A guide to stamps

Starting out

Stamp collecting needs very little to begin. Add tools as you need them; a magnifier, tongs, and a perforation gauge will take you a long way.

Handle stamps as what they are: small, old pieces of paper. Skin leaves oil and moisture that stain paper and spoil gum, so use tongs, not fingers, and work on a clean, dry surface away from food, drinks, and open windows.

Slide the tongs under a stamp's edge and grip it gently near the margin; never squeeze the perforations or bend the stamp. Keep loose stamps flat in a stock book or glassine envelope, and keep covers in clear sleeves.

Stamp tongs

Tweezers made for stamps, with smooth, flat tips that will not scratch or pierce paper. Spade tips are easiest for beginners because they slide under a stamp without catching. Never use cosmetic tweezers, whose ridged or pointed tips dent and tear stamps.

Magnifier

A lens of 5 to 10 times suits most work, and a 10× loupe shows printing dots and engraved lines clearly.

Perforation gauge

A card, metal, or clear plastic scale marked with rows of dots or lines for each perforation size. A clear gauge lets you measure a stamp without taking it out of its mount.

Watermark tray

A small tray with a black bottom. You lay a stamp face down in it, add a few drops of watermark fluid, and the watermark shows as darker lines for a few seconds while the fluid dries.

Watermark fluid

A fast-drying liquid made for stamps that makes paper briefly translucent; it contains no water, so it does not harm gum. It is flammable, so use a little at a time in a ventilated room, and do not use it on photogravure stamps or self-adhesives, whose inks and backings it can damage.

Watermark detector

A device that shows a watermark without fluid, using pressure, light, or colour filters. It is safe for stamps that fluid might harm.

UV lamp

An ultraviolet lamp shows what the eye cannot: phosphor bands, fluorescent papers, and many repairs and cleaned cancels. Shortwave light (about 254 nanometres) shows phosphor tagging, and longwave light (about 365 nanometres) shows paper differences and repairs. Never look into the lamp, and wear UV-blocking glasses with shortwave light.

Stock book

A book of stiff pages with clear strips that hold stamps without hinges or mounts. It is the best place to sort new stamps, keep duplicates, and hold stamps not yet identified.

Glassine envelope

A small envelope of thin, smooth, translucent paper for loose stamps. It is fine for short-term storage if it is acid-free and not packed so tightly that stamps bend.

Hinge

A small folded rectangle of thin gummed paper that fixes a stamp to an album page. Good hinges are peelable once dry, but any hinge marks the gum of a mint stamp.

Mount

A clear plastic sleeve with a backing, cut to fit a stamp and fixed to the album page. It holds a stamp without touching its gum, so it is the safe choice for mint stamps; choose mounts sold as archival or PVC-free.

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Identifying a stamp

To identify a stamp is to say exactly which stamp it is: its country, its issue, and its denomination, and then, if needed, the printing, perforation, watermark, and paper that set it apart from look-alikes. Start with what you can read on its face.

Many stamps share one design: Britain's Machin definitives carried the same portrait of Queen Elizabeth II for more than fifty years, in many colours and on several papers and gums. A catalogue, or the Philapedia, separates them by the details in the later sections of this guide.

Fill in the form from the general to the particular: country, issue, denomination, year, colour, and design first, then the technical fields. A stamp described carefully can be identified later, even if you cannot name it today.

Country name

Most stamps name their country in its own language. Helvetia is Switzerland, Suomi is Finland, Norge is Norway, Sverige is Sweden, Magyar Posta is Hungary, Polska is Poland, Österreich is Austria, España is Spain, and Éire is Ireland.

Stamps without a country name

Great Britain, the first country to issue stamps, has never named itself on them; British stamps show the reigning monarch's head instead, and modern special stamps carry a small silhouette of it in a corner.

Names in other alphabets

CCCP in Cyrillic letters means the Soviet Union, and ΕΛΛΑΣ (Hellas) is Greece. Stamps of Japan, China, Korea, Thailand, and many Arab countries may name themselves mainly in their own scripts, so learn the few characters that recur, such as 日本 for Japan.

Denomination

The face value printed on the stamp. Note the currency as well as the number, because one design was often issued in several values, and the value tells them apart.

Currency abbreviations

Old British and Commonwealth stamps use d for pence and s or a slash for shillings, so 2/6 means two shillings and sixpence. Other common units include cents (c or ¢), centimes, pfennig (pf), öre or øre, kopecks, sen, and para.

Non-denominated stamp

A stamp with no figure, which pays a set rate whatever that rate is when it is used. Examples are Britain's 1st and 2nd class stamps from 1989, Canada's Permanent stamps marked P from 2006, and the United States Forever stamps from 2007.

Year

Many modern stamps print the year of issue in tiny figures along the bottom edge; older ones seldom do. A date in the design usually marks an event, not the issue: the United States Columbian stamps read 1492 and 1892 but went on sale in 1893.

Design

Describe what the stamp shows in a few plain words: subject, frame, and main inscriptions, such as "King George V in naval uniform, oval frame, CANADA POSTAGE at the top." Note small details too, like a printer's name in tiny letters along the bottom.

Colour

Use the catalogue's colour names, which are conventions: carmine is a deep crimson red, vermilion an orange-red, ultramarine a deep blue, and sepia a warm brown. Compare colours in daylight, ideally against a printed colour key, since lamps change how colours look.

Issue

The set or series a stamp belongs to, such as Canada's Admiral issue of 1911 to 1925 or the Penny Black of 1840. Collectors name issues by year, design, or nickname, and the Philapedia lists them that way.

