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

People have been collecting stamps for more than a hundred and fifty years. Ever since the first stamp, the Penny Black, was issued in England in 1840, people have kept these small pieces of paper in collections.

At first, stamps were known as 'labels' and it is amusing to discover that, when stamps were still a novelty in the 1850s, the English only collected foreign stamps. The British ones that came through the post were ignored and because so few were saved, those stamps are now great treasures.

Stamp Design. One of the things that make stamps so much fun to collect is their design.

No stamp is ever printed without a reason. Perhaps there is a special occasion, such as the Olympic Games, or an anniversary of a famous event. Perhaps the postal rates are being changed and the stamp designs are altered at the same time.

The Stamps Business compiles each annual stamp programme establishing the number of stamps to be issued and the subjects to be depicted. Special anniversaries and special events are all considered when deciding what stamps to issue. Many organisations also write to Post suggesting events or subjects that would be good on a stamp and all of these are considered carefully to see whether they are suitable.

Once it has been decided on what should go on a stamp issue, a number of designers (normally three) are invited to develop concepts of what they think the stamps should look like. The concepts are presented at twice or four times larger than stamp size for evaluation.

The best concept is chosen to be developed through to finished art and the lucky designer sets to work to carefully completing the final design. Often, there will be a number of changes to make to the initial design before it is finally accepted.

Printing. Once the final design has been approved, it is sent to the printer. Because the drawing is much larger than the stamp to be printed, the printer reduces it in size. Then the stamp design is copied many times so that lots of stamps can be printed on one sheet of paper.

Three methods of stamp production are currently employed to produce Postage stamps:

Intaglio. This method is also described as 'recess' or 'engraved'. It was by this process that the first postage stamps in England in 1840 were produced.

There are three distinct stages in the preparation of a printing plate for Intaglio printing:

The original die is prepared from a small plate of high quality steel. in order that the engraver is able to work upon the steel, it is submitted to a process of decarbonisation by which it is softened. The design is applied in reverse and colour lines in recess. These days the actual engraved image can be applied by photographic and chemical means to the metal plate (at much less cost) but this process results in lines all of a similar depth and cannot achieve the subtleness of the hand engraved image.

Once the image is engraved the die is hardened a "transfer roller" is produced, this is a circular piece of metal which is softened by the decarbonisation process and which is rolled over the hardened die under great pressure in a transfer press. Consequently the soft metal is forced into the grooves cut by the die. The roller is then harden ready for making the printing plate. The impression on the roller is positive, that is, exactly as the stamp will be printed.

As with the die and the roller the sheet of steel from which the printing plate will be made must be softened to take the impression of the roller. Under considerable pressure the roller is applied to the plate the desired number of times. The plate is then hardened and printing may commence.

During the printing process ink is applied to the plate followed by a sheet of stamp paper which then moves under a roller exerting considerable pressure with the result that the paper is forced into the grooves cut in the plate and picks out the ink therein. A particular feature of this method in printing is that the ink on the paper stands above the paper surface and may be identified by touch.

Photo-Lithography. This is a modern method of printing which dates back to 1798, the original process consisted of transferring a design to a stone with special greasy ink. The flat printing surface was then moistened so that when the ink was applied it only adhered to the greased portion and this was then impressed onto paper without the use of any real pressure.

In offset-lithography the image is photographed by means of a step and repeat machine onto a specially sensitised sheet of thin zinc. The image on the plate is inked and transferred "offset" by a rubber sheet or blanket on to the stamp paper.

In the more modern version of photo-lithography the stamp design is photographically processed onto an etched zinc plate which is then attached to the cylinder of a rotary printing press.

Photogravure. Photogravure is a form of recess printing. The basic design is photographed and the negative is used as a master die from which a series of positive images, as required to make up a sheet of stamps, are produced on a glass plate. This plate is known as the "multipositive". The plate is processed onto a carbon tissue which has a "screened" surface of finely crossed lines. The carbon tissue, is then wrapped around a copper cylinder and etched with a solution of ferric chloride, leaving a pattern of small recesses on the cylinder. These correspond to the "grid" formation of the screen and vary in depth according to the strength of the tones on the multipositive plate. The cylinder is then chrome-plated and used for printing.

