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Postage

Specialty Definition: Postage

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Specialty Definition: Mail

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Postal service redirects here. There is also a band called The Postal Service. The postal system is a system for transporting written documents typically enclosed in envelopes and also small packages containing other matter, around the world. Anything sent through the postal system is called mail or post.

In principle a postal service can be private or official. Restrictions are generally placed on private systems by governments. Since the 19th century national postal systems have generally been established as government monopolies with postage (tax) on the article prepaid.

Worldwide the most common method of prepaying the tax is by affixing a self-adhesive postage stamp; the much less common method is to use a postage-prepaid envelope. Franking is a method of creating postage-prepaid envelopes under licence using a special machine. They are used by companies with large mail programs such as banks and direct mail companies.

In 1998 the U.S. Postal Service authorised the first tests of a secure system of sending digital franks via the Internet to be printed out on a PC printer, obviating the necessity to license a dedicated franking machine and allowing companies with smaller mail programs to make use of the option. The service provided by the U.S. Postal Service in 2003 allows the franks to printed out on special adhesive-backed labels. The system is expected to be taken up over time by postal administrations right around the world.

The world-wide postal system comprising the individual national postal systems of the world's self-governing states is co-ordinated by the Universal Postal Union, which among other things sets international postage rates, defines standards for postage stamps and operates the system of International Reply Coupons.

Since the advent of e-mail, which is usually faster, the postal system has come to be referred to in internet slang as "snail mail".

Communication via written documents that an intermediary carries from one person or place to another almost certainly dates back almost to the invention of writing. The development of a formal postal system comes much later, however. The first documented use of an organized courier service for the diffusion of written documents is in Egypt, where Pharaohs used couriers for the diffusion of their decrees in the territory of the State (2400 BC). This practice almost certainly has roots in the much older practice of oral messaging and may have been built on a pre-existing infrastructure.

The first credible claim for the development of a real postal system comes from Assyria, but the point of invention remains in question. The best documented claim (Xenophon) attributes the invention to Cyrus the Great (550 BC), while other writers credit his successor Darius I of Persia (521 BC) Other sources claim much earlier dates for an Assyrian postal system, with credit given to Hammurabi (1700 BC) and Saragon II (722 BC). Mail may not have been the primary mission of this postal service, however. The role of the system as an intelligence gathering apparatus is well documented, and the service was (later) called angariae, a term that in time turned to indicate a tax system. The Old Testament (Esther, VIII) makes mention of this system: Ahasuerus, king of Medes, used couriers for communicating his decisions.

The next credible claimant to the title of first postal system is China. Claims concerning the origins of this mail system also conflict somewhat, but it is clear that an organized postal infrastructure is put in place during Qin Dynasty (221 BC-207 BC) and that is is substantially expanded during the subsequent Han Dynasty. The origins of a Chinese mail system may go back to the Zhou Dynasty (1122 BC - 256 BC), when Confucius (551 BC-479 BC) says "news of deeds travels faster than the mail." It may also build on a pre-existing messaging infrastructure started by the Shang Dynasty. Whatever its point of origin, the Chinese Postal Service has clear title to the world's oldest continuously operating mail system. Today's Chinese mail system is continuous with one that was probably formalized under the Qin Dynasty.

The first well documented postal service is that of Rome. Organised at the time of Augustus Caesar (62 BC-AD 14), it may also be the first true mail service. The service was called cursus publicus, and was provided with light carriages called rhedae with fast horses; additionally there was another, slower, service equipped with two-wheels carts (birolae) pulled by oxen. This service was reserved to the government's correspondence, another service for citizens was later added.

By the name of the stations in which mail was distributed and messengers' routes crossed, derives the latin name of mail, Posta (originally posata or pausata = place of rest) because in these stations messengers used to rest during their voyages. The english term "mail" is instead supposed coming from the Teutonic name for the bag used by messengers.

Another important postal service was created in the Islamic world by the caliph Moàvia; the service was called berid, by the name of the towers that were built in order to protect the roads by which couriers travelled.

Well before the Middle Ages and during them, carrier pigeons were used, taking advantage of a singular quality of this bird, that when taken far from its nest is able to find his way home due to a particularly developed sense of orientation. Messages were then tied around the legs of the pigeon that was freed and could reach his original nest.

Mail has been transported by quite a few other methods throughout history, including dogsled, balloon, rocket, mule, and even submarine.

Charlemagne extended to the whole territory of his empire the system used by Franks in northern Gaul, and connected this service with the service of missi dominici.

Many religious orders had a private mail service, notably Cistercians's one connected more than 6,000 abbeys, monasteries and churches. The best organisation however was created by Teutonic Knights. The newly insitituted universities too had their private services, starting from Bologna (1158)

Popular illiteracy was accommodated through the service of scribes. Illiterates who needed to communicate dictated their messages to a scribe, another profession now quite generally disappeared.

