Small piece of paper that is displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment for postage
The main components of a stamp: 1. Image 2. Perforations 3. Denomination 4. Country name
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail). Then the stamp is affixed to the face or address-side of any item of mail—an envelope or other postal cover (e.g., packet, box, mailing cylinder)—which they wish to send. The item is then processed by the postal system, where a postmark or cancellation mark—in modern usage indicating date and point of origin of mailing—is applied to the stamp and its left and right sides to prevent its reuse. Next the item is delivered to its addressee.
Always featuring the name of the issuing nation (with the exception of the United Kingdom), a denomination of its value, and often an illustration of persons, events, institutions, or natural realities that symbolize the nation's traditions and values, every stamp is printed on a piece of usually rectangular, but sometimes triangular or otherwise shaped special custom-made paper whose back is either glazed with an adhesive gum or self-adhesive.
Because governments issue stamps of different denominations in unequal numbers and routinely discontinue some lines and introduce others, and because of their illustrations and association with the social and political realities of the time of their issue, they are often prized for their beauty and historical significance by stamp collectors whose study of their history and of mailing systems is called philately. Because collectors often buy stamps from an issuing agency with no intention to use them for postage, the revenues from such purchases and payments of postage can make them a source of net profit to that agency. On 1 May 1840, the Penny Black, the first adhesive postage stamp, was issued in the United Kingdom. Within three years postage stamps were introduced in Switzerland and Brazil, a little later in the United States, and by 1860, they were in 90 countries around the world.[1] The first postage stamps did not need to show the issuing country, so no country name was included on them. Thus the United Kingdom remains the only country in the world to omit its name on postage stamps; the monarch's image signifies the United Kingdom as the country of origin.[2]
^"The Penny Post revolutionary who transformed how we send letters". BBC. Archived from the original on 2 October 2019. Retrieved 14 August 2019.
^Cite error: The named reference Garfield was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
A postagestamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the...
adhesive postagestamps, first issued by the U.S. government post office July 1, 1847, in the denominations of five and ten cents, with the use of stamps made...
states, some of which produced stamps for use within their respective dominions, while British Indian postagestamps were required for sending mail beyond...
Revenue stamps often look very similar to postagestamps, and in some countries and time periods it has been possible to use postagestamps for revenue...
For postagestamps, separation is the means by which individual stamps are made easily detachable from each other. Methods of separation include: perforation:...
Postagestamp reuse is the technique of fraudulently reusing postagestamps from sent mail to avoid paying the cost of postage. A postagestamp is a small...
A commemorative stamp is a postagestamp, often issued on a significant date such as an anniversary, to honor or commemorate a place, event, person, or...
Postagestamps and postal history of Great Britain surveys postal history from the United Kingdom and the postagestamps issued by that country and its...
Stamp collecting is the collecting of postagestamps and related objects. It is an area of philately, which is the study (or combined study and collection)...
fih-LAT-ə-lee) is the study of postagestamps and postal history. It also refers to the collection and appreciation of stamps and other philatelic products...
list of postagestamps that are especially notable in some way, often due to antiquity or a postagestamp error. Among the best-known stamps are: Penny...
a long and varied postal history and has produced a large number of postagestamps. These have been produced by a variety of techniques including line...
letter basis, rather than weight. The United States issued its first postagestamps in 1847. Before that time, the letters' rates, dates, and origins were...
astrophilately (space-related stamp collecting) began. Nations such as the United States and USSR issued commemorative postagestamps depicting spacecraft and...
This is a survey of the postagestamps and postal history of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and the modern Russian Federation. Records mention a...
The postagestamps of Ireland are issued by the postal operator of the independent Irish state. Ireland was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain...
A definitive stamp is a postagestamp that is part of the regular issue of a country's stamps, available for sale by the post office for an extended period...
prepaid. Proof of payment is usually in the form of an adhesive postagestamp, but a postage meter is also used for bulk mailing. Postal authorities often...
This is a survey of the postagestamps and postal history of Switzerland. The first stamps used in Switzerland were issued by the cantons of Zürich (1843)...
led to his invention of stamp gum in 1837. The world's first adhesive postagestamp was called the Penny Black. Many early stamps were not gummed, however...
A coffee stamp is a postagestamp with designs related to coffee. The oldest is believed to have been issued in Ethiopia in 1894. It is estimated that...
the Federation. The stamps referred to above are those listed in the Scott Standard PostageStamp Catalog. A number of other stamps have also been issued...
authority. A postage meter imprints an amount of postage, functioning as a postagestamp, a cancellation and a dated postmark all in one. The meter stamp serves...
The Penny Black was the world's first adhesive postagestamp used in a public postal system. It was first issued in the United Kingdom on 1 May 1840 but...
entrepreneur and inventor who created the encased postagestamp. Gault used these encased postagestamps as a means to solve a coin shortage during the Civil...
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