philately 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 poss ...

, the vignette is the central part of a

postage stamp design Postage stamp design is the activity of graphic design as applied to postage stamps. Many thousands of designs have been created since a profile bust of Victoria of the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria was adopted for the Penny Black in 1840; some ...

, such as, a monarch's head or a pictorial design, which often shades off gradually to the edges of the stamp. The central vignette is often surrounded by a frame which may be printed separately and is normally of a different colour. The plate from which the vignette is printed is known as the ''vignette plate''. Printing errors have sometimes led to the vignette being inverted. Perhaps the most famous example is the

Inverted Jenny The Inverted Jenny (also known as an Upside Down Jenny, Jenny Invert) is a 24 cent United States postage stamp first issued on May 10, 1918, in which the image of the Curtiss JN-4 airplane in the center of the design is printed upside-down; it is ...

Alternative meaning

A different use of the term ''vignette'' in philately is to describe publicity labels or

poster stamp The poster stamp was an advertising label, a little larger than most postage stamps, that originated in the mid-19th century and quickly became a collecting craze, growing in popularity until World War I and then declining by World War II until they ...

s which do not have postal validity,Mackay, James. ''Philatelic Terms Illustrated'', 4th edition, Stanley Gibbons, London, 2003, p.165. . such as those produced in France during World War One by Delandre.

References

Philatelic terminology {{philately-stub

Alternative meaning

See also

References