Stamped envelope
A stamped envelope or, alternatively, a postal envelope is an envelope with a printed or embossed indicium indicating the prepayment of postage and are, for the most part, created and sold by governmental postal authorities. It is but one form of postal stationery. In August 1852 an act of the U.S. Congress authorized the Postmaster General to provide "suitable letter envelopes with such watermarks or other guards against counterfeits... with the addition of the value or denomination of the postage stamps so printed or impressed thereon...". The first result was the 1853 Nesbitt issues of stamped envelopes, named after the private contractor who produced them for the government.[1] When you combine the different envelope sizes, knives, colors, dies to print the indicia, and denominations there are literally thousands of different stamped envelopes produced for the U.S.[2]
Collecting
Collectors of stamped envelopes are certainly going to need a catalog to know what has been issued. Siegfried Ascher was the first to try to comprehensively document all countries' postal stationery including stamped envelopes.[3] This was followed some 40 years later by the Higgins & Gage World Postal Stationery Catalog. Though now out of date, it is still frequently cited since it covers all countries and no other comprehensive catalog has been attempted since. The H&G catalog, as it is known, describes stamped envelopes by the envelope size, the depicted indicium and its valuations, some corner cards, while sometimes disregarding envelope color. Scott generally only describes United States envelope color and value of the indicia which is perfect for dealing with cut squares, but falls short of information needed to collect entires, i.e. the whole envelope. The United Postal Stationery Society has two published books cataloging U.S. stamped envelopes.[1][2] These books describe all of the other stated criteria plus the envelope knife making them the most complete U.S. stamped envelope catalogs. British postal stationery to 1970 was comprehensively documented.[4] Edifil is a Spanish company that has comprehensive listings for stamped envelopes of Spain, Cuba, Philippines and Puerto Rico.
Most stamped envelopes are collected as entires. In the 19th century the practice was to collect cut squares (or cut-outs in the U.K.)[5] which involved cutting the embossed indicia from a postal envelope. 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 before folding (defined by the term knife) vanishes on a cut square.
References
- ^ a b # Mintz, Allen, Ed.; Catalog of the 19th Century Stamped Envelopes, Wrappers, Cut Squares and Full Corners of the United States; UPSS, 2001. ISBN 09670045
- ^ a b Summers, Jerry, Ed.; Catalog of the 20th Century Stamped Envelopes, Wrappers, Cut Squares and Full Corners of the United States, Second Edition, UPSS, 2004. ISBN 0461004551.
- ^ Ascher, Dr Siegfried, Grosser Ganzsachen-Katalog (1925) in German.
- ^ Huggins, A.K. British Postal Stationery, A Priced Handbook of the Postal Stationery of Great Britain, Great Britain Philatelic Society (1970).
- ^ Van Gelder, Peter J.; The Collectors' Guide to Postal Stationery, A Squirel Publication (1997) ISBN 0947604073
Further reading
- Higgins & Gage World Postal Stationery Catalog, 19 volumes covering the whole world. Out of print, but worth looking for.
- Huggins, A.K.; British Postal Stationery, A Priced Handbook of the Postal Stationery of Great Britain, Great Britain Philatelic Society, 1970
- Thorp-Bartels Catalogue of U.S. Stamped Envelopes, Century Edition, 1954
- Cutting Knife Handbook by United Postal Stationery Society, 1999. Envelope knifes illustrated.
External links
Cuban Postal Envelopes, 1899 - 1949.
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