What is the first postal stamp of the World?

 Are you curious to know what is the first stamp of the world? Let's find out how this stamp comes to the world.....

Postage Stamps History

The knowledge about when the very first stamp was created can actually help stamp collectors to know that from when this best hobby was begun. Also, it will let the collectors to know the huge history of the awesome art of stamps. The complete knowledge and understanding can really help stamp collectors to understand the perfect beauty of amazing art.

The first ever postage stamps in the world,the Penny Black were introduced in May 1840. This may truly be what you call a glance of postage stamps history. You may be confused -before this time period, how did people send and receive mails and what made them think of having postage stamps instead?

 

The time before introducing the Envelope and the Postage Stamp

Postage stamps have assisted in the delivery of letters and mail since the 1840s. Before the introducing of postage stamps, ink and hand-stamps (thus the word -- stamp) which were made from wood or cork were used. The hand-stamps and ink were used to frank the mail and verify the payment of postage.

 

When the postal service first operated, stamps and envelopes did not exist yet. Truth is, people do not like to use envelopes because they were deemed as an extra sheet of paper that actually makes the overall cost of sending mail more expensive. If you are going to send a letter, you only have to fold the paper and seal it closed. Then, the person who will receive your letter have to pay for the delivery fees. Because the fees back then were very high, a lot of people tend to refuse accepting letters. Some people even thought of writing secret codes to mislead the postal services. On the outside of the letter, they would write secret marks that shows the message and all the recipient had to do was read the secret message, refuse to accept the letter, and so they do not have to pay any fee for it. Because of this, postal services have reinstated to a system wherein postage has to be paid first, and this time, the sender would be the one to pay for all postage fees.

 

Rowland Hill and the Post Office Reform

Rowland Hill (an English teacher, inventor and social reformer) campaigned for a widespread postal office reform in 1835. His approval paved the way for the approval of the Uniform Penny Post -- postage rates were based on weight more than the size of the mail. Rowland Hill invented the first sticky postage stamp in 1837, -- the beginning of postage stamps history -- in which he was knighted for it. The Penny Black, the ideal piece in postage stamps history, was issued in 1840 in England. The issuing of postage stamps made the pre-payment of letters and mail possible, cheap and practical.

 

The First Use of the Postage Stamps

The first postage stamp which costs one penny was designed by Sir Rowland Hill. It became known everywhere as the Penny Black due to the fact that the postage stamp was printed in black, in postage stamps history -- the world's very first postage stamp.

On May 1, 1840, the first postage stamp in history, the Penny Black, became available to the public.And it was confirmed as of May 6, 1840. After two days, on May 8, 1840, the Two Penny Blue was released. These 2 stamps show an engraved visage of Queen Victoria. Because the first stamps at that time were separated from their sheets by cutting devices (most likely scissors), both stamps do not have perforations.

 

There was no need to include the name of the country on the postage stamps ever since the first issues of postage stamps were released. In fact, the United Kingdom is the only country that does not have its name printed on its postage stamps.And they use the currently ruling royalty's head as their simple means of identification.

 

After the launching of the postage stamps in the United Kingdom, the use of prepaid postage system had radically sped up the number of letters and other paraphernalia being sent. Before 1839, it was guessed that the number of letters sent that time was 76 million. Itincreased five times to about 350 million during 1850, and it continued to grow considerably afterwards, up until the end of the 20th century when more modern methods of implying postage-paid substantially lowered the use of delivery systems that require the presence of postage stamps.

 

The Rise of the Stamp Collectors

Theexisting of stamps has triggered the rise of stamp collectors and the postage stamps of every country became highly collectible. Shortly after the introduction of sticky postage stamps in 1840, people began to collect them. Little did they know that their latest passion for collecting stamps could perhaps become a widespread phenomenon and that some of the postage stamps they may have could gather in a lot of serious money.

Before the stamps were not available for the postage process, in that era, the receiver of the letter had to pay the postage charge of the letter instead of the sender. That process was simply problematic for the receiver as they have to pay for the postage letters and sometimes many receivers simply refuse to accept or pay for the letter. So, because of that, many times the senders simply write the secret message on envelop and as soon as the receiver just read the message on envelope, he never pays for the letter he received.

 

The World of Philately

Philately refers to thepostage stamps history, study of stamps, and other things related to postage stamps. Stamp collecting does not significantly include the study of stamps. In fact, even if you do not own any stamps you can be called a philatelist. A good example for this is that the postage stamps being studied by a philatelist might be the very rare ones that have notable historical value in postage stamps history, or ones that can only be found kept in museums nowadays.

Begining of the Journey : World Postal System

 

History of the World Postal System

A postal system is a system written documents typically enclosed in envelopes, and also small packages containing other materials, are delivered to destinations around the world. Anything sent through the postal system is called post or mail.

