How Many Stamps are There?

In addition to stamps listed in most major catalogues, many countries also allowed private postal delivery services to operate at one time or another. The total number of these "local" stamps is unknown, but at least 300,000 different items have been catalogued at one time or another. Some of these later turned out to be bogus, or for places where such service was never authorized, or for companies that never existed. Still, a large number of them actually saw postal service in such places as the United States, Scandinavia, Germany, the United Kingdom, China, the Pacific area, Latin America, and others.

The usefulness of postage stamps as an indicator of the prepayment for a service or fee was acknowledged by all, and such use was extended to other areas. Stamps were issued for the payment of revenue fees, for the delivery of telegrams, for savings, and for paying dues to various organizations such as labor unions. The number of stamps in these categories far exceed the number used to prepay the delivery of mail in most major countries. There is no exact number of issues for such purposes, but the total probably exceeds 500,000.

There are several additional categories of stamps that can also be collected. Many collectors choose to collect stamps with perforated initials - perfins - issued by many of the world's countries. The number of varieties is difficult to even guess, and depends on how one collects them. If the idea is just to collect one stamp with a particular set of perforated initials, the total is one number. If the collector chooses to collect not only one stamp of each particular set of perforated initials, but as many different varieties of stamps with each set of initials they can obtain, the number is different - and substantially higher! Some perfins were issued to signify the payment of postage on official correspondence, and some collectors collect these with their other official stamps.

Precancelled stamps were issued by many countries, too, and find a large following around the world. The United States even differentiates between Bureau Precancels - those printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, which also prints all US Stamps, and "Local" or "Town and Type" precancels, created in the area where these stamps were sold and used. "Town and Type" far outnumber the 10,000 or so varieties of Bureau precancels! Belgian precancels can also be collected by

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