Type and die

When a design was redrawn or re-engraved, catalogues list each version as a type or a die, told apart by small differences in lines or lettering, as with the several types of the United States 2-cent Washington of the 1910s and 1920s.

Telling look-alikes apart

A catalogue lists stamps by country and date, then splits one design into separate entries whenever the perforation, watermark, paper, printing method, gum, or tagging changed. The technical fields on the form decide which of those stamps you have.

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Printing methods

Knowing the handful of printing methods is one of the surest ways to tell a genuine stamp from a forgery, since a forger often had to use a different method from the original.

Look with a 10× magnifier at the fine lines, the lettering, and the solid areas of colour, and tilt the stamp under a lamp to see whether the ink stands up, lies flat, or is pressed in. In short: recess gives raised, sharp lines; typography pushes ink to the edges of lines; lithography gives flat, softer lines; and photogravure and offset build the picture from tiny dots.

Recess (engraved, intaglio)

The design is cut into a metal plate, the plate is inked and wiped, and the ink left in the grooves is pressed onto damp paper. The lines are crisp and solid, shading is built from fine lines, and on an unused stamp you can often feel the ink standing up. The Penny Black, Canada's 1929 Bluenose, and most United States stamps before the 1970s were printed this way.

Typography (letterpress)

The design stands up on the plate like a rubber stamp, and only the raised parts take ink. Pressure squeezes ink toward the edges of each line, so lines look darker at their borders, and the back may show the design faintly raised. Britain's 1881 Penny Lilac and many British colonial key-plate stamps were printed this way.

Lithography

Printing from a flat stone or plate treated so that ink sticks only to the design. The ink lies flat, with no relief to feel, and lines are softer and less even than engraved ones; the first Confederate States stamps of 1861 are an example.

Photogravure

The design is etched into a cylinder as tiny cells of different depths, and deeper cells hold more ink. Under a magnifier a fine, even screen of dots runs through the whole design, even the lettering, whose edges look slightly jagged. Britain's Wilding and Machin definitives were long printed this way.

Offset (offset lithography)

Lithography in which the image passes from the plate to a rubber blanket and then to the paper. Colours are built from dots of different sizes, while solid areas and lettering print smooth and sharp. It is the commonest method today; the United States also used it during the First World War, when its offset Washington-Franklin stamps came out fuzzier than the engraved ones.

Photogravure or offset?

Both show dots under a magnifier. In photogravure the screen runs through everything, so even solid patches and the edges of letters look grainy; in offset, solid patches and lettering print clean.

Embossing

The paper is pressed between dies so the design stands up in relief, with or without colour, as in the white dove on the Basel Dove stamp of 1845 and the stamps on many postal stationery envelopes. Handle embossed stamps gently, since pressure flattens the relief.

Mixed printing

Two methods on one stamp, such as an engraved portrait on an offset background. Canada and the United States have printed many stamps this way since the 1970s.

Flat plate and rotary press

Curving a plate to fit a rotary press stretches the design slightly in one direction. United States rotary press stamps of the 1910s and 1920s are a little taller or wider than flat plate stamps of the same design, which helps tell them apart.

Plate wear

As a plate is used, its fine lines wear down, so late printings look weaker, with gaps in the shading. Worn impressions are not errors, but they explain why two copies of one stamp can look so different.

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Perforation and separation

The first stamps, like the Penny Black and Canada's Threepenny Beaver of 1851, were imperforate and had to be cut apart with scissors. From the 1850s, machines punched rows of holes between stamps so they could be torn apart, and some countries cut slits instead. Many stamps today are self-adhesive and die cut.

Perforation is measured as a gauge: the number of holes in 2 centimetres, so a stamp that is perf 12 has twelve holes in 2 cm. The gauge matters because one design was often perforated in several ways, and catalogues treat each as a different stamp.

To measure, slide the stamp along the gauge until every hole on one side lines up with a row of marks, and read that row's number. Then measure an adjoining side, since the two can differ.

Gauge

The number of perforation holes in 2 centimetres, written perf 12, perf 11½, and so on. Gauges from 11 to 14 are the most common.

Compound perforation

Different gauges on the horizontal and vertical sides, written top and bottom first: perf 11 × 10½ means 11 across the top and bottom and 10½ down the sides.

Comb perforation

A machine that punches three sides of a row of stamps in one stroke, like the teeth of a comb, so the holes meet neatly at the corners.

Line perforation

Perforation done one straight line at a time, first in one direction and then the other. The lines rarely cross exactly at the corners, so line-perforated stamps often have ragged or doubled corner holes.

Harrow perforation

A machine that perforates a whole sheet or pane in one stroke, giving every stamp neat corners.

Imperforate

Issued without perforations and cut apart with scissors. An imperforate stamp is judged by its margins, the space between the design and the cut. Beware of perforated stamps trimmed to imitate imperforate ones; their margins are usually too narrow.

Rouletted

Separated by slits or cuts rather than holes, so no paper is removed. Roulettes come as straight cuts, arcs, sawtooth cuts, and the wavy serpentine roulettes of Finland's 1860 stamps.

Straight edge

An unperforated side on a stamp that is otherwise perforated, from the edge of a sheet, coil, or booklet pane. Collectors of older sheet stamps usually prefer copies perforated on all four sides.

Coil stamps

Stamps sold in rolls, perforated on two opposite sides and straight on the other two. A coil that unrolls downward has straight edges at the sides; one that unrolls sideways has them at the top and bottom.

Booklet stamps

Stamps from booklet panes often have one or two straight edges where the pane was cut from a larger sheet. The pattern of straight and perforated sides helps tell a booklet stamp from a coil or a sheet-edge stamp.