In principle, a postal service can be public or private. Governments frequently place restrictions on private postal delivery systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal systems have been established as government monopolies with a fee on the article prepaid, frequently in the form of sticky stamps. In general, government monopolies only extend parcel (non-mail) delivery to courier services, which supply express delivery. Postal systems frequently have functions other than sending letters. In some countries, the postal system also has some power over telephone and telegraph. In others, postal systems allow for handling applications for passports and saving accounts.

The development of the postal system to the collection of national organizations that work together internationally, coordinated by the Universal Postal Union, letting the transfer of printed and other materials around the world is a huge achievement. Although the postal system may seem to be outdated when compared with the more modern technologies such as the telephone, fax, and internet, it still has an benefit through its ability to send written documents as well as other items to any location, no matter how remote and lacking in modern technology.

With the invention of writing, the history of postal systems, a mail or courier service to pass messages from one person in one place to another person in another place, starts and may well have been one of the reasons writing was invented.

Writing as a Commercial Enterprise

At least 9,500 years ago, in Mesopotamia the start of writing occurs and it involved the use of clay tokens, blobs of baked clay which had lines or dots incised in them representing quantities of goods. A courier might bring tokens to a seller for so many jars of olive oil, or so many bushels of grain. Think of it like a Bronze Age bill of lading.

The Uruk-period 3500–3100 BCE, Mesopotamian trade network had ballooned and they wrapped their clay tokens in thin sheets of clay and they were then baked. These Mesopotamian envelopes called bullae.  They were intended to deter fraud, so that the seller could be certain that the correct amount of goods would get to the buyer. In time the tokens were done away with and a tablet with markings was used—and then writing really took off.

Postal System

The first documented use of a postal system, designated couriers who were trusted to transport messages—occurred in about 2400 BCE in Egypt when Pharaohs used couriers to send out decrees throughout the territory of the state. The earliest surviving piece of mail is also Egyptian, recovered from the Oxyrhynchus papyri cache which dates back to 255 BCE.

The same type of courier service was likely used to manage taxes and keep up to date on far-flung reaches of most empires, such as the Persian empire in the Han dynasty in China (306 BCE–221 CE), the Fertile Crescent (500–220 BCE), the Islamic Empire (622–1923 CE) in Arabia, the Inca empire in Peru (1250–1550 CE), and the Mughal empire in India (1650–1857 CE). In addition, there were doubtlessly state-sponsored messages transported along the Silk Road, between traders in different empires, probably since its founding in the 3rd century BCE.

The first envelopes protecting such messages from prying eyes were made of cloth, vegetable parts or , animal skins. In China, paper envelopes were developed where paper was invented in the 2nd century BCE. Paper envelopes were used to store gifts of money known as chihpoh.

The Birth of Modern Mail Systems

Frenchman Jean-Jacques Renouard de Villayer (1607–1691) in 1653 in Paris established a postal system. He set up mailboxes. And if they used the postage pre-paid envelopes that he sold, he delivered any letters placed in them. When a devious person decided to put live mice in the mailboxes scaring away his customers, De Valayer's business did not last long.

Rowland Hill (1795–1879), a schoolmaster from England, invented the adhesive postage stamp in 1837. The first postage stamp system in the world was issued through his efforts, in England in 1840. Rather than size Hill created the first uniform postage rates that were based on weight. Hill's stamps made the prepayment of postage both practical and possible.

In 1874, the Universal Postal Union was established. Today it includes 192 member countries and sets the rules for international mail exchanges.

History of The United States Postal Office

The Postal Service of the United States is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government. And it has been responsible for providing postal services in the U.S. since its start in 1775. It is one of the few government agencies definitely authorized by the U.S. Constitution. Benjamin Franklin, founding father was appointed the first postmaster general.

First Mail Order Catalog

In 1872, Aaron Montgomery Ward (1843–1913) distributed the first mail order catalog by selling goods primarily to rural farmers who had difficulty making it out to the big cities for commerce. With only $2,400, Ward started his Chicago-based business. The first catalog was with a single 8- by 12-inch sheet of paper with a price list showing the merchandise for sale with ordering directions. The catalogs then enlarged into illustrated books. The first Montgomery Ward retail store opened in 1926 in Plymouth in Indiana. The company was re-launched in 2004, as an e-commerce business.

The First Automatic Postal Sorter

In 1957 Maurice Levy, a Canadian electronics scientist found an automatic postal sorter that could handle 200,000 letters an hour.

The Canadian Post Office Department had commissioned Levy to supervise and design the building of a new, electronic, computer-controlled, automatic mail sortation system for Canada. in 1953, a hand-made model sorter was tested at postal headquarters in Ottawa. It worked, and a sortation and prototype coding machine, capable of processing all of the mail then generated by the City of Ottawa, was built in 1956 by Canadian manufacturers. With a missort factor of less than one letter in 10,000, it could process mail at a rate of 30,000 letters per hour.