In 1505, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I established a postal system in the Empire, appointing Franz von Thurn und Taxis to run it. Von Thurn und Taxis' family, then known as Tassis, had operated postal services between Italian city states from 1290 onwards. Following the abolition of the Empire in 1806 the Thurn und Taxis postal system continued as a private organisation, continuing to exist into the postage stamp era before finally being absorbed into the postal system of the new German Empire after 1871.

Modern mail is usually organised by national services (that in recent times are increasingly being replaced by privately-owned companies), reciprocally interconnected by international regulations (some of which still in their original 18th-century form, many others of which are set out by the Universal Postal Union), organisations and agreements.

As noted above, usually the payment for the service is settled with the attachment of a pre-paid postage stamp; when the envelope or package to which the stamp or stamps are affixed is accepted into the mail by an officer or agent of the postal service the agent usually indicates by means of a cancellation that it is no longer valid for pre-payment of postage (the exceptions being when he neglects to do this, or for stamps that are pre-cancelled and thus do not require cancellation). Stamps are also object of a particular form of collecting called philately, and often their commercial value on this specific market becomes enormously greater that the printed one, even after use. Another form of collecting regards postcards, a document written on a single robust sheet of paper, usually decorated with photographic pictures or artistic drawings on one of the sides, and short messages on a small part of the other side, that also contained the space for the address. In strict philatelic usage, the postcard is to be distinguished from the postal card, which has a pre-printed postage on the card. The fact that this communication is visible by other than the receiver, often causes the messages to be written in jargons.

Mail is quite generally protected by the secret of correspondence (secretus epistulae), meaning that no letter or other document can be read by other than the receiver (under U.S. law, this only applies to First Class Mail). This right is usually guaranteed by most national constitutions, like the Mexican Constitution. Usually special procedures are required in case correspondence has to be, openly or discreetly, controlled by police. The operations of control of the private citizens' mail is called censorship and concerns social, political, legal aspects of the civil rights. While in most cases this censorship is exceptional, military censorship of mail, particularly of soldiers at the front, is routine and almost universally applied.

The use of mail is subject to common rules and a particular etiquette. After the discovery of new communicating systems and vehicles, mail lost most of its special charm in favour of more quickly connecting systems such as the telephone, and remained as a vehicle for commercial or formal documents. It is however still widely in use in more cultivated classes for personal communication; in particular, wedding invitations are always sent by mail.

In modern times, mainly in 20th century, mail has found an evolution in vehicles using newer technologies to deliver the documents, especially through the telephone network; these new vehicles include telegram, telex, fac-simile (fax), e-mail, short-message-service (sms). There have been methods which have combined mail and some of these newer methods, such as INTELPOST, which combined facsimile transmission with overnight delivery. These vehicles commonly use a mechanical or electro-mechanical standardised writing (typing), that on the one hand makes for more efficient communication, while on the other hand makes impossible characteristics and practices that traditionally were in conventional mail, such as calligraphy.

This epoch is undoubtedly mainly dominated by mechanical writing, with a general use of no more of half a dozen standard typographic fonts from standard keyboards. However, the increased use of typewritten or computer-printed letters for personal communication and the advent of e-mail, has sparked renewed interest in calligraphy, as a letter has become more of a "special event." Long before e-mail and computer-printed letters, however, decorated envelopes, rubber stamps and artistamps formed part of the medium of mail art.

The ordinary mail service was improved in 20th century with the use of planes for a quicker delivery (air mail). The first scheduled airmail service took place between the London suburbs of Hendon and Windsor on 9 September 1911. Some methods of airmail proved ineffective, however, including the United States Postal Service's experiment with guided missiles for international mail transport (external link).

Receipts services were made available in order to grant the sender a confirmation of effective delivery.

In many countries a system of codes has been created (they are called zip codes in the United States and postal codes in most other countries), in order to facilitate the automation of operations.

A make-shift mail method after stranding on a deserted island is a message in a bottle.

Letters are often studied as an example of literature, and also in biography in the case of a famous person. A portion of the New Testament of the Bible is composed of the Apostle Paul's epistles to Christian congregations in various parts of the Roman Empire. Other famous letters include:

• Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet
• Martin Luther King, Jr's Letter from Birmingham Jail

A style of writing, called epistolary, tells a fictional story in the form of the correspondence between two or more characters.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Mail."

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Postage stamp

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

A postage stamp is evidence of pre-paying a fee for postal services. Usually a small paper rectangle which is attached to an envelope, signifying that the person sending the letter or package has paid for delivery', it is the most popular alternative to using a prepaid-postage envelope.