While being a complicated process it is also one that is more suited to large production runs, making it uneconomical for small orders when compared to photo-lithography.

The paper that stamps are printed on has varied through the years. Some early stamps had silk threads woven into the paper, while others were printed on paper in which small fibres, looking like coloured hairs, could be seen. Some of the most unusual papers to be used were used by Latvia just after World War I. There was a paper shortage but lots of old German staff maps were found, and as the backs of these maps were blank, stamps were printed on them and issued in 1918. The next year Latvia issued stamps on exercise-book paper, ruled with blue lines and others on very thin, transparent paper, similar to cigarette paper. Later stamps from Latvia were even printed on the backs of unfinished bank notes.

The United States of America used another type of paper in 1873 which was made up of two thicknesses joined together. One thickness was very hard, while the top thickness, on which the design was printed, was very soft. The idea was that if anyone tried to rub out the postmark, the soft paper would be destroyed and the stamp would be useless. Another type of paper used in the USA was blue rag paper. As its name suggests, this paper was made from rags and has a slight bluish colour.

Watermarks. Just like banknotes, many stamps used to be printed on watermarked paper, so that if you hold the stamp up to the light the watermark will show up.

On some stamps the watermark is hard to see, so expert collectors use a watermark detector. This is usually a black tray or a tile with a polished surface. The stamp is placed face downwards on the tray and the watermark usually shows up quite clearly.

The name 'watermark' is a bit confusing really, because the watermark has nothing to do with water. When watermarked paper is made, the wet paper pulp is squeezed thin between two rollers. On one of these rollers has small pieces of bent wire or metal shapes known as 'bits' affixed. These 'bits' press on the pulp and make it very slightly thinner in those places. The 'bits' are in the shape of the watermark, say a crown or an anchor, and so the watermark is made.

Watermarks can often make one stamp more valuable than another. One stamp issued by Transvaal was the King Edward VII red penny. When Thomas De La Rue & Co Ltd were printing these stamps, they were also printing stamps for the Cape of Good Hope, and a sheet of the paper used for the Cape of Good Hope was mixed in with the paper for the Transvaal stamps. In this way, a few Transvaal King Edward VII red penny stamps had a cabled anchor watermark instead of the usual Multiple Crown water mark. This makes these Transvaal King Edward VII red penny stamps extremely valuable.

All sorts of watermarks have been used on stamps. Watermarks that have been used include lotus flowers, lions, pineapples, castles, an umbrella, a conch shell, an elephant's head, a pyramid, a honeycomb, turtles, roses, shamrocks, thistles, and aeroplanes. Even the common crown watermark varies. For instance, English stamps have featured both a Tudor crown and a St. Edward's crown. In the case of New Zealand’s early stamps the letters NZ and a star were a common watermark

Perforations. The perforation on a stamp is the row of holes along which the stamps are ripped to separate them from each other.

The very first stamps that were issued were imperforate (not perforated) simply because nobody had invented a machine for making perforation holes at that time. To separate the stamps, they were cut with scissors and, often, not very carefully. That is why many very old stamps are found with cuts in them or with borders missing.

A machine to perforate stamps was invented by Henry Archer, an Irishman, about 1847. He wrote to the British Postmaster General saying that it would be better if all stamps were perforated. The Postmaster General liked the idea and, in 1854, the world's first perforated stamps were officially issued by Great Britain.

Some stamps come with two sides perforated and two imperforate. These are known as 'coils' because they were made in a long strip for use in stamp machines. Others may have only three sides perforated. these being stamps produced in a booklet format and have been guillotined down one side when the booklets were being produced.

