Picture Postage - What Am I Missing???

Regarding Bee See's mention of the fascinating design-shift of the bottom five stamps printed in a sheet of 25 + 1 stamps


I think they would only command a premium from collectors who pay attention to the personal stamps.

In a catalogue they are seen by most collectors but when on an online type of catalogue (see above) and not priced in a consistent manner, and not in printed albums, they would have limited main-stream collecting interest.

The EFOs do have considerably more rarity then the 'ordinary' other 20 stamps in the pane so I myself would be interested in watching them and would pay attention to any stamps, or indeed blocks from the lower edge (that showed error stamps and ordinary ones together), that showed this type of variety.

Online catalogue started for the New 2012 type of Canada personal stamps here:
http://www.picturepostage.net/newde...DITIONS.html

The lack of proper cataloguing for most all personal stamps issued worldwide is a large factor in their lack of popularity I would think.

Canada's personal stamps look like proper stamps with their nice borders. they are all stamp, while some country's personal or custom stamps look more like machine-labels or are personal labels attached to actual stamps.

The rarity factor of very few stamps made (compared to thousands of 'proper' stamps printed, plus the draw of a nicely designed picture or well-taken photograph make the thrill of the hunt all the more intense.

Canada has a large following. Austria has a catalogue of their own personal stamps and so they are popular. France personal stamps seem to have a large following. Australia personal stamps are gaining in interest.

The online catalogue of worldwide stamps 'Stamps of the World' here : http://www.stampsoftheworld.co.uk/w...lised_Stamps
has some personal stamps information listed for Canada and Gibraltar.

When I started collecting Canada and some other country's personal stamps I was thinking of the personal topic as a theme to get me collecting again as there are a limited number of stamps issued. However now for Canada there have been catalogued over 1500 different stamps created so far.

More are still popping up as collections surface and people's small collections of stamps enter into the market or charity sources.

Some collecting topics of this personal area are:

Stamps made Only by the Canadian Bank Note company (and special cancellations also) for personal stamps mailings,
From 2012 on, the Lowe Martin printing company mailings,
Animals (cats and Dogs mostly),
Stamp Shows,
Covers,
Actual photos of places in Canada,
Businesses,
Events,
One of everything made,
One of every type of theme made,
A basic idea of one of each type (border design) of personal stamps made,
and probably many more ideas that fit into specialized types of collections.

The personalized (personalised) aspect of the naming of the stamps does not mean they are non-official stamps. They are official as they can be used on mailings and are.

They can be seen as a special type of label as the inner design does not matter in using such a stamp (as long as the design is not disrespectful), as just the outer border with the fluorescent tagging is paid attention to by sorting machines and Postal employees.

All versions of personal stamps from Canada (up to 2012 anyway) can be used without having an inner or center design present and are considered valid for postage within Canada and for mailings outside the country, when used in the proper amounts and/or denominations.

Perhaps because only the basic issues of all of these personal stamps are listed in main-stream catalogues, they have a smaller following as most general collectors just need a copy of each type of stamp.



I think some do this but I have noticed that the stamps that Everyone wants are the best designed ones and are of topics that interest many people.

Ships, planes, cats, dogs, birds, etc are some main topical ideas.

The number of collectors who collect one of every stamp made or issued for personal or custom stamps is limited in some ways but the collectors who are enjoying personal stamps collecting is constantly growing as the number of stamps and designs increases.

So, having a sheet (or pane) of 20 to 25 stamps, you may find that 5-10 or them sell but you may not sell all of them.


One way to increase interest in them is to create special covers and special stamps to go with the cover and to use special pictorial cancels.

The more eye-pleasing or appealing the designs (stamps and/or covers) the more interest.

Years ago when the King or Queen was the main collecting topic of interest this was still done to create a market and to satisfy a longing to hold a piece of history in your own hands.

I still enjoy the regular commemorative stamps and, especially the ones with special printing techniques used or ones with many details to study.

The showing of many topics on personal stamps around the world show the variety of topics and themes that interest the people of the time, somewhat like collecting historical poster stamps or commemorative labels, but with a 'reality' check built in.

Stamps or labels or FRAMA (personal labels from many countries) have a personal touch to them, a type of romantic feeling. They are what really happened or what someone was thinking about.

Similar to pictorial covers from vacation spots or postcards in a miniature form. Not costing a fortune they are accessible by the masses.


The costing or pricing factor involved is very satisfying to the winner of an auction of these stamps. You are paying for what is a very rare, but affordable at the same time, type of collectible, sought after by a small but 'elite' following of collectors.

I think that this is the most important question.

If the personal stamps were in a printed catalogue or some kind of recognized official type of catalogue then we would not be having this discussion.

Some people will always enjoy collecting things, or bits of history, or commemorations of some sort of an event.

Imagine the appeal of personal Olympic stamps, which are not allowed usually as the Olympic committee has copyright worldwide on their 5-circle symbol and the words used for the event such as London 2010.


An appeal for me is the creation of stamps or sets of stamps that have an interest to me, like cats and dogs. Once you get started creating your own stamps the draw is strong to create more.

I keep thinking of many different ideas for pictures and small collections of personal stamps, like street art or wall art in Halifax, wild cats of Halifax, or graffiti on train car (wagons) sides, mainly because I like railroading and railways.

Why wait for it to be created by someone else when you can make a great stamp / cover / cancel combination yourself?

Heh Puzzler, nice to see you back.

Even though I don't collect these picture postage stamps
I enjoyed reading your last few posts and learned quite
a bit.

You made it sound so fun that I'm tempted to order some too.

Now lets see..... what pics could I use?

Sorry for the delay in responding to your comments "Puzzler". I appreciate your input. Your comments were very informative. I personally haven't decided to start bidding on personal stamps or ordering my own but I can see why some collectors might find them of interest. As a stamp collector it is very satisfying when I complete a page in my album, collecting personal stamps might never offer that same satisfaction of being completed.

Thanks for every one's comments.

Us here really like our picture postage(personalised stamps) we have 48 different.

Australia Post at the beginning of Feb 2013 is going to release 5 x new 60c stamps & 1 x $1.20 stamp for personalised usage and we think they are stunning.

My wife has a gift when it comes to making these type of stamps. She has been collecting many images for this purpose.

We are going to dramatically change our marketing approach to these type of stamps. At present we are giving them a rest from being listed.

No one else on ebay that I have been able to find are offering as many different of these stamps as us.

To make our marketing plan work we need to increase our numbers of different stamps on offer to a pool of 90 to 100 by the end of March.

A lot of planning has gone into all this and we find it very exciting.

This is the part of the sheet of 20 stamps we collect.

For the personal stamp collector the completing of a page is also a goal to be acheived.

As KGV says, the more you collect, the more you wish to collect. And then you want to arrange and display them, and to show them.

Basically the same as other stamps and cinerellas and poster stamps and labels and anything a person collects.

I have been keeping my personal stamps in Vario plastic pages and have them roughly arranged by topic. Cats, Dogs, Birds, Other animals, babies (too many for me! ha), people, scenes, signs, signs, everywhere a sign . . ., and there are always the etcetera type of ones which you can trade or collect separately.

I have started (slowly) to investigate the making of paper pages for pesonal stamps also.

I personally have absolutely no interest in picture stamps (and will not) but I think it is very nice that people have another field of collection.