Die cut

Self-adhesive stamps are cut through by a die and peeled from a backing sheet. Wavy serpentine die cuts imitate perforations and are gauged the same way. True perforations show torn fibres on each tooth, while die cuts are smooth.

Elliptical perforation

A large oval hole among the perforations along the sides of British stamps, used from the early 1990s to make forgery harder.

Blind perforation

A hole pressed but not punched through, leaving a dimple. A few blind holes are a common minor flaw, not an error.

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Watermarks

A watermark is a design pressed into paper while it is being made. The paper is a little thinner there, so the design shows as lighter lines against a light, or darker lines on a black surface. Post offices used watermarked paper to make forgery harder.

Watermarks matter because one design was often printed on several papers: two stamps can look identical from the front and still be different stamps because of their watermark, or because it sits upside down or sideways.

Try the gentlest method first: lay the stamp face down on a black surface and look at a low angle, or hold it up to a lamp. If that fails, use a tray and fluid or a detector. Because you are looking from the back, a normal watermark appears reversed, like writing in a mirror, and catalogues say which way they picture theirs.

Dandy roll

A wire-covered roller that presses watermarks into machine-made paper while it is still wet. Hand-made paper gets its watermark from wire shapes sewn onto the mould.

Single watermark

One watermark for each stamp, placed to fall near its middle, such as the small crown of the Penny Black. If the paper was fed out of line, a stamp may show part of one or parts of two.

Multiple watermark

A pattern repeated across the whole sheet, so each stamp shows part of it in no fixed place. Britain's Multiple Crowns paper of the Wilding definitives is an example.

Crown CC and Crown CA

A crown above the letters CC (Crown Colonies) or CA (Crown Agents), one to each stamp, on stamps of British colonies. Crown CC came first, from the 1860s, and Crown CA replaced it from 1882.

Multiple Crown CA and Multiple Script CA

Repeating crowns and CA letters on British colonial stamps: Multiple Crown CA from 1904, then from 1921 Multiple Script CA, with the letters in a flowing script. Telling the two apart is often the only way to separate stamps of the same design.

Double-line USPS

The letters USPS in outlined capitals, repeated across the sheet, on United States stamps from 1895 to 1910. Single-line USPS, in plain letters, followed from 1910 to 1916, and most later United States stamps are unwatermarked.

Royal cypher

The monarch's crowned initials used as a watermark, such as the cypher of King George V repeated across British stamps of his reign.

Inverted watermark

A watermark upside down compared with normal, because the paper went into the press the wrong way round. In many British booklets, half the panes have inverted watermarks because of how the sheets were laid out, so these are a normal booklet feature, not an error.

Reversed watermark

A mirror image of the normal watermark, usually because the stamps were printed on the wrong side of the paper. A watermark can also be inverted and reversed at once.

Sideways watermark

A watermark turned a quarter turn, from paper fed sideways, often for wide stamps, coils, and booklets. Sideways inverted means turned a quarter turn the other way.

No watermark

Many stamps, especially modern ones, are on unwatermarked paper; write None on the form. A stamp of a watermarked issue that shows none may be a printing on plain paper, a sheet-edge stamp the watermark missed, or a forgery.

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Paper

Stamp paper varies more than beginners expect: thick or thin, white or tinted, plain or coated, and with patterns that show only against the light. Catalogues often list one design on two or three papers as separate stamps.

Look at the paper from both sides, hold it up to a light, and examine the torn fibres of the perforation teeth, where the inside of the paper shows. A UV lamp tells apart papers that look the same in daylight.

Wove paper

Paper with an even texture and no pattern of lines when held to light. Most stamps are on wove paper.

Laid paper

Paper that shows close parallel laid lines when held to light, usually crossed by wider-spaced chain lines. Canada's Threepenny Beaver of 1851 was first printed on laid paper and later on wove, and collectors keep the two apart.

Batonné and quadrillé

Batonné paper has widely spaced lines, like a writing guide; quadrillé has lines that form small squares. Both are uncommon.

Pelure

A very thin, crisp, almost see-through paper. Stamps on pelure tear and thin easily, so handle them with special care.

Granite paper

Paper with short coloured fibres, often red and blue, mixed into the pulp, which look like tiny hairs under a magnifier. Switzerland used it for many years.

Chalk-surfaced paper

Paper with a chalky coating, so that cleaning off a cancel also removes the design. Many British colonial stamps of the early twentieth century exist on both chalky and ordinary paper. Rubbing silver on chalky paper leaves a black line, but the test marks the stamp, so try it only on a margin or a damaged copy.

Coloured paper

Paper coloured all the way through, unlike surface-coloured paper, which is white inside. Check the back and the perforation teeth: on surface-coloured paper they show white.

Hard and soft paper

Catalogues sometimes divide stamps by the feel of the paper. United States stamps of the 1870s, for example, are on hard paper until 1879 and on soft, porous paper after.

Phosphor bands

Stripes of phosphor that glow under ultraviolet light so that sorting machines can find and face each letter. Britain began using phosphor in 1959, and its Machins come with one centre band, two bands, or a single side band, each listed separately.

Tagging

The North American word for luminescent coating or ink added for sorting machines, seen only under shortwave ultraviolet light. It may cover the whole stamp or form bars or a block. Canada tried tagging at Winnipeg in 1962, and the United States began in 1963.

Fluorescent paper

Paper with optical brighteners that glow blue-white under longwave ultraviolet light. Canadian collectors, for example, divide the Centennial definitives of 1967 to 1973 by how strongly their papers glow.

