Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 16.djvu/355

* POSTAGE STAMPS. 301 POSTAGE STAMPS. the plan with such success that the Government undertook, in 1847, a general issue to supersede all the individual postmasters' issues. The highest authority pertains to government issues, and consequently universal recognition is accorded to them. A sharp distinction,. however, is made between establislied governments and pseudo-governments. The attempts of the Cuban I?cvolutionary Committee to raise revenue from stamps manufactured and sold in Xew York, which never prepaid an ounce of Cuban mail, and of Aguinaldo in the Philippines' to foist labels issued by his unrecognized government upon the collecting public, met with small suc- cess. There are two kinds of stamps, the adiiesive and those which are impressed upon the envelope or wrapper. Adhesives are attached to packages Ijefore mailing. The only exception to this is found in the case of some United States newspaper stamps. The newspaper set of 1865 was attached to pack.iges of newspapers, but the stamps of 1875 and following years were attached to the stubs of receipt books, the receipts being given to publishers of second-class mail matter sent through the mails at pound rates to show the amount that had been paid by them. The use of these stamps was finally judged superfluous and discontinued. Official stamps are used by govern- ment office-holders to indicate the amount of postage that would have been paid had their mail matter been sent at the usual rates. No money, however, having been paid for these, they are in the nature of official franks, but a nomina'l value is usually given them, the idea being to use them as a means of keeping the accounts between the dif- ferent departments of govern- ment. The history of postage stamps begins with the issues made by Great Britain in 1840, imder the administration of .Sir Row- land Hill. The successful use of stamps in the postal service of Great Britain resulted in the adoption of stamps by ilauritius, an English colony, by Brazil, France, Switzerland, and the United States before 1850. The example was followed by many other countries, and since 1800 nearly all have adopted the postage stamp as the most convenient means of indicating the prepayment of postage on mail matter. The establishment of the Universal Postal Union, by means of ■ivhich the rates of international postage, the colors of the stamps to be used, and the regulations for forwarding are determined, has given great impetus to the issuing of stamps throughout the world. The earliest shape of the postage stamp is practically that which is in use to-day. The tri- angular, diamond-shaped, octagonal, and square have been tried as experiments by different coun- tries, but in nearly all cases the return has been made to the rectangular form, and usually to about the same size as that of the original issue of Great Britain. Sizes have differed very greatly, the smallest, a stamp of Bolivar, a State of the Colombian Republic, being three-eighths by one- half inch, and the largest the United States newspaper stamp of 1865. 2^4 X 3Ts inches. The original designs of the stamps of many a POSTAGE p SliiNK p't ^^^ n countries are their finest ; but there are notable cases in which the improvement both in design and workmanship has been remarkable. 'A prominent example of this is found in the various issues for Urugua}-. The earliest types, those of 1856- 66, are of the most inferior workmanship, and the stamps are produced by the cheapest processes known. Stamps of the ne.xt decade show some im- provement, while those of the following years contain some of the finest work of the period, and also a num- ber of specimens of poor work. The stamps since 1884. however, have been the M o N T E V 1 1> r: o finest possible examples that could be turned out under modern processes of engraving, and reveal from year to year the advances that have been made. The methods of manufacture have changed very greatly since po.stage stamps were lirst issued. The earliest stamps, in several countries, were each engraved separately by hand, upon copper plates from which the impressions were taken. .- notable example of this is the postmasters' stamps issued in Saint Louis. This small plate of six stamps was engraved in two vertical rows of three stamps each, the first row of the 5-cent and the second row denominati(m. of the 10-cent The two upper 5-cent stamps were ^^, altered to 20-cent stamps and W^essa^^^ later these were changed back %4srl-— ?S&^1 to their original 5-cent de- nomination. Separate engrav- ing was also employed in the cases of the early stamps of JIaviritius, Xew South Wales, and the Philippine Islands. The first adhesive stamp is- sued, the onc-[K'nnv black of CJreat Britain, was made by a more advanced process. The original steel die, having been hard- ened, was impressed a number of times upon a softened steel roller which in turn was hard- ened, and under pressure rolled upon a plate from which the stamps were printed. By this means of transfer, as many impressions could be made on a plate as desired, and the full sheets of these early issues contained 240 stamps. This method of engraving and transfer, with some improvements, is employed at the present time and is utilized in the manufacture of the stamps of many countries. Another method in use has been the setting of separate electrotypes of a stamp side by side and then recasting them as a solid plate. Lithography has also been employed as a convenient and cheap method for producing stamps in quantity. Some countries have also made stamps by the use of ordinary' type and rule, the design being repeated as many times as it was desired to have stamps in the sheet. Type-set stamps vary one from another.