Philatelist
Philately (; ) is the study of postage stamps and postal history. It also refers to the collection and appreciation of stamps and other philatelic products. Philately involves more than just stamp collecting or the study of postage; it is possi ...
s' traditional method of identifying
postage stamp
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail), who then affix the stamp to the f ...
s uniquely has long been to number each country's stamps consecutively;
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...
#1 is the 4-skilling blue stamp issued in 1855, and so forth. However, this seemingly straightforward
numbering system runs into immediate difficulties, which have been solved in different ways by different
stamp catalogs.
Issues
The difficulties are as follows:
* What is a "country"?
* What is a postage stamp?
* What is a distinct type of postage stamp?
* What if several stamps are issued on the same day?
* What if the date of issue is unknown?
* What if stamps of a single series appear one at a time, interspersed with
commemorative stamp
A commemorative stamp is a postage stamp, often issued on a significant date such as an anniversary, to honor or commemorate a place, event, person, or object. The ''subject'' of the commemorative stamp is usually spelled out in print, unlike defi ...
s?
* Should special-purpose stamps be grouped together?
Although the definition of "country" may seem obvious, there are occupations of one country by another, stamp issued by areas in rebellion, reunifications, and regions that have issued their own stamps for one reason or another. A classic example is Germany:
unified from many smaller entities, then divided into
multiple zones of occupation at the end of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, then divided into
West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
and
East Germany
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
, then reunified. Catalogs typically treat West Germany as part of a single sequence under the name "Germany" while giving East German stamps their own numbers.
The definition of "postage stamp" can also be problematic for catalogers. For instance, some countries have issued adhesive labels purporting to be postage stamps, but which had the "
cancel" printed directly on the stamp and shipped to dealers, without ever being sold to the public for use on letters. The treatment of these has long been a vexing issue, and catalogs vary greatly on whether to list the stamps. A related issue is a small number of extremely rare stamps that may or may not be old forgeries; the assignment or removal of a number is a key step in the consensus as to their authenticity.
Philatelists typically identify more types of stamps than do the governments issuing them. Changes of perforation, watermark, often occur without any official notice, as do printing errors. In a few cases, even the date of first issue of a stamp has no surviving record.
The issuance of multiple types on a single day is an old practice, but usually these were different
denominations, and could be numbered in ascending order of value. More recently, it has become common to issue a group of stamps with related designs and the same denomination on the same day.
Finally, it is common for the stamps of a
definitive series
A definitive stamp is a postage stamp that is part of the regular issue of a country's stamps, available for sale by the post office for an extended period of time and designed to serve the everyday postal needs of the country. The term is used in ...
to be issued one or a few at a time, as postal rates change. Logically, they are part of a single group, with a unified design theme and a sequence of values, even though ten years or more may have elapsed from the first to the last. The same reasoning could be applied to special-purpose stamps such as
airmail
Airmail (or air mail) is a mail transport service branded and sold on the basis of at least one leg of its journey being by air. Airmail items typically arrive more quickly than surface mail, and usually cost more to send. Airmail may be t ...
or
postage due stamps.
Catalog numbering systems
Over time, stamp numbers may become a shorthand for collectors and dealers.
Scott Catalogue,
Gibbons,
Yvert and
Michel catalog
The Michel catalog (''MICHEL-Briefmarken-Katalog'') is the largest and best-known stamp catalog in the German-speaking world. First published in 1910, it has become an important reference work for philately, with information not available in ...
s all use different arrangements for numbering regular and special-purpose types, and attach different importance to variations in
paper
Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distrib ...
, perforation, watermark and other types.
Because of its commercial importance the publishers of the Scott Catalogue claim copyright on their numbering systems, and grant only limited licences for their use by others. The inconsistency with which Scott enforced these licences resulted in a lawsuit by Krause Publications (publishers of the Minkus Catalogue) for copyright infringement. After Krause filed a defence the suit was settled out of court, and Krause continued to reference the Scott numbers. It has been speculated that Scott was not successful.
Attempts by philatelists to establish an alternative have not yet been successful.
Official numbering systems
In general, governments have not tried to number their own stamps. The
People's Republic of China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
is a notable exception, having inscribed most of its stamps with a unique numbering system since 1949.
In 2002, as part of efforts to control allegedly illegal stamps, the
Universal Postal Union
The Universal Postal Union (UPU, french: link=no, Union postale universelle), established by the Treaty of Bern of 1874, is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that coordinates postal policies among member nations, in addition to ...
introduced the
WADP Numbering System The WADP Numbering System (WNS) is a project referencing postal stamps issued in the world since 1 January 2002. It is monitored by the World Association for the Development of Philately (WADP) and the Universal Postal Union. Its inventory is made ...
(WNS) for new issues by UPU members.
References
External links
Alphabet soup: Scott catalog prefixes and suffixes*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stamp Numbering System
Stamp collecting
Philatelic terminology