| During the recent elections in the United States, an absentee ballot was mailed into the Broward County, Florida, election office - using a very rare stamp. The stamp may be worth as much as $200,000 (although the face value of the stamp is 24 cents). Broward County Commissioner John Rodstrom was the person who noticed the stamp initially. There was no name or return address on the envelope containing the pricy postage. The stamp is known as the "Inverted Jenny" because it was printed in error with a World War I era plane being included on the stamp ... upside down. Because the stamp was used to mail the ballot, it was canceled ... which will reduce its value. The stamp now likely will sell for somewhere between $20,000 and $100,000 rather than $200,000. There are only 100 such stamps in stamp collections anywhere else in the world.
Postage stamp design:
The external outlines and configuration of postage paid signs can vary.
Despite the abundance of postage stamps issued worldwide, the majority of postage stamps retained their design of the first postage miniatures - a horizontal or vertical rectangle. However, other forms are also used. Already, first issues of some postal administrations differed from the first postage stamps of the world.
Presently, postage stamps of the following shapes are famous:
* Rectangle - horizontal or vertical rectangle with various correlation of the sides (from becoming a square to elongated stripes);
* Square, standing on one of the sides or on top. The first postage stamps of Bavaria (“One Kruezer black”, 1849) and Saxonia (“Saxony 3pf red sheet”, 1850) were square-shaped. This shape was widely used even in the Soviet Union. The series in the honor of World Spartakiad (1935) has square, standing on top. For the first time such postage stamps appeared in 1851 in New Brunswick;
* Triangle – equilateral or isosceles triangles, for example, postage stamps of the Cape of Good Hope, so-called “Cape Triangles” (1853) were usually used but non-isosceles triangles (Columbia, 1869) also existed. The triangle can be positioned as standing on one of the sides and also on top (Austria, 1916; Iceland, 1930);
* Rhombus - can be positioned horizontally or vertically (Tuvan People’s Republic);
* Trapezium - used for the postage stamps of Monaco, 1955 and in Malaysia 1970-1971;
* Circle – was used for the postage stamps of Burundi, Sierra Leone and other countries. Please do not confuse the circular postage stamps with postage stamps which have a round image. In 1971, a series of postage stamps with a round-shaped image, surrounded with circular perforations, were issued in Malaysia in the honor of National Bank. However, these postage stamps cannot be considered to be circular, since the stamps were separated from a sheet in the form of a square with perforated edges;
* Oval – postage stamps of such a shape can be used during the perforation of postal blocks.
* Arbitrary shape - some countries issue so-called arbitrary shaped postage stamps. The shape of the postage stamp can repeat the contour of a country map (Sierra Leone, 1964), coconut (Tonga), banana (Tonga), outlines of Rock of Gibraltar (Gibraltar) etc.
Pentagonal, hexagonal and octagonal shaped postage stamps are also encountered.
In the beginning of 20th century, the USA introduced a special method of informing of a weather report, collected every morning from a weather station, to several postal departments; the postage stamp along with envelope, received for cancellation, had the postmark about the forthcoming weather change.
Production of postage stamps:
Production of postage stamps in the early years:
Manufacturing methods of early postage stamps were:
* Engraving on copper or steel and then dyeing on paper;
* Typographic method and then traces of pattern are appeared on back side of the postage stamp;
* Lithographic method, at which both sides of the postage stamp are smooth.
With an aim to accelerate the printing process, large number of printing blocks (10-150) was connected on a single sheet. Initially, postage stamps were separated from the sheet using scissors, but owing to slowness of this method, the postal department started piercing intervals between postage stamps – perforations. To date, serrations are made all over the edges of the postage stamps with the help of a special stamp-perforating machine, invented in 1847 by Irishman Henry Archer(1806—1863) and modernized in 1852 when the English postal department bought the patent for the machine for 4000 pounds.
Various precautions were taken while printing the postage stamps to avoid the production of fake postage stamps and also the re-use of already cancelled postage stamps. So, watermarks were printed on the sheet, long silk threads (so called Dickinson paper) or small multi-colored silk threads were incorporated in the paper substance. Then, the so called GOFRAZH method was used, i.e. a sign was imprinted on the postage stamp using a press in such a way that the sheet was perforated throughout and during cancellation of postage stamp, the ink passed through the incisions on the sheet and the postmark could not be erased. Signs, which could be noticed only with the help of microscope, or signs, which could be identified only with the help of chemical ink, were used in some places on the postage stamps. Finally, dyes, which could completely or partially wash away when in contact with liquid, were used while printing.
The glue for postage stamps was made from the mixture of gum with dextrin and glucose; the glue is applied on the postage stamp with the help of a machine; whereas, around 16kg of glue per 400000 postage stamps was estimated.
|
[ Flori-duh voters strike again. An absentee ballot was mailed with
a rare stamp worth as much as $200,000 - the famous
"Inverted Jenny" - but the vote did not count as there was no name on
the envelope. ]
