Day stamp

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Post's day stamps are used to indicate posting and arrival times on mail . The term has been in official use as an official designation in Germany since 1935 , but comparable postmarks were used as early as the first half of the 19th century. Day stamps are the most common postmarks. In addition to the labeling of feed and arrival times (which also transport routes - such as express mail - be detected) of the date stamp also serves devaluation of postage stamps . It is also used in postal operations to confirm certificates.

history

The use of postmarks increased in the first years of the 19th century by all German postal administrations. Exemplary at this time were the reforms in the postal system in France after the revolution of 1789 , where postage was no longer calculated based on the distance between the respective post offices, but on the basis of five postage zones, the so-called rayons. Corresponding postmarks, the department and the rayon stamps , supplemented this measure and made it easier to determine the origin of the mail items and thus to assign them to the individual postage levels. These postal reforms in Germany first found their way into the Thurn-und-Taxische Reichspost , which concluded a postal convention with France in 1801 and reorganized its postal operations according to the French model. Thus, in the area served by the Thurn-und-Taxische Post, four rayons were also established and rayon stamps were gradually introduced from 1802.

The French occupation of German states between 1806 and 1813 meant that the French innovations in the postal system were not only used in the annexed areas where their application was legally prescribed (see example: Napoleonic Post in Northern Germany ), but also beyond . This particularly affected the use of postmarks. From 1810 onwards , the local postmark became increasingly popular as a posting postmark in the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Sometimes the date of posting was already noted in a second line of the line or rectangular stamps, initially without the year. The place stamp thus became a place / date stamp. Similar tendencies were found in Saxony and Prussia , with the manufacture and use of the stamps initially being left to the initiative of the postmaster . The result was a wide variety of forms in terms of size and typeface, but line and rectangular stamps predominated.

Forerunner of today's day stamp from Blankenburg

In order to put an end to arbitrariness, the Prussian postal administration finally ordered the introduction of uniform posting stamps from January 1, 1817. Initially, these were only to be rejected for international letters, but on February 7, 1817, their use also became a binding norm for the handling of domestic letters. Two-line stamps containing place / date were used. Rectangular stamps were used by the Saxon Post from 1818. As early as 1816, the postal administration in the Kingdom of Hanover decided to reject a single-circle date stamp in addition to the location stamp. It was the first official use of a circular stamp in a German postal administration. From 1820, the year and the time were increasingly included in the postmarks of all postal administrations in addition to the day and month. For the storage of such extensive information, stamps in circular form soon proved to be the most appropriate variant. In 1935, the term “day stamp” was introduced as the official name for such circular stamps.

Appearance

Day stamp from Blankenburg with postcode and distinctive letter "a"

The round shape of the day stamp has established itself worldwide up to the present day. In their text section, the stamps generally contain the place of posting, the postcode and - if several day stamps are used in a postal service - a distinguishing letter . Information on the posting time (day, month, year, time) of the mail item can be found on the date bridge, which is usually located in the middle.

Day stamps with bilingual place names are used in the Sorbian areas in East Saxony and South Brandenburg.

Stamp devices

These stamps are knocked off on the one hand with hand stamps in the form of fist, hammer or hand roller stamps, on the other hand with machine stamps , in which the cliché of the day stamp is mostly combined with other insert items (lines, advertising texts, images). Day stamps are generally rejected in black. Day stamp clichés were also part of the sender franking for a long time , but are now increasingly being replaced by matrix coding .

literature

  • Horst Nischer: A little stamp knowledge. transpress Verlag, Berlin 1984.
  • Hans Joachim Anderson: The designation of the postmark forms. An introduction to the terminology used in stamping. 2. revised and increased edition, (New series of the Poststempelgilde e.V., issue 145), Soest 1996.
  • Hans-Joachim Anderson: To the history of the day cancellation of the German Reichspost. New series of the Poststempelgilde e. V., Issue 135, Soest 1999.
  • Wolfram Grallert: Lexicon of Philately , 2nd edition, Phil * Creativ GmbH, Schwalmtal 2007, ISBN 3-9321-9838-7

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Horst Nischer: Small stamp customer. transpress Verlag, Berlin 1984, p. 31.

Web links

Commons : Postmarks  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: day stamp  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations