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Chapter 2. There Are Many Kinds Of Stamps

When the first stamp was issued, and for a number of years thereafter, stamps were completely functional. They were issued to pay postage on letters. It was not long, however, before other ideas crept in. Naturally enough, if a postage stamp could carry a picture of the ruling monarch it could also be the means of publicizing other things. Probably the first country to break away from the traditional portrait of the sovereign or the national coat of arms as the design for stamps was the Province of Canada, whose first stamp was issued in 1851 and carried as its central motif a beaver. This is the more remarkable for Canada was among the first few nations of the world to issue postage stamps and, being a British possession, one would have thought that the traditional portrait of Queen Victoria would have been used. The reason for this break away from tradition, a tradition by the way that still persists to this very day in Great Britain, is not known. The beaver was an important animal in the economy of Canada at that time and evidently was considered of greater importance for picturing on a postage stamp than the ruling monarch. Indeed, there were three stamps in this first series of Canada and the portrait of the Queen occupied the highest denomination, that of her consort, Albert, occupying the intermediate denomination of the trio. Perhaps it was felt that the Queen by occupying the highest denomination had received the place of honor.

Canada marked her 1851 stamps' centenary with a reproduction of the "Three Penny Beaver".

Whatever the reason for Canada's break away from the tradition, the idea of pictorial stamps found wide expression so that by the turn of the century countries everywhere were picturing the scenic spots of their land, products that were of importance or statuary of prominent people. So far so good. A postage stamp was still a postage stamp whatever picture it carried. In 1876 an entirely new idea was introduced, and by no less a nation than the United States when, to commemorate the Centennial Exposition, the Government caused to be issued a special stamped envelope. Thus was born the commemorative stamp, an idea that was eventually to capture the imagination of nations throughout the world and to be used by a few small countries to replenish from collectors' pocketbooks the national treasuries. A commemorative stamp such as was first issued was still an ordinary postage stamp. It differed from the ordinary stamp only in that it wag issued for a short period of time and in honor of a special event.

United States Centennial envelope, the world's first commemorative stamp.

But if a stamp could be issued to commemorate a special event, then why could not a stamp be issued to raise funds for something special?

That horrible thought was given birth in 1897 when New South Wales issued two stamps to raise funds with which to build a home for consumptives. It is an idea that has cost stamp collectors many millions of dollars and one which has accounted for a large portion of all of the modern stamps issued in late years. The plan was simple. Stamps were issued in double denomination, but had postal franking power for only a portion of their face value. The other portion was donated to the charity for which they were issued.

At first such stamps were designated by collectors as "charity" stamps. But the uses to which they were put soon made the word "charity" a charitable description indeed of their purpose. Before long these stamps were issued to raise funds for the Red Cross, invalided soldiers, poor children, war orphans, restoration of cathedrals, the building of national monuments and lighthouses and even to help eradicate a grasshopper plague. There is no end to the purposes that can be, and have been, dreamed up to issue postage stamps with the idea of raising funds for some "worthy" project. The list of countries that have engaged in this practice is without end and the idea persists in ever wider circles. Even our own nation is not completely with clean hands. In 1930 we indulged the operators of the airship Graf Zeppelin by issuing a set of three stamps in denominations of 65$, $1.30, and $2.60 and turned over the Zeppelin Co. most of the money from those that were used to mail letter aboard the airship.

Stamps issued to raise funds for French war victims, the reconstruction of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna and for Spanish Red Cross.

Graf Zeppelin stamps.

Long since, the catalogues of the world have ceased to call these "charity" stamps in favor of the more descriptive name, "semi-postal" stamps.