Self-adhesive paper

Stamp paper with a pressure-sensitive adhesive and a peel-off backing. Sierra Leone issued the first self-adhesive stamps in 1964, and the United States tried one for Christmas 1974 before self-adhesives became its usual kind in the 1990s and 2000s.

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Gum and hinging

Gum is the adhesive on the back of a stamp, meant to be moistened. For an unused stamp, the state of the gum is part of its description, and many collectors care about it as much as the front.

Tilt the back under a good light. Original gum has an even sheen and texture, and a hinge leaves a mark, a disturbance, or a remnant. Gum also shows how a stamp has been kept, and it is where repairs and regumming hide.

A stamp called never hinged must have gum that has never been touched, so describe what you see honestly, and choose the lesser description when unsure.

Mint

An unused stamp as it was sold, with its original gum. Collectors then add how the gum has fared: never hinged, lightly hinged, or hinged.

Original gum

The gum the stamp was issued with, abbreviated OG. It says the gum is genuine, not whether it has been hinged.

Mint never hinged

Full original gum that has never had a hinge, abbreviated MNH or NH, and called unmounted mint in Britain.

Lightly hinged

Original gum with only a small, faint mark where a hinge was neatly removed, abbreviated LH; lightly mounted in Britain.

Hinged

Original gum with a clear hinge mark or slightly disturbed gum where a hinge came off; mounted mint in Britain.

Heavily hinged

A large hinge mark, several marks, or gum partly lost under old hinges. Abbreviated HH.

Hinge remnant

Part of an old hinge still stuck to the stamp, abbreviated HR. Do not pull it off: on a mint stamp it is often safest to leave it, and on a used stamp it soaks off in water.

Disturbed gum

Gum changed by heat, moisture, or pressure, showing fingerprints, glazing, or stuck-on paper, as on stamps kept in a damp attic.

No gum

An unused stamp without its gum, abbreviated NG. Many old stamps lost their gum to soaking, and a few were issued with none, such as the United States imperforate special printings of 1935 known as Farley's Follies.

Unused

Not cancelled. Unused is broader than mint: an unused stamp may have original gum, hinged gum, or none.

Regummed

Given new gum to pass as original. Warning signs include gum on the tips of the perforation teeth, gum too even, too glossy, or the wrong colour, and an odd glow under ultraviolet light. An expert certificate is the surest check.

Kinds of gum

Older stamps were gummed with gum arabic or dextrin, often yellowish and crackly with age, and from the late 1960s many countries changed to PVA, a clear, matte synthetic gum. Britain's Machins exist with all three, listed separately.

Toned and cracked gum

Gum browns with age and heat, and in humid places it can stain the paper, as on many stamps from tropical colonies. Thick old gum can also crack and crease a stamp, one reason collectors accept many classic stamps without gum.

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Centring and grading

A grade sums up a stamp's condition in a word or a number. Its largest part is centring: how evenly the design sits within the perforations or, on an imperforate stamp, within its margins. Grade also takes in margin size, fresh colour and paper, the gum on an unused stamp, and the cancel on a used one.

To judge centring, compare the space on opposite sides, left with right and top with bottom; the grade follows the weaker direction. Classic stamps were often printed close together, so a well-centred copy of an old issue is much harder to find than one of a modern stamp.

There is no single official scale. The words below follow the usual North American meanings, from best to worst, and combined grades such as F-VF fall between two steps. Record faults separately: a well-centred stamp with a thin is still damaged.

Superb

Perfectly or almost perfectly centred, with large, even margins, fresh colour, and no faults. Few stamps reach it, especially among older issues.

Extremely fine (XF)

Centring very close to perfect, with margins nearly even on all sides. Only a careful eye sees that the stamp is slightly off.

Very fine (VF)

A little off centre, but with the design well clear of the perforations on every side, so the stamp looks balanced. Many careful collectors use very fine as their standard.

Fine (F)

Noticeably off centre on one or two sides, though the perforations do not touch the design. For many classic stamps, fine is the usual condition.

Very good (VG)

So far off centre that the perforations touch the design, or just nick it, on one or more sides. Despite the name, very good is below fine.

Good (G)

The perforations or the scissors cut into the design on one or more sides. Good copies usually fill a space until a better one turns up.

Poor

Badly cut into, heavily damaged, or both. Some scales put a step called fair between good and poor.

Numeric grade

Grading services such as the Philatelic Foundation and Professional Stamp Experts give stamps, mostly United States ones, a number on a scale that tops out at 100. On the Philatelic Foundation's table, 100 is superb gem, 98 superb, 95 extremely fine to superb, 90 extremely fine, 85 very fine to extremely fine, 80 very fine, 75 fine to very fine, 70 fine, and 50 very good; below very good, the numbers run down to 10. The number starts from centring, and points come off for small flaws such as a short perf or a tiny thin.

Jumbo

A stamp with margins much larger than usual for its issue. Graders add the word to the grade, as in 95 jumbo, rather than giving extra points.

Four-margin copy

An imperforate stamp with clear space between the design and the cut on all four sides. A margin cut into on even one side lowers the grade sharply.

Eye appeal

The overall impression: strong colour, a sharp impression, fresh paper, and, on a used stamp, a light, clear cancel. Two stamps with the same centring can differ greatly in eye appeal.

Soundness

Freedom from faults such as thins, creases, tears, stains, and repairs. Graders lower the grade for faults, or decline to grade a stamp with serious ones.

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Faults and repairs

A fault is any damage a stamp has suffered since it was printed. Check every stamp that matters to you in good light, from both sides, before writing up its condition.

Look at the face at a low angle for creases and scuffs, at the back for thins, and along the perforations for short or pulled teeth. A UV lamp reveals many repairs, since new paper, glue, and paint glow differently from old.

