Philately
Philatelists do not only collect postage stamps. They
study anything which is or has been used as receipt for
the postal fees. Postmarks alone are also a field of special interest.
Collecting Definitives
I collect postally used stamps, and am mainly interested in definitive
stamps from all over the world. That means "common" stamps like
the British Machin design,
the German "Famous women" or
"Landmarks", the French "Marianne" and
"Liberté",
the Swiss "Animals" and "Professions" series
or the Chinese Great Wall issue,
just to name a few examples. Boring? No way! There is at least
as much fun in it as in collecting commemorative stamps, maybe more,
considering the recent flood of commemoratives. It can be
quite a hunt to find some supposedly common definitives in good
used condition. Some of them I still haven't found. Perhaps we can swap some?
Send me an e-mail if you
would like to. My wantlists are being updated as you read this.
My wantlists
My Shoebox
Sometimes, odd bits end up in your possession, don't really fit
anywhere in the collection, and still, you don't want to throw
them out :-) They are usually relegated to a shoebox (or a similar
container).
For what it's worth (probably not even a
plastic token coin),
here are a few examples from my box of odds and ends. Some of them come
with questions attached - answers are much appreciated and will be
added to this page!
- Indian definitive stamps are printed in huge numbers, it is thus
not really surprising that some of them show printing flaws.
Still, I believe a long wedge-shaped discolouration down
several stamps deserves to be shown.
- Reading Mail Centre must have had a bad day, or it was simply getting
late - it took them
four attempts and two
cancelling machines to cancel
the stamp on this letter (a fourth postmark is on the back).
- Who knows how this strange combination of
test image and postmark
came to be?
- Sometimes, clearly non-philatelic items turn up in stamp mixtures,
for instance some outdated Green
Shield trading stamps.
According to TC Blair in rec.collecting.stamps.discuss, these
"were a sales promotion or
incentive scheme designed to encourage shopping.
Popular in the UK during the Sixties and Seventies,
shoppers were presented with stamps based on
the size of their purchase.
They then collected the green colored stickers
in a book. The books could later be exchanged
for a range of household goods such as toasters,
garden furniture and toys."
- I found some more savings
stamps in a bag of Irish kiloware. Can anybody tell me when they were
printed, and by whom they were issued?
- Charity labels seem to be widely used in the Northern countries.
Does anybody know when this Norwegian
cancer charity label was printed?
- Some items look deceivingly like postage stamps, but are none. This one
depicting a fairytale character
(Snow White?) was found on the envelope of a birthday card. I'm definitely
going to think of this one when people talk about "cinderella stamps" ...
and I wonder how many of these were mistakenly used instead of proper
postage stamps. Where did they come from? A children's magazine perhaps?
Philatelic web links
Useful information:
Selected countries:
The following links partly reflect and partly exceed my own interests.
For more information see e.g. W2VTM's list of International
Postal Authorities.
Books, magazines, catalogs:
Jan-Martin Hertzsch
Last updated 2019-01-10.
