Postage stamps people use
I just came in from a walk during which I bought a small mixture of on-paper stamps from a local 2nd hand store. Nothing fancy - just a handfull of totally unsorted stamps from a non-collector. What was inside tells a great story of stamps non-collecting people use for regular postage.
Finland roll of self-adhesive definitive postage stamps. A complete roll of 100 stamps is sold for 78€ these days - meaning a 2€ discount for buyer. The picture shows Ainola - home of Jean Sibelius stamp roll issued 14.1.2004.
The lot had a total of 31 stamps: 29 from Finland, 1 from Sweden and 1 from Russia. Almost all where machine cancelled, only 5 stamps had hand cancels.
The finnish stamps on this mixture can be divided as :
- 3 large sized pictorial / commemorative stamps
- 8 2nd class self-adhesive definitive stamps stamps from a roll
- 6 other 2nd class definitive stamps from sheets or booklets
- 5 1st class self-adhesive definite stamps from a roll
- 6 other 1st class definitive stamps from sheets or booklets
- 3 christmas stamps
It surely doesn’t feel like every stamp collectors wet daydream…IMO this just tells what many stamp collectors and dealers already know. Recent pictorial and commemorative stamps are becoming a dying breed – especially in real used condition. They are being replaced by booklet and roll stamps that are easy to buy and use.
And if thinking even my own (non-philatelic) stamp use… Yes, I tend to use 1st and 2nd class roll stamps too. But for collector mail I still use commemorative stamps “the old way”.
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Hi there.
As a rule I get all mail cancelled with a CDS(circular date stamp) but have to visit the post office and of cource as much as possible using commemorative stamps. That can be difficult in the so called developed countries. The rest of the world are still using CDS and stamps for the indendend purpose and do not only produce stamps mainly for collectors even if it looks like that. Have a good day & funny collecting. Eric
Hi Eric,
I definitely agree that stamp collecting should be fun (and without too many rules/guides/no-no’s). That’s what makes it such a great hobby.
-keijo-