Repairs are faults someone has tried to hide. Many are made in good faith, to keep a damaged rarity presentable, but a repaired stamp must always be described as repaired. If a stamp looks better than it should for its age, look again.

Thin

A spot where paper has been lost from the back, usually when a hinge or envelope paper was pulled off. Against a light or under watermark fluid it shows as a brighter or darker patch, and even a small one must be mentioned.

Crease

A line where the paper has been folded and its fibres broken, seen best with the stamp tilted against the light. A crease in the gum alone, a gum bend, is a lesser fault.

Tear

A break in the paper, often starting at a perforation. Closed tears, whose edges meet, are hard to see, so check from the back under a strong light.

Short perf

A perforation tooth shorter than its neighbours, usually torn when the stamps were separated. A small fault, but still a fault.

Pulled perf

A tooth torn away so deeply that the tear runs into the stamp itself, which is more serious than a short perf.

Toning

Brown or yellow discolouring of the paper or gum, often in spots along the perforation teeth, from damp, heat, or poor storage.

Foxing

Small rusty-brown spots caused by mould or by impurities in the paper reacting with moisture. Keep foxed stamps apart and dry, since damp lets the spotting spread.

Fading

Loss of colour from light, which can turn a strong colour pale. Compare with a protected area or another copy: some inks fade evenly, while others change colour.

Changeling

A stamp whose colour has been changed by sunlight, water, or chemicals, so it looks like a different shade or even a colour error. Changelings are not errors, and they lie behind many false discoveries.

Stain

A mark from water, ink, oil, rust, tape, or glue. Tape stains are among the worst, because the adhesive soaks in and darkens with time.

Cleaned

A stamp whose cancel, often a pen mark, has been removed with chemicals to make it look unused. A UV lamp often shows the treated area or traces of the old ink.

Repair

Any work to restore a damaged stamp: filling thins, closing tears, adding missing corners or margins, backing a thin stamp with new paper, or painting in missing parts of the design. Experts note repairs on their certificates, and so should your records.

Reperforated

New perforations cut along one or more sides, usually to make a straight-edged copy look perforated all round or to replace damaged teeth. Look for teeth of a slightly different gauge, shape, or spacing, and for a stamp a little narrower than normal on that side.

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Cancels and postmarks

A cancel is the mark that spoils a stamp for reuse; a postmark tells where and when the post office handled a letter. Often one strike does both, and collectors use the words loosely.

Collectors generally prefer a light, clean cancel that leaves the design clear, but many seek out cancels for their own sake: clear towns and dates, small or short-lived post offices, unusual colours, and early dates of use.

On the form, describe the cancel as you see it, such as "circular date stamp, Halifax, 12 June 1899, socked on the nose" or "light wavy-line machine cancel."

Circular date stamp

A round postmark with the town and the date, sometimes with the time, the province or state, or an office number. Collectors call it a CDS, and a clear, complete one is the most informative cancel a stamp can have.

Duplex

A handstamp combining a date stamp and a killer side by side, so one strike dated the letter and defaced the stamp. Duplexes were common in Britain and North America in the late nineteenth century.

Killer

A heavy mark made only to deface the stamp, such as bars, grids, or blocks of lines, with no town or date. Killers explain why many classic stamps carry heavy cancels.

Maltese cross

The cross-shaped cancel used on the Penny Black and early Penny Reds in Britain from 1840 to 1844. Red crosses were hard to see on the black stamp, one reason its colour was changed to red in 1841.

Barred numeral

An oval or round grid of bars around a number standing for a particular post office, used in Britain from 1844 and in many other countries. Lists of the numbers tell you which town cancelled the stamp.

Fancy cancel

A cancel with a picture or shape, often carved from cork by a local postmaster: stars, hearts, shields, skulls, and animals. The best known were made at Waterbury, Connecticut, in the 1860s, among them a running chicken.

Socked on the nose

A cancel struck squarely on the centre of the stamp, so that the whole town and date sit on it. Such cancels, abbreviated SON, are popular because they show exactly where and when the stamp was used.

Pen cancel

A cancel written by hand in ink, used on early stamps and at small offices without handstamps. Pen marks can also show that a stamp paid a tax or fee rather than postage, called fiscal use, and they are the cancels most often removed to fake an unused stamp.

Precancel

A stamp cancelled before it was sold, so bulk mailers could post it without each piece being cancelled. United States precancels typically show a town and state between lines, and Canadian precancels show bars.

Cancelled to order

Stamps cancelled by the issuing authority without being mailed, often in whole sheets, for sale to collectors. Known as CTO, they usually have full gum and a neat corner cancel, and many collectors treat them as a lesser kind of used stamp.

Machine cancel

A cancel applied by machine, usually a date stamp beside wavy lines, bars, or a slogan. It is the commonest cancel on modern mail, and slogan cancels are collected for their messages.

Favour cancel

A cancel applied at a post office counter on request, without the stamp going through the mail. It is a genuine postmark but not true postal use.

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Formats

The format is the form a stamp takes in your collection: a single, stamps still joined together, or a stamp on the envelope or card it was mailed on. Joined stamps and covers often tell more than singles, so do not separate them without good reason.

Choose the format that describes the item as it is now. A block still joined is a block, and a stamp cut from an envelope is a used single, perhaps on piece.

Single

One stamp on its own, mint or used.

Pair

Two stamps still joined, side by side (a horizontal pair) or one above the other (a vertical pair). A pair can prove, for example, that a stamp is truly imperforate. Three or more in a row make a strip.

