Postal Stationery

Postal Stationery includes all the stationeries issued by the postal authorities. These stationeries came with a special design which determined its value for postage. The most common forms were stamped envelopes, stamped letter sheets (including aerogrammes), postal cards, letter cards and newspaper wrappers. In other countries postal saving forms, money order forms, or telegraph forms were considered to be Postal Stationery if they had valued stamps printed on them.

The other forms that did not have a valuable design, were popular among collectors. These philatelic items refer to formula cards, penalty envelopes, and aerogramme forms to which adhesives must be affixed. The great popularity among the collectors gained pre-stamp letters with their very interesting and often historic postal markings. These items belong to the field of Postal History rather than Postal Stationery. In spite of this fact that they were also often collected. Picture post cards belong to another category of Postal stationery if they did not have value stamps printed on them.

The interesting fact is that Postal Stationery as the branch of philately is much older than stamps themselves. The first items are considered to be the Venetian “A-Q” letter sheets dates from 1608; the Sardinia sheets from 1818; the revenue devices on British newspapers provided free postage after 1821; and the Sydney, New South Wales letter sheets were issued in 1838.

The hobby of collecting Postal Stationery began at the same time as the hobby of stamp collecting itself. It was extremely popular and began almost immediately after 1840 and was exceedingly popular by 1900. Today, Postal Stationery is perhaps the fastest growing branch of Philately.

Why collect Postal Stationery?

The first reason to collect Postal Stationery is the great variety of this kind of philatelic items. They can tell the collectors interesting historical realities as well as make the collection diverse and more valuable.  There are ample varieties of stationery to satisfy any collecting interest. Indeed, there are probably as many varieties as there are of adhesives.

Postal stationery will allow you to enrich your philatelic knowledge and to learn more about the hobby you are involved in. By collecting these items you can get to know much information about different postal systems and services. The postal banking system used in Europe as well as the types and methods of manufacture of cards, printing methods and designs. The size of Postal stationery will allow studying its items in details and discovering their interesting features.

You should keep in mind that each stamp collection without Postal stationery is considered to be incomplete and has less value than the collection with this kind of philatelic items. A typical collector who neglects to include the colorful stationery relating to his topic has left a significant gap in his collection.

The messages on the back of postal cards or letters are invaluable historical documents that can show the life style of people from various time period. Through them, one can also trace the changing customs of people and the increasing use of typewriters, as well as opinions of the writers on an infinite variety of subjects.

Collecting Postal stationery is sometimes more convenient than collecting stamps. Such features of a stamp as missing perforations, centering, and gum sticking can become a problem for a stamp collector and at the same time these potential drawbacks are less of a problem when collecting Postal stationery. Furthermore, the items collected are sturdier and less subject to careless damage than are adhesives.

It should be noted that lately the value of many Postal Stationery items has increased greatly. Hence, collection of Postal Stationery can bring you a fortune. Another advantage of collecting Postal stationery is that it comes with less forgeries.  They are not common and are usually easily detected.

Remember,that Postal Stationery should be collected for fun; any profit is just a bonus.