Personalized Stamps: Where Do They Fit, In Stamp Collecting?

Or whoever's country's mail the stamps are from.

It is also an added bit of history about the sender or the group or event. Great added value to postal history.

I see on ebay, while searching for US personal stamps, event covers and personal covers made that are selling as they have special cancels or perhaps have a great cachet that adds value to a collection. Or nice personal stamps or all three. Nice stuff sells nicely.

I haven't seen many for Canada yet. Some made by enthusiast's of a them or topic mostly. I guess the same idea holds true everywhere.

That would stun a person probably. They say that as long as it spins you can recover data from it but there are probably exceptions to that rule also.

And I have lost data, yes, from media failure and hardware failure. And I didn't have it backed up. Wait a sec while I kick ,myself one more time here . . .

Here is a plug for the US Zazzle (dot com) stamps. I got these years ago. I do like the fact that you can, with Zazzle, chose one of three different sizes for your stamps. The ones below are the larger size I believe.



These big sizes are great for topical collectors. At least I think so.

I like NCBuckeye's idea. These could be numbered like people do with caches- 5/20, 14/20, etc. They would be limited editions that one day might become collectors' items.

KFlower mentioned people making the stamps with kids photos to use on letters to grandparents. I have heard of people giving these as early Christmas presents to grandparebts so that they can be used on Xmas cards to show off the kids.

I like the idea too. But one problem is that we would have to use our own county;s stamps.

So a common design could be used? Or just a sharing of covers / stamps?

I haven't checked but maybe a group exists already to share covers worldwide of personal stamps.

Good point. They are made in very limited quantities like 12 or 20 or 40 (or more) and one would think that stamps that rare would automatically attract a premium price.

Some do think that. I see personal stamps from countries that have just started issuing them come onto ebay priced outrageously high.

But personal stamps seem to have a price leveling feature of their own.

If the stamp made is attractive, and if it fits somehow into a collecting area of a collector, then the price is higher. There are the collect one of everything collectors, and I admit, I am one of them as regards personal stamps, but finances and others thinking along similar lines stop me.

But there are, at present, only so many collectors who want to pay a premium for that new personal stamp in case it disappears again. After that are the I'll get one if the price is right otherwise no types of collectors.

The stamps picture or design does affect this I'll wait strategy and one sometimes pays more for something that seems nice.

But usually most collectors have a reasonable type of price range in mind. This sometimes (most times) limits what kind of a collection of personal stamps they can achieve, unless they make their own stamps, and that is costly also as mentioned above.

You are then left to restrict your collection to certain topics or themes out of necessity. Or to just take what comes along and be happy.

Different themes could be real photos of your country, people, transport, animals, stamp show event stamps and covers made, just ones about your hobby, etc , etc.

Listing each stamp made in a catalogue would cost a lot I fear. Just gathering the photos of each stamp is an almost impossible task.

Such was my suggestion about companies or countries making an attempt to record what was made and when. Probably not going to happen though. Cost too much.

So it turns into a hobby in itself to find and record and arrange and sort photos and information about each stamp made.

I had started to talk with member studystamps about his Wiki project of world stamps, a free catalogue (not numbered) that is ongoing at:
http://www.stampsoftheworld.co.uk/w...of_the_World
and contributed some scans of personal official FDCs of Canada.

He thought it would work to add each photo of each separate stamp also but I have not tried to yet.

It seems like a labor of love from whichever point of view you look at it but there have been other catalogues made of select collecting areas before so there is always hope.

Are personalized stamps recognized for use internationally or are they only valid for domestic mail from the country of origin?

. . . or to collect one example of each type of stamp issued.

This idea changes by country of issue.

Canada has two stamp desins now, oh, and either horozontally oriented or vertically, so that's four stamps really. But there were different borders years ago in 2000 and 2001..

Some countries change the border or framing design each year so that makes it easy, just one or two (vertical / horizontal) per year.

You can get into a postally used cover, event or topical covers, full sheets, mint and used, etc, etc as with government issued stamps.

Or you could have one stamp from each country and one stamp with your own design or photo from each country if you have the money.

Each country is different as to which stamp is OK to use.

In the US and Canada anyway, as far as I know now, it is OK to count each stamp towards the total needed to mail internationally. For a regular domestic rate stamp it might take three to reach the international rate.

Other countries have personalized stamps that have a domestic rate and an international rate stamp of some kind, or they have stamps rated for specific weight ranges of letters (like France).

Usually there is always a way to figure out what each stamp is worth and to use different ones to add up to the total needed.

The below list shows just how many countries have issued or issue personalized versions of stamps or labels (tabs).

List of all countries (compiled by mmember casselo) known to have issued personalized (personalised) stamps or stamps with personalized labels attached.

List made in October 2011. After that date Tuvalu and Laos have issued or made available personalized stamp.

The With tab and No tab notes mean that the personalized design will be either
1) printed on an attached label (With tab) next to the stamp (but not on the stamp itself)(so as to personalize your stamp)
2) or printed on the actual stamp itself (Mo tab) (so as to produce a personalized or customized stamp).





This is not an exhaustive list, that is it does not show all versions of personalized stamps that have ever been listed by each country by year.

Just found this comment about the US personalized stamps manufactured by photo.stamps.com:



Here's the link (see bottom right lower section for quote):

http://photo.stamps.com/Store/learn...e/?sslr=true

This has turned into a very Puzzler-ish thread. Sorry about that. My passion shows through.

A thought about a common design for SCF personal stamp. Some countries will decline designs submitted going by their own rules, which are not always posted clearly or at all.

For example, Canada does not allow the portrayal of any flag of any country or any stamp issued by any country, which was kind of disappointing to me. Also no naughty bits or anything disrespecting anyone or country or flag.

Even if some rulings by some countries or companies are subjective and not correct in everyone's reality they are the ones with the say so.

Sometimes you just have to try and see, or email and ask, if you are not sure.

The no stamps is a downer for any stamp collecting I know but I think perhaps you could draw your own stamp. or flag. Not completely sure though.

An additional piece of information about the use of US Customized Postage for International Mail. According to this web page from the US Postal Service (last paragraph) it unequivocally states that these customized stamps "can only be used for domestic mail" therefore one would assume they CANNOT be used for international mail:



I guess that answers that question!

Thanks for the speedy research WT1! I was at it but way slow.



I wonder why that is now? With other stamps you can add them p and make a total but not the personalized ones.

Did US personal stamps ever have a No Value Indicated form that perhaps this ruling is talking about, in that the sentence 'can only be used for domestic mail' meant, at the time, that personal postage was a domestic mail stamp and thus you couldn't use itfor anything else on;y because it was not denominated high enough.

You know how rules get written and then things change and the rules do not get rewritten to follow the changes.

Just wondering.

I just thought I have the Zazzle stamps shown above that were mailed to me in Canada from Tennessee on an envelope, paying the 'to Canada' rate in Aug 20, 2006.

I also have another envelope mailed to Canada May 23, 2006 from Maine shown below.


Maybe the rule changed since 2006 but maybe it always meant that they don't make higher vale denominated stamps than domestic rated ones and so, you would have to add them together to get up to the needed postage.