Block

Four or more stamps joined in at least two rows and two columns, most often a block of four. One with sheet margin attached is a marginal block, or a corner block if it comes from a corner.

Plate block

A block with the sheet margin that carries the plate number. Canadian collectors look for plate inscription blocks, corner blocks that also show the printer's name.

Coil

Stamps from a roll, with straight edges on two opposite sides, collected singly, in pairs, and in strips.

Coil pair and line pair

Two coil stamps still joined, which proves they are coils and not trimmed sheet stamps. A line pair shows a coloured line between the stamps, printed where the ends of a curved plate met or along a guide line.

Plate number coil

A coil stamp with a tiny plate number at the bottom, as on many United States coils since 1981, usually collected in strips of three or five with the numbered stamp in the middle.

Booklet pane

A small sheet of stamps bound or folded into a booklet, often with a tab or binding stub along one edge. Keep panes whole, and whole booklets if you can, since the cover is part of the issue.

Souvenir sheet

A small sheet with one or more stamps and a decorative margin, issued for an event or anniversary; British collectors call it a miniature sheet. Its stamps are valid for postage, but collectors keep the sheet whole.

Sheet

The full printed sheet, or more often the pane, the part of a sheet sold at the post office counter. Sheets are bulky and crease easily, so keep one only for a reason, such as a study of its varieties.

Cover

An envelope, folded letter, or wrapper that went through the mail, with its stamps and markings. A stamp on cover shows how it was really used, and many covers are collected for their routes, rates, and markings.

On piece

A used stamp left on a scrap of its envelope, usually to keep a whole cancel. Record it as a used single and note that it is on piece.

First day cover

A cover bearing a new stamp postmarked on its first day of issue, often at an official first day post office. Most carry a printed design called a cachet and were made for collectors rather than for ordinary mail.

Postcard

A private card, with or without a picture, that needs an adhesive stamp to be mailed. Postcards are collected for their pictures, stamps, and postmarks.

Postal card

A card issued by the post office with its postage already printed on it, so it belongs to postal stationery rather than postcards.

Postal stationery

Envelopes, cards, letter sheets, aerogrammes, and wrappers with the postage printed or embossed on them; the printed stamp is called the indicium. Keep postal stationery whole, since an indicium cut from its envelope loses most of its interest.

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Varieties and errors

No two stamps are quite the same, but only some differences deserve a record. Collectors sort them into errors, varieties, and freaks.

An error is a mistake that changes the stamp as a whole, such as a missing colour or an inverted centre. A variety is any recognizable difference that can be found again, such as a plate flaw that prints on every sheet. A freak is a one-off accident, like a paper fold or an ink smear.

The test is whether it repeats: a mark in the same place on every sheet is a constant variety, to be noted with its plate position. Compare your stamp with a normal copy, and remember that damage, fading, and chemicals can imitate errors.

Error

A production mistake that changes a stamp as a whole: an invert, a missing or wrong colour, a wrong watermark, or missing perforations.

Variety

Any recognizable, repeatable difference from the normal stamp, from a tiny plate flaw to a different paper or shade.

Freak

A one-time accident, such as a sheet folded before printing, an ink smear, or perforations shifted far into the design. Freaks are not listed as varieties because they do not repeat.

Plate variety

A flaw on the plate or cylinder, such as a scratch, a dot, or a broken line, that prints on every sheet in the same position. A famous example is the extra flagstaff on Windsor Castle in the 1935 Silver Jubilee stamps of many British colonies.

Plate position

Where a stamp sat on the sheet, written as row 5, stamp 6 (R5/6), as position 46, or as a corner such as upper left. The Penny Black prints its own position in its corner letters, from AA at the top left to TL at the bottom right.

Re-entry

Each design on an engraved plate was rocked in from a transfer roll, and when a design was entered a second time, traces of the first can show as doubled lines in the lettering and frame. Britain's line-engraved penny stamps are rich in them.

Double transfer

The usual United States term for a design showing doubled parts of an earlier entry. Some writers keep re-entry for re-engraving a worn design and double transfer for traces of a misplaced one, so check which meaning a reference uses.

Retouch

A plate flaw repaired by hand with an engraving tool, leaving lines slightly different from the rest of the sheet. Retouches are constant and listed like other plate varieties.

Shade

A difference in colour from one printing to another, from new batches of ink. Canada's Admiral issue, printed over many years, comes in a great many shades, and catalogues name only the clearest.

Invert

Part of the design upside down, from a sheet fed the wrong way round for its second colour. The best known are the 1918 United States Inverted Jenny, with its biplane upside down, and Canada's 1959 St. Lawrence Seaway stamp with its centre inverted.

Missing colour

A multicoloured stamp printed without one of its colours. The colour must be truly absent, not faint or shifted, and fakes are made by removing a colour chemically, so such errors need an expert's opinion.

Wrong colour

A stamp printed in the colour meant for another value, like Sweden's Treskilling Yellow of 1855, a 3-skilling stamp in the yellow-orange of the 8-skilling instead of blue-green.

Imperforate error

A stamp issued without perforations when it should have them; imperforate between means a pair perforated around the outside but not between the stamps. Collect such errors as pairs, since a single can be faked by trimming.

Overprint errors

An overprint or surcharge printed upside down, twice, or in the wrong place. Popular, and for that reason often faked.

Doctor blade flaw

A streak of colour across a photogravure stamp, left by a nicked or dirty blade wiping the cylinder; usually a freak.

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Forgeries, fakes, and expertizing

Wherever collectors take an interest, forgers follow. Beginners meet copies early, because crude forgeries of popular classic stamps have been sold in packets for more than a century.

