What Is A Definitive?

I used to think that a definitive was a stamp that was part of a theme, (flags, the queen, insects, anything) that was reprised over a long period of time and reflected the current rates for domestic, usa and international mail.

Now I am making album pages for my collection and using the unitrade catalog as a reference. I see stamps about the winter Olympics (2010) catalogued as definitives, aren't these commemoratives? What am I missing?

Canadian definitives come in a varying range. There were a lot of definitive coils of varying values made up for general postage use of the upcoming events and mascots of the olympics in Canada in 2010. And were printed in large quantities as required.

There were also several commemoratives and souvenir sheets put out to celebrate the venues and different events as well as the first gold medal won by a Canadian on home soil. The commemoratives were printed in more limited numbers

Definitive stamp
A definitive stamp is a postage stamp, that is part of a regular issue of a country's stamps (often referred to as a 'regular issue') available for sale by the postal service for an extended period of time. The term is used in contrast with a "provisional stamp", one that is issued for a temporary period until regular stamps are available, or a "commemorative stamp", a stamp "issued to honor a person or mark a special event" available only for a limited time. Commonly a definitive issue or series includes stamps in a range of denominations sufficient to cover many or all postal rates usefully.

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The vast majority of definitive stamps picture monarchs, national symbols and icons, and themes meaningful to the entity issuing the stamps. Definitives are only infrequently commemoratives. One country I recently started, Mexico, has quite a few commemoratives mixed into their definitive listings in Scott's. These stamps follow a specific design format of other stamps that are purely definitives, so I guess Scott thought it best to list them all together.

I can't image that Olympic stamps could ever be considered definitives unless their denominations make them the only stamps available to meet certain published post office rates with a single stamp. Personally I would never include Olympic stamps in my definitives stamps; it's all a matter of what you like to collect and I don't like Olympic stamps.

As a humorous aside, I once engaged a new-issue dealer with the idea of providing me only definitives, postage dues, and officials for about 30 countries. He refused and sent me packing, claiming there was no definition of definitives that would ensure he was providing the correct stamps (and I assume not eating stamps that were mistakes).

This community has a good Glossary, link on every page at upper left. Also an Illustrated Glossary here https://stampsmarter.org/Learning/Glossary_D.html
Don

So, where would US #1 and #2 fall? I have seen them referred to as "general issue" or more rarely "first Federal issue;" but I have not specifically seen them tagged as definitive or regular issue, and certainly not commemorative. To my reading, they don't exactly fit the stampsmarter definition. In my album pages I call them 1847 Definitives

In my opinion they are definitives.
Don

US #1 and 2 are definitives. To me "general issue" and definitive stamps are the same thing.

Don,

How would you classify the Kiosk stamps of the last few years. I notice that Unitrade puts these in their own section in the "back of the book".

Peter

How would you classify the Kiosk stamps of the last few years. I notice that Unitrade puts these in their own section in the "back of the book"

In my opinion that is correct.
I my own specialty ( Plate Number Coils ) the ATM's are also relegated to the rear of the catalog. They are basically different from the usual stamps especially in the type of printing employed


Peter