How Many Stamps are There?
by date for many of the early years of their use.
Stamps were originally issued to prepay for the service of delivering a printed message to a stated address. The success of postage stamps soon found them used for many other things as well, such as collecting revenue, and so forth. Charity organizations soon discovered they could issue gummed labels to collect money, and the cinderella market exploded! Christmas Seals have been issued by dozens of countries. Charity labels for virtually any charitable (and a few not-so-charitable) activity can be found. The popularity of these printed labels also spilled over into the advertising and propaganda worlds. Special labels were printed to promote everything from chewing gum to stamps exhibitions to coronations to business meetings. The total number of such labels will probably never be known, but a few conservative guesses indicate more than one million different labels may exist.
The very fact that people collect stamps has created an additional source of collectable material - collection of special cancellations. The most prominent type of special cancellation is the cancellation for the first day a particular stamp issue is available for use. These cancellations are usually collected as a complete envelope, or cover, and are referred to as First Day Covers, or FDCs. Virtually every country in the world currently supports First Day covers of some sort, and the practice of using special cancels has been going on for more than 70 years. Most FDCs today also include some type of graphic illustration, called a cachet. Cachets and special cancels are also used to commemorate various functions, from inauguaration of presidents to the launch of new ships to the special cancels provided by most stamp shows and philatelic exhibitions.
If that isn't overwelming enough, most countries today also provide the capability of using postal meters, postal labels, and other prepaid means of dispatching mail. How many different varieties exist is anyone's guess, but several hundred thousand machines that generate such postal material are in use every working day. Envelopes printed with a stamped image have also existed for well over 100 years, and the number of different varieties is staggering. There are also hundreds of thousands of different types of postal cards, postal reply cards, International Reply Coupons, and routing labels. Labels indicating payment for special service such as airmail delivery and registered or certified control of individual items, and other related services
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