The best defence is knowing the genuine stamp: its printing method, perforation, watermark, paper, and size. Keep a genuine copy, even a damaged one, to compare, since most forgeries fail on at least one of those points. For important stamps, ask an expert.

Forgery

A complete imitation of a stamp, made to fool collectors (a philatelic forgery) or to cheat the post office (a postal forgery, actually used on mail). Famous forgers include François Fournier of Geneva and Jean de Sperati, whose copies of classic stamps are still studied.

Fake

A genuine stamp altered to look like a scarcer one: a forged overprint or cancel added, a cancel removed, perforations trimmed or added, a colour changed, or new gum applied. Because a fake starts as a real stamp, it passes simple tests and needs careful comparison with reference copies.

Reprint

A stamp printed from the original plates or stones after it went out of use. Reprints usually differ from the originals in paper, gum, shade, or perforation, and references explain how to tell them apart.

Reproduction

A copy made from new plates or dies. When the United States copied its 1847 stamps in 1875, the old plates were gone, so new dies were engraved, and collectors call the results reproductions, not reprints.

Facsimile

An honest copy for albums, books, or exhibitions, often marked FACSIMILE on the face or back. Once the mark is removed, a facsimile can be passed off as genuine.

Bogus

A stamp-like label for a country, issue, or value that never existed. It is not a forgery of anything, because there is no genuine stamp.

Faked cover

A cover made up or improved with stamps, postmarks, or markings it never had. Look for stamps that do not match the postage rate, cancels that do not continue cleanly from stamp to envelope, and ink that differs on each.

Warning signs

The wrong printing method (lithographed copies of engraved stamps are common), the wrong gauge or watermark, a design slightly too large or small, odd colours, blurred detail, and a famous rarity with no history or certificate.

Expertizing

Examination of a stamp or cover by an expert or committee to decide whether it is genuine, what exactly it is, and its condition, often by comparison with reference collections of genuine and forged stamps.

Expert certificate

A signed document, usually with a photograph, giving the expert's opinion: genuine, genuine with faults or repairs noted, not genuine, or no opinion. It names the stamp, often notes its gum and faults, and carries a number and date. Keep it with the stamp, and record its issuer, number, date, and opinion on the form.

Who issues certificates

Well-known issuers include the Philatelic Foundation in New York, the American Philatelic Society's expertizing service, Professional Stamp Experts, the Royal Philatelic Society London, the British Philatelic Association, and, for British North America, the Vincent Graves Greene Philatelic Research Foundation in Toronto. Many countries also have recognized individual experts.

Expert's mark

A small pencil signature or handstamp on the back of a stamp, used by some experts, especially in Europe, to show they judged it genuine. Such marks are forged too, so a recent certificate is stronger evidence.

Opinion, not guarantee

A certificate is an expert's opinion on a given date, and opinions can change as knowledge grows. Forged certificates exist, so check one that comes with a rare stamp; some services let you confirm a certificate number online.

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Care and storage

Stamps suffer from what harms old books: damp, heat, light, acid, and careless handling. Good storage takes little effort.

Keep albums in a living area, not in a basement, attic, or garage, or against an outside wall, where temperature and humidity swing. Aim for a cool, steady room with relative humidity near 45 per cent; a simple hygrometer measures it. Damp brings mould, toning, and stuck gum, while very dry air makes gum brittle.

Store albums upright, like books, so their weight does not press stamps against facing pages, and do not overfill them. Keep them closed and out of sunlight.

Album

A book of pages for displaying stamps. Printed albums have a space for each stamp of a country or period, while blank pages let you lay out a collection your own way.

Hingeless album

An album with clear mounts already fixed to its pages, the easiest way to keep mint stamps never hinged.

Mounts or hinges

Mounts protect gum and are the choice for mint stamps. Peelable hinges are fine for used stamps and for mint stamps already hinged. Never use tape, glue, or a stamp's own gum to fix it in an album.

Acid-free

Paper or card that will not turn acidic and brown with age, usually also free of lignin, the part of wood pulp that yellows newsprint. Acid in poor-quality pages and envelopes slowly stains and weakens stamps.

Archival plastics

Polyester, polypropylene, and polyethylene are stable and safe for stamps and covers. Avoid PVC (polyvinyl chloride), often soft and smelling of plastic, which gives off chemicals that can shift colours.

Light

Sunlight and bright indoor light fade inks and yellow paper, and the damage cannot be undone. Do not leave favourite stamps on display in daylight for long.

Mould

Fungus that grows in damp, still air and leaves stains and foxing. Separate the item, let it dry, and improve the storage before it spreads.

Soaking

Trim the envelope paper close, float the stamp face up in cool or lukewarm water, never hot, and wait until it slides off, which can take from a few minutes to half an hour. Rinse off leftover gum, dry the stamp face down on a paper towel, and then press it flat under a heavy book. Soak stamps on coloured paper separately, since the dye can run.

When not to soak

Never soak mint stamps, which would lose their gum, or stamps on covers or with postmarks you want to keep whole. Avoid soaking stamps printed in fugitive inks, which run or vanish in water, such as Britain's lilac and green issue of 1883 and 1884, and take care with chalk-surfaced paper, whose design rubs off when wet.

Self-adhesive stamps

Some self-adhesives float off in water and others will not. If one has not loosened after about half an hour, try a remover made for stamps, or keep it on its paper, neatly trimmed.

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Glossary

The other words collectors use, from A to Z. Terms explained in earlier sections, such as the grades and formats, are found there.

Aerogramme

A lightweight letter sheet with postage printed on it, which folds into its own envelope for airmail.

