Portal:Philately
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Philately is the study of revenue or postage stamps. This includes the design, production, and uses of stamps after they are issued. A postage stamp is evidence of pre-paying a fee for postal services. Postal history is the study of postal systems of the past. It includes the study of rates charged, routes followed, and special handling of letters.
Stamp collecting is the collecting of postage stamps and related objects, such as covers (envelopes, postcards or parcels with stamps affixed). It is one of the world's most popular hobbies, with estimates of the number of collectors ranging up to 20 million in the United States alone.
The state communications in the Neo-Assyrian Empire allowed the Assyrian king and his officials to send and receive messages across the empire quickly and reliably. Messages were sent using a relay system (Assyrian: kalliu) which was revolutionary for the early first millennium BCE. Messages were carried by military riders who travelled on mules. At intervals the riders stopped at purpose-built stations, and the messages were passed to other riders with fresh mounts. The stations were positioned at regular intervals along the imperial highway system. Because messages could be transmitted without delay and without waiting for riders to rest, the system provided unprecedented communication speed, which was not surpassed in the Middle East until the introduction of the telegraph.
The efficiency of the system contributed to the Neo-Assyrian Empire's dominance in the Middle East and to maintaining cohesion throughout the empire. These Assyrian innovations were adopted by later empires, including the Achaemenid Empire which inherited and expanded the Assyrian communication network. (Full article...)
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Canada Post Corporation (French: Société canadienne des postes), trading as Canada Post (French: Postes Canada), is a Canadian Crown corporation that functions as the primary postal operator in Canada.
Originally known as Royal Mail Canada (the operating name of the Post Office Department of the Canadian government founded in 1867), the Canada Post Corporation Act of 1981 abolished the Post Office Department and created the present-day Crown corporation that provides postal service. The act aimed to set a new direction for the postal service by ensuring its financial security and independence. (Full article...)
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Did you know (auto-generated)
- ... that both of Karl R. Free's New Deal-era U.S. post office murals with Native American subjects have been challenged as offensive?
- ... that Argentinian Ricardo D. Eliçabe qualified as a physician, co-founded a petroleum refinery, and wrote about forgeries of Bolivia's first stamps?
- ... that Amrita Sher-Gil's painting Hill Women appeared on a 1978 Indian postage stamp?
- ... that James Diossa rescued the only public library and post office in Central Falls, Rhode Island, when the city went into bankruptcy?
- ... that in 2007, Arthur Gray's £2 Kangaroo and Map stamp sold for a world record price for a single Australian stamp?
- ... that an investigation into the Royal Oak post office shootings led one congressman to accuse the Postal Service of having been "asleep at the switch"?
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The 1904 Pictorial 4d Lake Taupo invert is an invert error on a postage and revenue stamp issued by New Zealand which is considered to be the country's rarest stamp. The centre vignette is inverted in relation to the outer frame. The stamp was discovered in a schoolboy album in 1930 and no other copy has been found since then.
The 4d stamp depicts Lake Taupō in New Zealand's North Island. It was part of the first pictorial series originally issued in 1898 but reissued in different colours and sizes in 1899 and 1900. The same design was used for a 1d value issued in 1898. (Full article...)
List articles
- List of philatelists
- List of most expensive philatelic items
- List of postage stamps
- Lists of people on postage stamps (article) • (Category page)
- List of entities that have issued postage stamps (A–E)
- List of entities that have issued postage stamps (F–L)
- List of entities that have issued postage stamps (M–Z)
- List of postal services abroad
- Timeline of postal history
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WikiProject
WikiProject Philately organizes the development of articles relating to philately. For those who want to skip ahead to the smaller articles, the WikiProject also maintains a list of articles in need of improvement or that need to be started. There are also many red inked topics that need to be started on the list of philatelic topics page.
Selected works
- Williams, Louis N., & Williams, Maurice (1990). Fundamentals of Philately {revised ed.). American Philatelic Society. ISBN 0-9335-8013-4.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Hornung, Otto (1970). The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Stamp Collecting. Hamlyn. ISBN 0-600-01797-4.
- Stuart Rossiter & John Fowler (1991). World History Stamp Atlas (reprint ed.). pub: Black Cat. ISBN 0-7481-0309-0.
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Sources
- ^ "Philatelic Collections: General Collections". British Library. 2003-11-30. Archived from the original on 30 June 2011. Retrieved 2011-01-16.