Write me if you need a quick quotation. Tnx. lnadybal@philatelic.info
If you wish to list your material here, feel free to contact me.
Items priced at $100 are newly listed items for which I've not yet established a sales price. Items priced at $0.00 are sold out. I'll remove the listing eventually.
Who said stamp collecting was square?
Innovations
Demands for security measures to prevent fraud and enhance what the United States Postal Service calls "revenue protection", predates the printer's ability to do much to help his or her client avoid loss.
Early efforts to prevent fraud, between the mid 1800s and the 1940s, were generally limited to punching
grill holes in paper and applying overprints. Since the 1960s, "things" have literally "taken off". The printing industry has come a long way in the last 50 years.
Fraud prevention and modern world decadence (demands for more fun and entertainment), coupled with the advent of email and text messaging, have prompted postal services around the world to move away from traditional banknote-like stamp designs to introduce "value for money" into their products - not only to enhance interest in the daily mail, but to provide something worth keeping - kind of a postal "Cracker Jack" prize.
Oddly, innovation has sparked philatelic interest in these issues because they are expensive to produce and are generally produced in small quantities. Unusual issues are especially scarce on covers that have gone through the mail stream, because these stamps usually don't make it to the sales counters in local post offices in the countries of issue, where the general public sees them. Sales are often limited to stamp fair postal stations, main post offices and mail order philatelic bureaus.
Thematic / Topical philately has been popular for decades. These issues are born topicals.
Hope you find something of interest here... If your interest is not in purchasing anything but in browsing to learn how wide this area pf philately is, feel free. Here are a couple of additional links for you that you're sure to enjoy::
Group:
http://au.groups.yahoo.com/group/unusual_stamps/
Blog
Database
Other websites
If you do wander off, please don't forget to come back. If you have interesting items like these to sell, see the "You sell - we buy" page in the menu at lower left.