Airmail

Stamps or covers for mail carried by air; many countries issued separate airmail stamps for much of the twentieth century.

Back-of-the-book

Stamps listed after the regular postage issues in a catalogue: airmails, postage dues, officials, semi-postals, revenues, and the like.

Bisect

A stamp cut in half and used for half its face value when a post office ran short of a lower value, such as the British 2d stamps halved in Guernsey in 1940. Bisects are collected on cover.

Cachet

A printed, stamped, or drawn design on an envelope, usually at the left, marking an event or a stamp's first day of issue.

Censor mark

A handstamp, label, or resealing tape showing that a letter was opened and read, usually in wartime.

Cinderella

Anything that looks like a stamp but was not issued for postage, such as Christmas seals, charity labels, exhibition labels, and bogus issues.

Commemorative

A stamp issued for a limited time to mark an event, anniversary, person, or place.

Cut square

A printed or embossed stamp cut from postal stationery with a margin around it, the way older envelope stamps are often collected.

Cylinder number

The number of a photogravure cylinder printed in the sheet margin, the photogravure equivalent of a plate number.

Definitive

A stamp for everyday postage, kept on sale for years in a range of values, such as Canada's Admirals or Britain's Machins.

Demonetized

No longer valid for postage, as Britain's pre-decimal stamps became in 1972.

Die

The original engraving or master design from which plates or cylinders are made. A die proof is a trial print taken from it.

Earliest documented use

The earliest known date on which a stamp was used, recorded from dated covers and abbreviated EDU.

Entire

A complete envelope, letter sheet, wrapper, or card, with all its parts, as opposed to a front or a cut square.

Essay

A proposed stamp design that was not adopted, or not in that form.

Fiscal

A stamp for paying taxes or fees rather than postage, also called a revenue stamp.

Frank

Any mark showing that postage was paid or not needed, such as a stamp, a meter mark, or a printed permit.

Gutter

The blank strip between panes on a printed sheet; a gutter pair is two stamps with the gutter between them.

Imprint

The printer's name, or sometimes the year, printed in the sheet margin or at the foot of the stamp design.

Key plate

A method used for many British colonial stamps: one plate printed a common design with the monarch's head, and a second, the duty plate, added the colony's name and the value.

Kiloware

Used stamps still on envelope paper, sold by weight, and a good source of common stamps to soak and sort.

Local

A stamp valid only within a limited area or on a private local post, such as the private city posts of the nineteenth-century United States.

Maximum card

A picture postcard whose picture matches its stamp, with a postmark linked to the subject.

Official

A stamp for government departments, often an ordinary stamp overprinted or perforated with initials, such as Canada's OHMS and G overprints.

Omnibus issue

Stamps on one theme, often in one design, issued by many countries together, such as the 1935 Silver Jubilee stamps of the British colonies.

Overprint

Words or marks printed on a stamp after it was made, to change its use or the place it serves, such as United States stamps overprinted Canal Zone.

Perfin

A stamp perforated with initials or a design by a company or office, to stop staff from using it privately. Britain allowed perfins from 1868.

Personalized stamp

A stamp printed with a picture chosen by the buyer, offered by many postal services since the early 2000s.

Philatelic cover

A cover made by or for a collector rather than sent as ordinary mail, unlike a commercial cover, which carried a real letter.

Plate number

The number of a printing plate, printed in the sheet margin or, on some classic stamps, in the design itself. Britain's Penny Reds from 1864 carry theirs in tiny figures in the side borders.

Postage due

Stamps or markings applied to mail sent with too little postage, showing what the receiver had to make up.

Postal history

The study of how mail was carried, its routes, rates, and markings, mostly through covers.

Proof

A trial print from a die or plate, made to check the design before stamps were printed, usually on card or thin paper and imperforate.

Provisional

A stamp made locally or in a hurry when regular stamps ran out or rates changed, often by overprinting stamps on hand.

Remainder

Stamps left over when an issue was withdrawn, sometimes sold off to dealers and sometimes cancelled first.

Se-tenant

Stamps of different designs, values, or colours printed side by side and still joined, like South Africa's stamps of 1926 into the 1950s, which alternate English and Dutch or Afrikaans inscriptions.

Selvage

The plain paper margin around a sheet or pane, also spelled selvedge, often carrying plate numbers, imprints, and colour bars.

Semi-postal

A stamp sold for more than its postage, with the extra going to a charity, often shown as two figures joined by a plus sign, as on Switzerland's Pro Juventute stamps.

Set

All the stamps issued together under one design or for one event. A short set lacks one or more of its values.

Specimen

A stamp overprinted or perforated SPECIMEN, sent to other postal administrations as a sample and not valid for postage.

Stampless cover

A letter sent before stamps existed, or without them, with the postage written or handstamped on it.

Surcharge

An overprint that changes a stamp's face value. When Canada lowered its letter rate from 3 cents to 2, leftover 3-cent stamps were surcharged 2 CENTS.

Tab

A label joined to a stamp in the sheet margin, carrying an inscription, as on many stamps of Israel, which are collected with the tab attached.

Tête-bêche

Two joined stamps with one upside down relative to the other, from French for "head to tail." They occur in booklet panes and from plate errors, as on some early French stamps.

Thematic

Collecting by subject, such as birds, ships, or space, rather than by country; North Americans call it topical collecting.

Tied

A stamp is tied to a cover when its cancel runs from the stamp onto the envelope, showing the two travelled together.

Want list

A list of the stamps you are looking for, with enough detail to avoid getting the wrong one.

Wing margin

An extra-wide margin on one side of some Victorian British stamps, from the gutter between panes, which was perforated down the middle.

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