Portal:Philately
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Philately is the study of revenue or postage stamps. This includes the design, production, and uses of stamps after they are issued. A postage stamp is evidence of pre-paying a fee for postal services. Postal history is the study of postal systems of the past. It includes the study of rates charged, routes followed, and special handling of letters.
Stamp collecting is the collecting of postage stamps and related objects, such as covers (envelopes, postcards or parcels with stamps affixed). It is one of the world's most popular hobbies, with estimates of the number of collectors ranging up to 20 million in the United States alone.
![A group of striking postal workers man a Picket line at the Royal Mail's Bowthorpe depot in Norwich cin 2009.](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7e/Striking_postmen_at_the_Royal_Mail_Bowthorpe_depot_in_2009.jpg/220px-Striking_postmen_at_the_Royal_Mail_Bowthorpe_depot_in_2009.jpg)
The 2009 Royal Mail industrial disputes is an industrial dispute in the United Kingdom involving Royal Mail and members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU), which began in the summer of 2009. It was the country's first industrial action involving postal workers since 2007 and came about after the Communication Workers Union accused Royal Mail of refusing to enter into dialogue regarding how the implementation of modernisation plans would affect the job security of postal workers.
The strike action began on a local level after postal workers at Royal Mail offices in London and Edinburgh accused their bosses of cutting jobs and services, which they claimed broke the 2007 Pay and Modernisation Agreement, the agreement that was struck to end the 2007 strikes, and accused Royal Mail of threatening modernisation of the service. After a series of localised walkouts over the summer months, and after failing to reach an agreement, the CWU opened a national ballot for industrial action in September 2009. (Full article...)Selected article -
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b3/Benjamin_Franklin2_1895_Issue-1c.jpg/260px-Benjamin_Franklin2_1895_Issue-1c.jpg)
issued in 1895
Postal service in the United States began with the delivery of stampless letters whose cost was borne by the receiving person, later encompassed pre-paid letters carried by private mail carriers and provisional post offices, and culminated in a system of universal prepayment that required all letters to bear nationally issued adhesive postage stamps.
In the earliest days, ship captains arriving in port with stampless mail would advertise in the local newspaper names of those having mail and for them to come collect and pay for it, if not already paid for by the sender. Postal delivery in the United States was a matter of haphazard local organization until after the Revolutionary War, when eventually a national postal system was established. Stampless letters, paid for by the receiver, and private postal systems, were gradually phased out after the introduction of adhesive postage stamps, 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 mandatory in 1855. (Full article...)Selected images
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- ... that in 1850, about a quarter of the post offices of the Swiss Post were located in taverns?
- ... that after the British Army captured New York City in 1776, Samuel Loudon fled to the village of Fishkill, where he founded the state's first post office?
- ... that James Diossa rescued the only public library and post office in Central Falls, Rhode Island, when the city went into bankruptcy?
- ... that Amrita Sher-Gil's painting Hill Women appeared on a 1978 Indian postage stamp?
- ... that in 2007, Arthur Gray's £2 Kangaroo and Map stamp sold for a world record price for a single Australian stamp?
- ... that both of Karl R. Free's New Deal-era U.S. post office murals with Native American subjects have been challenged as offensive?
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![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/17/Baden_stamp_1852_9kr.jpg/220px-Baden_stamp_1852_9kr.jpg)
The Baden 9 Kreuzer Error (German: Baden-Fehldruck 9 Kreuzer) is a postage stamp error produced by the historical German state of Baden in 1851.
Baden's first postage stamps were issued on 1 May 1851. The "9 Kreuzer Green" stamp was a color misprint of the 9 Kreuzer denomination that was printed in green instead of pink. The green color was intended for the 6 Kreuzer value, but apparently, the paper sheets were mismatched. Only three cancelled copies and one unused copy of this error are known, but more sheets of paper may have been printed. The cancellations recorded have the numbers "4" for Achern, "41" for Ettenheim, and "106" for Orschweier (today Mahlberg). Two of the known copies are on letters. (Full article...)List articles
![Selected lists](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8d/List-Icon.svg/45px-List-Icon.svg.png)
- List of philatelists
- List of most expensive philatelic items
- List of postage stamps
- Lists of people on postage stamps (article) • (Category page)
- List of entities that have issued postage stamps (A–E)
- List of entities that have issued postage stamps (F–L)
- List of entities that have issued postage stamps (M–Z)
- List of postal services abroad
- Timeline of postal history
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WikiProject
WikiProject Philately organizes the development of articles relating to philately. For those who want to skip ahead to the smaller articles, the WikiProject also maintains a list of articles in need of improvement or that need to be started. There are also many red inked topics that need to be started on the list of philatelic topics page.
Selected works
- Williams, Louis N., & Williams, Maurice (1990). Fundamentals of Philately {revised ed.). American Philatelic Society. ISBN 0-9335-8013-4.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Hornung, Otto (1970). The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Stamp Collecting. Hamlyn. ISBN 0-600-01797-4.
- Stuart Rossiter & John Fowler (1991). World History Stamp Atlas (reprint ed.). pub: Black Cat. ISBN 0-7481-0309-0.
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Sources
- ^ "Philatelic Collections: General Collections". British Library. 2003-11-30. Archived from the original on 30 June 2011. Retrieved 2011-01-16.