RESTRICTED
PHILATELY
Brief History and Nature of Subject
"Postage stamps for denoting payment of postage
shall be issued by postal administrations only." Article 9 of the Universal Postal Union Convention.
2.
Revenue from the sale of postage stamps may be earned either by selling for the ordinary pre-payment of postage on letters, cards, packets and parcels passing through the postal service, or by selling to collectors for assembling in stamp collections. Philately has been defined as the study and collection of stamps, and other marks of pre-payment of postage which may be issued by postal administrations, and has existed as a hobby almost since the first introduction of postage stamps in 1840. There is record of an advertisement in the London Times of 1841 asking for cancelled stamrs andit is believed that the first philatelic magazine was published in 1861. The Philatelic Society of London was founded in 1869, the same year as the orening of the Suez Canal and the completion of the first trans-continental railway in the USA. The subject of philately in recent years has become extremely specialised and widely develoned on a nation-wide basis and the stamm-collecting community are kent un-to-date with events in the postal world by a well-informed and authoritative. philatelic press. Study Grours and Associations have been formed in many countries and these too may issue their own magazines or news sheets. Such groups may be formed for the purpose of limiting speciality to a particular issue, or aspect of philately to suit themselves. The following are items in which collectors may be interested:-
(i) used stamps which have been passed through the postal
service on items of mail (these are usually the 'definitive' issues) or mint stamps in the definitive series;, as well as mint and used stamps of other issues (see nara."3 below): (i) postmarks (other evidence of pre-rayment of postage):
(iii) penalty or surcharge stamps (affixed where postage is
underpaid)
(iv)
stamp booklets; (v) machine rolls of stamps:
(vi)
imperfectly-printed stamps;
(vii) various configurations or grours of stamps from the sheets printed, e.g. squares of 4 stamps, gutter sets, etc.
Description of Various Tyres of Stamp Issues
3.
These may be definitive, commemorative, thematic, omnibus, or merely special', and the number of denominations to be decided for each issue will vary according to the rurṛose of the issue as described below.
(a) Definitives These are the normal stamms of a country
issued for postal purposes which will remain on sale for several years, usually with a minimum of 5 years. According to the postal requirements of a country a definitive issue may contain anything un to 15 denominations and planning should aim at having a single stamp for each of the main types of letter in general use. e.g. internal surface mail, the 15 gramme external air letter, an international aerogramme and postcards; thereafter denominations should be spaced to cover large areas of the parcel post with the highest denominations being used for the pre-payment of airmail parcels. The virtue of having a single stamp to cover the total postal charge on the commonest types of mail means that the Post Office will economise in its printing costs.
/(b) Commemoratives
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