UK letter card of 1892 with an imprinted stamp and perforations.U.S. postal card of 1881 with an imprinted stamp.A Bavarian postal card of 1895 with an imprinted stamp.Cuban postal card of 1878.A United States stamped envelope of 1876.A registered envelope for Kenya and Uganda from 1930.A scarcity of postage stamps during WWI in German East Africa was the cause for this handstamped envelope. Any indication that postage is prepaid (see top right handstamp) is what makes the item postal stationery. The fact that this indicium was applied to an envelope makes this a stamped envelope.Wrapper printed in US for occupied Cuba, 1899.
A piece of postal stationery is a stationery item, such as a stamped envelope, letter sheet, postal card, lettercard, aerogram or wrapper, with an imprinted stamp or inscription indicating that a specific rate of postage or related service has been prepaid.[1][2] It does not, however, include any postcard without a pre-printed stamp,[3] and it is different from freepost for preprinted cards issued by businesses. In general, postal stationery is handled similarly to postage stamps; sold from post offices either at the face value of the printed postage or, more likely, with a surcharge to cover the additional cost of the stationery.[4] It can take the form of an official mail issue produced only for the use of government departments.[4][5]
History
1620 Venetian prepaid letter sheet.
Postal stationery has been in use since at least 1608 with folded letters bearing the coat of arms Venice. Other early examples include British newspaper stamps that were first issued in 1712, 25-centime letter sheets that were issued in 1790 by the government of Luxembourg, and Australian postal stationery that predated more well known issues like the British Mulready stationery that was introduced in 1840.[1]
The first modern form of postal stationery was the stamped, or postal stationery, envelope created by the United Kingdom around 1841.[citation needed]. Other countries quickly followed suite, including the United States, which released the Nesbitt series of stamped envelopes in 1853.[6] A variation of the stamped envelope, a registered envelope, has been widely used throughout Great Britain and the British Commonwealth. Although none have been issued in the United States due to differences in mail registration procedures. Another form of stamped envelopes are so called wrappers, a form of postal stationery envelope that can be used to prepay the cost of delivery for a newspaper or periodical. Wrappers were first introduced in 1961 by the United States, which was followed by 110 other countries in total. Although all the countries have stopped producing then due to declining sales. With Cyprus being the last country to stop their use in 1991.
The next innovation in postal stationery came in 1869 with the introduction of the postal card in Austria-Hungry.[7] Postal cards are a type of cardstock that contains an imprinted stamp or indicium. They quickly caught on due to being mostly uniform and less bulky then traditional letters. To the point that Great Britain, Finland, Switzerland and Württemberg had all issued postal cards by 1871. Followed by the United States in 1873.[8]
Despite its popularity, the postal card was soon followed by the letter card. A letter card is a postal stationery item consisting of a folded card with a prepaid imprinted stamp. The format was first issued by Belgium in 1882. Great Britain issued their first official letter cards in 1892 and Newfoundland introduced small reply cards starting in 1912. Letter cards had the advantage of providing twice the room for writing a message then postal cards and were more private due to being folded over.[citation needed]. A variation of the letter card called an aerogram was introduced in 1933 by a Lieutenant Colonel while he was doing a tour in the Middle East theatre. Although the format was not officially endorsed by the Universal Postal Union until 1952. An aerogram is a thin, lightweight piece foldable paper that is used for writing letters and sending them via airmail. Although unlike letter cards they can come unstamped and be issued by private companies.[citation needed].
Collecting
Most postal stationery pieces are collected as entires, that is, the whole card, sheet, or envelope. In the 19th century, it was common to collect "cut squares" (or cut-outs in the UK),[7] which involved clipping the embossed or otherwise pre-printed indicia from postal stationery entires.[4] This destroyed the envelope. As a result, one cannot tell from a cut square what specific envelope it came from and, many times, the cancellation information. The manner in which the stamped envelope is cut out (defined by the term "knife") cannot be determined from a cut square. Thus, most collectors prefer entires to cut squares.
Many country-specific stamp catalogs list postal stationery and there are books devoted to the postal stationery of individual countries. The current, but now dated, principal encyclopedic work is the nineteen volume Higgins & Gage World Postal Stationery Catalog.
Collectors societies
Collectors of postal stationery may seek out postal stationery societies or study groups in other countries. These societies provide information, publications and guidance to those who are interested. They include:
^Horning, Otto; The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Stamp Collecting (1970).
^# Mintz, Allen, Ed.; Catalog of the 19th Century Stamped Envelopes, Wrappers, Cut Squares and Full Corners of the United States; UPSS, 2001. OCLC50290906
^ abVan Gelder, Peter J.; The Collectors' Guide to Postal Stationery, A Squirrel Publication (1997) ISBN0-947604-07-3
^Bussey, Lewis E., Ed.; United States Postal Card Catalog, United Postal Stationery Society, 2010, 248 pages. A complete and authoritative look at U.S. postal cards.