Stamps have been issued in other shapes, however: the circular stamps of New Zealand, triangular and pentagonal, and Sierra Leone and Tonga have issued self-adhesive stamps in the shape of fruit, Bhutan has issued a stamp with its national anthem on a playable record, etc. Stamps have also been made of material other than paper, commonly [embossed] foil, and the German Democratic Republic once issued a stamp made entirely of synthetic chemicals.

History

The adhesive postage stamp and the uniform postage rate was devised by James Chalmers around 1834. The same ideas were published by Rowland Hill, in Postal Reform: its Importance and Practibility in 1837. In it he argued that it would be better for the sender to pay the cost of delivery, rather than the addressee who could refuse the letter if they could not or did not want to pay, as sometimes happened at the time. He also argued for a uniform rate of one penny per letter, no matter where its destination. Accounting costs for the government would thus be cut; postage would no longer be charged according to how far a letter had travelled, which required each letter to have an individual entry in the Royal Mail's accounts. Chalmers' ideas were finally adopted by Parliament in August, 1839 and the General Post Office launched the Penny Post service the next year in 1840 with two prepaid-postage pictorial envelopes or wrappers : one valued at one penny and one valued at two pennies.

Three months later the first prepaid-postage stamp, known as the Penny Black was issued with the profile of Queen Victoria printed on it. Because the United Kingdom issued the first stamps, the Universal Postal Union (U.P.U.) grants it an exemption from its rule that the identification of the issuing country must appear on a stamp in roman script for use in international mails. Before joining the U.P.U. many countries did not do this (e. g. the "bullseye" stamps of Brazil); there are very few violations of the rule since this time, though one example is the U.S. Pilgrim Tercentenary series, on which the country designation was inadvertently excluded. Because of this the numerous early issues of China and Japan often confound new collectors unfamiliar with oriental scripts. A stamp must also show a face value in the issuing country's currency. Some countries have issued stamps with a letter of the alphabet or designation such as "First Class" for a face value. Because of the U.P.U. rules their use is restricted to domestic mail, but breach of this rule is often tolerated. (Exceptions to this are the British "E" stamp (intended to pay the rate for mailing letters to Europe) and the South African "International Letter Rate" stamp.)

Dispensing

Since their inception there have been numerous innovative developments in how stamps have been dispensed and sold. Recently one has been able to print up postage stamps from one's personal computer. In 2002 the United States Postal Service licensed Stamps.com to issue NetStamps, postage that can be printed up on special labels and, unlike previous postage the USPS licensed individuals to print up on their computers, these stamps can be used on any date, not just the date one prints them up. (There are other types of computer-vended postage as well.)

For instance, ATM stamps have been sold at automatic teller machines (ATMs), although the may be sold via stamp catalogues of the postal service or possibly at philatelic windows. They must be the same size and thickness as currency in order to be dispensed by the ATM.

Types of stamps

• Airmail - for payment of airmail service. While the word or words "airmail" or equivalent is usually printed on the stamp, Scott (the dominant U.S. cataloguing firm) has recognised as airmail stamps some U.S. stamps issued in denominations good for then-current international airmail rates, and showing the silhouette of an airplane. The other three major catalogs do not give any special status to airmail stamps.
• ATM -
  • stamps dispensed by automatic teller machines (ATMss)
  • Automatenmarken, stamps issued in the denomination of the customer's choice by a kind of machine (similar to computer-vended postage) are also referred to by the acronymn ATM, which has created some confusion.
• carrier's stamp
• certified mail stamp
• commemorative stamp - a limited run of stamp designed to commemorate a particular event
• definitive - stamps issued mainly for the everyday payment of postage. They often have less appealing designs than commemoratives. The same design may be used for many years. Definitive stamps are often the same basic size. The use of the same design over an extended period of time often leads to many unintended varieties. This makes them far more interesting to philatelists than commemoratives.
• express mail stamp / special delivery stamp
• late fee stamp - issued to show payment of a fee to allow inclusion of a letter or package in the outgoing dispatch although it has been turned in after the cut-off time
• local post
• military stamp - stamps issued specifically for the use of members of a country's armed forces, usually using a special postal system
• official mail stamp - issued for use solely by the government or a government agency or bureau
• occupation stamp - a stamp issued for use by either an occupying army or by the occupying army or authorities for use by the civilian population
• parcel post
• postage due - a stamp applied showing that the full amount of required postage has not been paid, and indicating the amount of shortage and penalties the recipient will have to pay. (Collectors and philatelists debate whether these should be called stamps, some saying that as they do not pre-pay postage they should be called "labels".) The United States Post Office Department issued "parcel post postage due" stamps.
• postal tax - a stamp indicating that a tax (above the regular postage rate) required for sending letters has been paid. This stamp is often mandatory on all mail issued on a particular day or for a few days only.
• registered - for pre-payment of a registery fee (fee for "registered mail").
• self-adhesive stamp - stamps not requiring licking or moisture to be applied to the back to stick. Self-sticking.
• semi-postal / charity stamp - a stamp issued with an additonal charge above the amount needed to pay postage, where the extra charge is used for charitable purposes such as the Red Cross. The usage of semi-postal stamps is entirely at the option of the purchaser. Countries (such as Belgium and Switzerland) that make extensive use of this form of charitable fund-raising design such stamps in a way that makes them more desirable for collectors.
• special handling - gave parcel post mail first-class treatment in the United States.
• test stamp - these labels are not valid for postage and are not usually available to the public. They are used by postal authorities on sample mail to test various sorting and cancelling machines or machines that can detect the absence or presence of a stamp on an envelope. Putting a stamp on the upper left corner of an envelope can confuse these machines.
• war tax stamp - A variation on the postal tax stamp intended to defray the costs of war.
• water-activated stamp - for many years "water-activated" stamps were the only kind so this term only entered into use with the advent of self-adhesive stamps. The adhesive or gum on the back of the stamp must be moistened (usually it is done by licking, thus the stamps are also known as "lick and stick") to affix it to the envelope or package.

