A BNAPS Tutorial for New Collectors - Part 3
COMMEMORATIVES.
You might never have seen this word before. It refers to stamps that honour or "commemorate" a person or an event. In fact, most of the stamps you will save will probably be commemoratives.
On the previous page, you saw a commemorative cover that honoured the first landing on the moon by astronauts of the USA. The stamp by itself is nice, but the whole cover is even better because it contains information about the event and tells us that this stamp was used on an envelope that was posted on the first day the stamp was available! There is also a cancellation that is dated when the landing took place! We have here another example of an FDC, or First Day Cover.
This cover celebrates the crowning (or "coronation") of Queen Elizabeth. It was mailed in the town of "Coronation, Alberta" and that makes it even more interesting.
Another example, from the United States, is a cover containing a stamp honouring "White Plains, New York", mailed in the town of White Plains. This does not say that it is a FDC, so you have to check the date on the postmark and find a catalogue that tells you the date the stamp was first issued.
OVERPRINTS AND PERFINS
By now, you are getting the message that there are lots of different things you can save. Sometimes even the stamps have things written on them that mean something. For example, at one time in Canada, and in some other countries as well, government offices used stamps that had special marks on them.
In Canada, these stamps might have OHMS on them, or maybe the letter "G". The earlier ones used OHMS (On His Majesty's Service), or (On Her Majesty's Service), depending who was running the show in England, a King or a Queen!! The later ones used "G" for Government. Here is an example of 3 different uses of those letters, using the same stamp!!
When the lettering is punched into the stamp, leaving small holes, they are called "perfins". "Perfins" stands for PERforated INitialS, used to avoid employees' pilfering stamps for personal use. For example, stamps used by the Government of Canada once had the initials O.H.M.S. punched into the stamp. This stood for: "On His (or Her) Majesty's Service".
See the OHMS holes?
Here are 15 smaller stamps with OHMS viewed from the back
Did you notice that the letters seen from the back, are backwards! The "condition" of those stamps is not great. They were used on a big parcel and have lots of wrinkles. But don't worry too much about that if you like the stamps.
Many companies used perfins that displayed the name of their company, or at least the initials. This is a whole area of collecting you might wish to explore. Well, maybe saving such things is not interesting for you yet. But keep them in mind for the future. What about your own country? Does it have special markings like that?
COIL STAMPS
Have a look at the two stamps below. What is the main difference between them?
Notice that the stamp on the right has no perforations along the top or bottom edges. They are called "coil stamps", and they come in long rolls. Because they are connected only to stamps in the strip, they do not need perforations on the other edges. Generally, the size of the perfs are different from the stamps like them that are made in sheets. Since it is easier to tear off a stamp from a strip, the perfs are larger and there are fewer of them.
Now, have a look at these examples. Same stamp? Yes!! Coil strips? Yes! But one is a "vertical coil" and the other is a "horizontal coil".
BOOKLET PANE
Years ago, some stamps were sold in little "booklets", even with a cover on the booklet. When you opened the cover, you saw a small sheet of perhaps 6 stamps. There might have been several of these small sheets. Each small sheet was called a "pane". Ask an adult what a pane of glass is, then try to figure out why the small sheets were called that!
Here is an example of a 6-stamp pane. Here is an example of a 4-stamp pane.
The tutorial continues.
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