.

Logo Block. The bottom right corner of each sheet of stamps containing the New Zealand Post logo.

Maximum Card. A pictorial postcard bearing an illustration, photograph or design relating to the stamp affixed, and the postmark appended to the picture side of the postcard. The three elements must relate but not be identical.

Miniature Sheet. A sheet of stamps issued in a small format. A miniature sheet can contain between one and six stamps of varying denominations. The stamps are contained within an overall illustrative panel. Some miniature sheets are overprinted or produced to commemorate national and international stamp exhibitions.

Miniature Sheet Booklet. Presentation booklet containing miniature sheets of each stamp of an issue, plus background information on the stamps.

Mint Condition. Mint stamps have not been used for postage, and accordingly bear no cancellation. A mint stamp should be in pristine condition (See also Mint Unhinged and Unused).

Mint Unhinged. The description of a stamp on which the gum does not show any hinge marks (See also Mint Condition and Unused).

Newspaper Stamp. A stamp specially issued for the low postage rate used to post newspapers.

Numeral Cancellation. In the early days of the post office every post office was given a number. A Numeral Cancellation was one that showed the number of the post office cancelling the stamp.

Offset Printing. In this type of printing, the printing plate prints the design of the stamp onto a rubber cylinder and the cylinder rolls against the paper and this prints the design of the stamp onto the paper.

Opitical Character Reader. Machines in mail centres that ‘read’ the address on letter mail then print a small barcode on the lower right section of the envelop or card (for sorting purposes). OCR’s can operate at the rate of ten mail pieces a second.

Overprint. Extra words, letters, logo, symbol or numbers printed on the face of a stamp some time after the stamp has been printed.

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