While many modern semi-postal stamps are frankly intended to raise funds for some stated purpose by including upon the stamp itself an extra charge, others are not quite so obvious. The "charity" idea has often been hidden in devious manners. Thus Spain and Portugal, to mention two specific instances, have issued long sets of stamps which of themselves in no way indicate that they were intended to raise funds. These stamps were placed on very limited sale on certain designated days and would not be good for postage on any days other than the specified ones. The general public, of course, would be largely unaware of this restricted use and few of the stamps would actually find their way into the ordinary postal use. However, such stamps were indeed postage stamps and were perfectly good for postage purposes if used on the specified days. Hence, they received wide distribution among stamp collectors and thus provided large sums of money without the necessity of the Post Office performing any service. Such income is, of course, pure "velvet" and can amount to a very considerable sum. In the case of the Pombal ssries issued by Portugal in 1925 an extremely ingenious idea was employed. With this issue it was made mandatory that on certain specified days the Pombal stamps were required in addition to ordinary postage stamps. Failure to use them resulted in "postage due" being charged and for this purpose special Pombal postage-due stamps were issued. The money thus raised was to be used to build a national monument to the Marquess of Pombal. In this case the entire population of the country was directly taxed. Also, of course, many hundreds of thousands of the stamps were acquired by collectors.

Marquess of Pombal.

It is not always necessary to issue special stamps to raise substantial funds. Very small countries, where the use of the mail is negligible, have found that, by issuing attractive and numerous postage stamps, a very large sum of money will accrue to the treasury through sale to stamp collectors. Thus the Republic of San Marino has for many years found one of its principal exports to be postage stamps for collectors. Other nations have found this to be a very lucrative source of revenue.

Attractive stamps of tiny Liechtenstein, Monaco and San Marino.

Many British colonies also benefit substantially from the sale of attractive postage stamps, a particular example being Pitcairn Island. The 177 people living on this tiny island possession of Great Britain did very well without postage stamps until 1940. But suddenly the world became acutely conscious of this island through the book and the moving picture Mutiny on the Bounty. The possibilities of this situation were too good to be overlooked so a very attractive set of postage stamps were issued picturing Fletcher Christian, Captain Bligh, the "Bounty" and other characters who had captured the imagination of the world. This set of stamps has found a place in millions of stamp albums and continues to be of top-ranking popularity among collectors. No figures are released by the British Crown Agents on the amounts realized from the sale of postage stamps, but we may conservatively assume that this set of stamps may well have produced a greater revenue to the British Government than the profit made by either the authors of the book or the producers of the motion picture.

H.M.Armed Vessel "Bounty" on a stamp of Pitcairn Islands.

Since 1921 the United States Post Office has maintained a Philatelic. Agency at Washington, D.C., for the sole purpose of supplying unused postage stamps to collectors. In recent years these sales have amounted to over three million dollars each year. The first year of its operation the Agency grossed only about fifty thousand dollars! To date, the gross sales of the Agency have totaled over fifty million dollars. This represents money paid at face value for postage stamps, almost all of which will never be put to use-a source of clear profit to the Post Office Department!

Quite naturally, it was not long after the United Nations had established its headquarters in New York City that it issued a series of postage stamps. Such stamps can not be used anywhere in the world for the prepayment of postage except in the single Post Office at the UN building in New York.

Since the first issue of 1951 the UN Postal Administration has produced over a score of different issues to commemorate the various activities of the parent organization. The issues are carefully and regularly prepared and issued in limited quantity which has madethem quite attractive to a multitude of collectors.

Stamps of countries born since 1948. From left to right: Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, India, Pakistan, Israel, Ryukyu Islands, Indonesia, Libya.

Different kinds of stamps issued by the United States.

As new governments come into being, new stamps almost immediately follow, for the potential source of profit from the sale of attractive stamps to collectors is widely appreciated.

Such issues are not to be confused with the semi-postal stamps which are a nuisance of no small proportions to many collectors. Mostly such stamps are very beautiful and have a very strong sales appeal to youngsters and embryo collectors.

So far we have only discussed stamps that are used for regular postage purposes. There are still many different kinds of stamps to provide for the various services performed by a modern postal system. The United States, for instance, has issued stamps for postage due, special delivery, registration, parcel post, special handling, parcel post postage due, newspapers, carriers and airmail. Some of these are in current use. Other purposes for which stamps have been issued by various countries are for postal tax, war tax, use of government departments (also once issued by the U.S.) and other similar functions of the post office that require special accounting of funds received from these services. It is easy to see how the use of special stamps simplifies bookkeeping.

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