When Were Stamps First Produced For Collector Revenue?

Hi!

Its rather obvious that, that for the last 30 years or so, many countries have produced a lot of stamps primarily for "collector revenue". Said another way, countries produce stamps with the thought that they will be hoarded, and not used for postage.

I recall collecting international as a teen in the 50s that a lot of obscure island nations were putting out very colorful "works of art". These were readily available and inexpensive, and even back then I realized those stamps didn't seem destined for someone's letter.......

So I was wondering, when did countries start the practice of overproducing "artistic" stamps to sell primarily to collectors?

I can't say which country did it when, but it was very early.
Some of the EU countries did this a lot early on...

The later Asian countries and later issues, produce 'wall paper' in huge amounts..

I'm sure there will be some disagreement about this, but you could make a good argument that the 1893 Columbian Exposition set (U.S.) qualifies under your definition.

In the 1890s and early 1900s, Waterlow printed a lot of early engraved pictorials for various colonies around the world, including New Zealand, Nyassa, and North Borneo.

Reading an older book readers were advised to avoid collecting stamps from countries who issue sets annually (as well as South and Central American stamps). So maybe 1920 or so?

As posted above, the Columbians were produced primarily for collectors, since several values had no specific postal rate usage. With the registry fee at 8 cents, anything up to the ten cent might be useful, and perhaps someone might need a 15 cent occasionally, but after that they were essentially for show.

Along with the US Columbian Issue was the 1897 Canadian Queen Victoria's Jubilee issue of stamps including stamps up to $5.00 in denomination.

For the masses of stamps produced in the 1950's to 1980's look to the USSR's satelite countries and the Arab nations in the oil-rich Gulf-region countries. Beautiful stamps and still collected to this day, just not given the status of 'catalogued issues' because most of them were not postally used by their own citizens.

Ironic that the columbians and jubilees are worth a ton when neither was for a specific use. I just got the last needed $1 jubilee and all my high dollars are roller canceled so they did get used on package but for pre 1900 it must have been a huge package or possibly used for revenue purpose . Have to admit alot of the 60's 70's oddball nations are good thematics if nothing else and probably will have an upswing at some point since every other country now produces for collectors more than postal uses anyway.

I think you should include the "Seebecks" of Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, etc., in the late 19th Century.

It goes way back. Scott US #3 & 4 were produced for collectors.

Except 3 and 4 were reproductions, really official imitations and were not valid for postage. They are really closer to being proofs or even essays then stamps since the designs are actually different from 1 and 2.