Gum. Even the gum on the back of stamps can increase their value. Gum on the back of a stamp is important to a collector as it makes the stamp closer to perfect condition. Gum is applied to the back of stamp paper before the stamp design is printed on it.

The gum used on many early stamps contained a substance called dextrin or potato starch. The gum was usually a white colour but not always. In 1855 the backs of some British stamps were coated with green gum, while the German state of Hanover used red gum on its stamps as early as 1850. In 1859, Hanover stamps were issued with a rose-coloured gum on the back. Today, an almost invisible gum called PVA gum is used on most stamps.

One problem of coating paper with gum is that the gum causes the paper to curl up and makes it hard to print the stamp design on it. So, once the paper is covered with gum, the paper goes through a special machine that causes the gum on the paper to crack up into little pieces. This stops the paper from curling up.

In some countries, a design was embossed on the gum on the back of stamps for the same reason. German stamps issued in the 1920s and 1930s had an embossed pattern of lines on them while, after the Second World War, some local issues had a honeycomb pattern on the gummed side of the stamp.

Overprints and Surcharges. Surcharges are where the value of the stamp has been changed by having another value printed on the stamp, usually in black. For example, a 2½ cent New Zealand stamp featuring the Magpie moth, had two lines printed through the 2½ cent value on the stamp and a 4 cent surcharge value printed at the top of the stamp.

Varieties. 'Varieties' is the name given to stamps that are different in some way from the normal issue. This can be because of a mistake in the stamp's design, printing, overprinting, colour, paper, perforation, or watermark.

When a postal authority issue stamps, they try to ensure that there are no printing mistakes on the stamps because, if there were big differences between stamps of the same issue it would be easy for someone to forge these stamps. But nothing is perfect and small differences do occur when stamps are made. And, sometimes, small mistakes will slip past the people selling the stamp.

Often the mistake is simply a printing fault such as a missing dot or part of the stamp that has not printed properly. On some stamps, though, there have been mistakes made when the stamp was designed.

For example, on one Swiss stamp there was a picture of William Tell's son holding an arrow and an apple, standing behind his father's bow. When the stamp was first issued, the stamp designer had drawn the bowstring 'in front' of the cross-bow stock. When this mistake was discovered, the stamp was re-issued with the bowstring 'behind' the cross-bow. This makes this stamp quite valuable and very popular amongst expert stamp collectors.

In another case, a 1938 Fijian stamp showed a canoe sailing along without anyone aboard. This was corrected when the stamp was re-issued in 1940!

Sometimes there are differences in the colours of the stamps as a result of a printing fault. However, as it is difficult to tell whether a stamp is a different colour because of a printing fault or simply because the stamp has faded over time, colour differences are really only of interest to expert stamp collectors.

Paper varieties are also very difficult to find, and are also really only of interest to professional stamp collectors.

Cinderella Stamps. Cinderella stamps are not postally valid postage stamps. However, many of these stamps are very interesting and, many are quite rare and valuable.

There are many types of Cinderella stamps - Local Posts, Fiscal Stamps, Railway, Newspaper and Delivery stamps; Exhibition and Commemorative Labels, and Charity seals.

In Britain, the collecting of Cinderella stamps has grown rapidly over the years and there is now a Cinderella Stamp Club which publishes a magazine called 'The Cinderella Philatelist'.

The Reefton Provisional stamps were produced for use by the Sergeant of Police at Reefton. Because the Greymouth Postmaster was short of the one penny and two penny stamps the Sergeant had ordered, a rubber stamp was used to produce a postage label with the words 'Greymouth Paid' inside a double lined circle, the word 'Official' in red ink was included in the design. These 'stamps' are very rare and very valuable.

Fiscal stamps are stamps originally issued to collect what is known as 'Stamp Duty'. This charge was payable when people did certain things such as buy land or renewed their passports. Using stamps as a way of collecting this duty was first started in 1866 when the Government passed the Stamp Duties Act 1866. These days, with the use of computers and modern technology, Stamp Duty is not collected through the use of paper stamps.