The World's Commonest Stamp.

Hello rod222, very politely. It is Heuss, not Huess....
Is it only the 6 Pfennig one?
I have to check, got a bunch of'm...

Thanks..

Are you ready for this staggering number? How about 130,619,808,000, in other words 130.6 BILLION stamps combined. That breaks out to approximately 87.1 billion in sheet format; 15.2 billion in booklet panes; and 28.3 billion in coil form.

Here's the source for all of the quantities issued for these definitives:

http://www.stampsmarter.com/1847usa...ntifier.html

wt1, no wonder I have so many of those...

So... by my count then the #807 is the most common of US stamps and not the #707. Is this correct or am I missing something?

According to the Mystic Stamp Co. web site US #707 (1932 2c Washington Bicentennial) issued on January 1, 1932 in Washington, DC had a print run of 4,222,198,300. At 4.2 billion stamps, that's only about 3.2% of the number of stamps issued for #807.

Thank you, ....of course
a typo, but I do have to check from time to time,
I have the same problem with Liechtenstein.

Only the 6pf one,
not based on any factual evidence,
simply not had one in 12 years of collecting
and going through thousands of German stamps.

You welcome....

Interesting. I have a bunch of them..Maybe I put them up for auction?

Like your Melilla thread...Have to check now if I have some stamps.

Australia, 1974-1980 10 cent Star Sapphire. Quantity issued - 578,904,000

For GB there is a book Stanley Gibbons GREAT BRITAIN NUMBERS ISSUED 1840 to 1910 available on line as PDF at http://www.gbps.org.uk/information/...20(2008).pdf

Some examples of the print runs are

1858–69 1d RED WITH LETTERS IN ALL FOUR CORNERS
Watermark Large Crown – Plate Numbers printed in the design
Total number issued 13,434,000,000 (55,975,000 sheets)

1881 1d LILAC
Watermark Imperial Crown – No check letters in corners.
Total number issued 34,095,984,000 (142,066,600 sheets)

1887–1900 "JUBILEE" ISSUE
½d VERMILION
Total number issued 13,494,216,720 (56,225,903 sheets)

1902–10 DE LA RUE PRINTINGS
Watermark Imperial Crown
½d GREEN
Total number issued 18,524,101,680 (77,183,757 sheets)

1d RED
Total number issued 19,012,289,520 (79,227,837 sheets)

Gotta wonder how many trees it takes to make 34.1 B stamps.

I don't know how this one compares in total number printed, but in terms of how many survived, it has to be toward the top. It seems like these turn up in every junk lot I buy, sometimes by the dozens or hundreds.

Although not technically a postage stamp but a tax stamp, the West German 2pf Notopfer Berlin "Blue Flea" issue totaled north of 17 billion over 8 years.

There is a great online exhibit here:
http://www.germanyphilatelicsociety...een1366.html

Geoff

My break down of common stamps ,from a 60 year worldwide collector .
I would guess there are about 25,000 different stamps that would fall into the most common group ,these are stamps that have zero value and can be found in all sorts of cheap mixture lots

How to spot likely contenders for this title:

Choose a country with a strong economy and a big population eg US, Germany, UK, Japan, France
Choose a period when more letters were being sent -- any time 20th century
Choose the main letter rate stamps
Choose a defintive series that lasted a long time
Choose a period of low inflation, when main letter rate didnt change much

The 3 cent Prexie certainly fits all these options.

I must be a bit older than you. The orange bags of stamps yielded about a million of the 80cts for me