Souvenir sheets

Postage stamps are sometimes issued in souvenir sheets containing just one or a small number of stamps. Souvenir sheets typically include additional artwork or information printed on the selvage (border surrounding the stamps).

Stamps should be distinguished from cinderellas, stamp-like labels that resemble, but are not, postage stamps. Cinderellas might be commemorative labels, such as those issued to support the Transmissippi Exposition in Buffalo, New York (USA) in 1901 (one of these has now been converted into an actual postage stamp), or may be postage stamps for imaginary countries. Clifford Harper has even designed "anarchist postage stamps".

"Test stamps" are not actually postage stamps, not being valid or intended for prepayment of postage, but are for testing printing processes, equipment, and the like.

Collecting

Stamp collecting or philately is a popular hobby.

Some countries are known for producing stamps intended for collectors rather than postal use. This practice produces a significant portion of the countries' government revenues. This has been condoned by the collecting community for places like Liechtenstein and Pitcairn Islands that have followed relatively conservative stamp issuing policies. Abuses of this policy, however, are generally condemned. Among the most notable abusers have been Nicholas F. Seebeck and the component states of the United Arab Emirates. Seebeck operated in the 1890s as an agent of Hamilton Bank Note Company when he approached several Latin American countries with an offer to produce their entire postage stamp needs for free. In return he would have the exclusive rights to market the remaiders of the stamps to collectors. Each year a new issue of stamps was produced whose postal validity would expire at the end of the year; this assured Seebeck of a continuing supply of remainders. In the 1960s certain stamp printers such as the Barody Stamp Company arranged contracts to produce quantities of stamps for the separate Emirates and other countries. These abuses combined with the sparse population of the desert states earned them the reputation of being known as the "sand dune" countries.

The combination of hundreds of countries, each producing scores of different stamps each year has resulted in a total of some 400,000 different types in existence as of 2000. In recent years, the annual world output has averaged about 10,000 types each year.

Famous stamps

• Penny Black
• The "Treskilling" Yellow
• Inverted Jenny
• British Guiana 1c magenta
• Perot provisional
• Hawaii Missionaries
• Basel Dove
• Uganda Cowries
• Vineta provisional
• Black Honduras
• Scinde Dawk
• St. Louis Bears

See also

• mail, List of entities that have issued postage stamps, Artistamp, People on stamps, Philatelic Investment

External links

• Joseph Luft's Philatelic Resources on the Web - largest collection of links to other stamp-related sites
• philately.com

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Postage stamp."

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Modern Usage: Postage

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Commercial Usage: Postage

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Image Slideshow: Postage

Photos: Postage More pictures...

Illustrations: Postage More pictures...

Computer Images: Postage More pictures...

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Photo Album: Postage

Thumbnail	Description & Credit	Thumbnail	Description & Credit
	[Boy (head-and-shoulders portrait, facing left) placing a postage stamp on an airmail package] Esther Bubley. Credit: National Library of Medicine.		The man wot pays no postage. Credit: Library of Congress.
	"I see the F.B.I. cleared up another big postage stamp robbery". Credit: Library of Congress.		A United States two cents postage stamp with head-and-shoulders portrait of James A. McNeill Whistler. Credit: Library of Congress.
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits.

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Digital Photo Gallery: Postage
 

"Us postage" by Feike Kloostra Commentary: "A close-up of a US postage sticker."

Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers.

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Familiar Quotations: Postage

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Use in Literature: Postage

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Non-Fiction Usage: Postage

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Speeches: Postage

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Usage Frequency: Postage

Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.

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Expressions: Postage

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Frequency of Internet Keywords: Postage

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Modern Translation: Postage

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Derivations & Misspellings: Postage

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Rhyming with "Postage"

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Anagrams: Postage

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