A History of Poster Stamps

Poster Stamp

The poster stamp was an advertising label, a little larger than most postage stamps, that originated in the mid-19th century and quickly became a collecting craze, growing in popularity until World War I and then declining by World War II until they were almost forgotten except by collectors of cinderella stamps. [1]

The term “poster stamp” suggests a stamp imprinted with the design of a poster. This was often the case, especially at the time of peak interest, circa 1912-1916, but just as often it was not true, a design was produced just for the stamp. The three stamps shown here are the first and third place winners of a poster design contest, both also printed at stamp size, but the third was designed solely as a stamp. All three were distributed in 1916. [2] The unofficial nature of poster stamps has led to debate about exactly what is and is not a poster stamp.

The 1800’s: Origins

Content has been fastened using gummed pieces of paper since before the use of postage stamps and reform of postal systems spread in the mid 1800’s. The earliest to be stuck onto mail were letter seals.

Seals

Something was needed to fasten a letter together for mailing, as gummed envelopes were rarities only later coming into use, and most letters were folded sheets of paper, held together with a wax seal on the back, often marked by impressing a monogram of the sender into the wax. In the mid to late 1800’s a gummed piece of paper as an alternative to sealing wax became common in Europe.  It was usually a round shape that imitated the earlier wax, was sometimes called a wafer seal, and could be hand embossed to get a personal marking. [3] Over time printers began printing, embossing and die-cutting these round seals and some were used as a promotional message, most commonly for events.

The combination of pre-made seals and text spread rapidly. As printed advertising arose, private companies and their products were included. But after 1840, advertising had another inspiration: a rectangular, more finely printed postage stamp with color ink, gummed and either cut or by 1860, perforated for convenience in separating.

A perforated label was produced in England in 1864 to celebrate the 300th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth, and at the same time in the US, “mock” postage stamps were made for fundraising at fairs in major northern cities. [4]  In Italy also, in 1860 a stamp was printed both to promote and to raise money to help in Garibaldi’s campaign to unify Italy. The same idea occurred in several places at about the same time.

In the 1800’s several technological advances and cultural changes all converged to make this happen:

•     Chemistry advances made inks in colors other than black readily available as a manufactured good, with varied and strong colors, at a lower cost.
•     Die-cutting and perforating machines made separating and handling of large quantities of stamps easy.
•     Postal system reforms and the postage stamp lowered the fees and greatly expanded mail use by all, for a variety of uses.
•     Pre-made envelopes and cards made mailing simpler, and they could serve as billboards that were seen by multitudes. Labels could be flexibly stuck on as desired.
•     Improvements in printing made chromo-lithography reasonable in cost. Photography and chemistry could be used to multiply a single image into 100 or more copies at a time, and multiple stones could be prepared, each aligned to accurately print the needed colors.
•     The growth of a middle class in developed countries, which had the leisure time and money to form collections. In parallel, the growth of manufactured consumer goods (previously made by small shops or in-home crafts) made advertising a necessity.

 

Eventually the popularity of colorful, artistic street posters gave rise to the selling of smaller copies- which could be made so inexpensively that they could be given away, whereas owning full size posters was a luxury. In Europe especially then, adults were already primed to take an interest in poster stamps as collectables.

1880’s -1910: The Die-Cut Era

In the US especially, less so in Europe, advertising was adapted to gummed labels, which came to be known as “stickers”. Production was by smaller local print shops.  Perforation was expensive and rare, and printing was usually a single color on plain or tinted paper. An attention getter was die-cutting by the printer in custom shapes, giving rise to oval, heart-shaped, scalloped edges, pointing-hand sh

aped, even foot-shaped stickers.

Typical artwork was limited and usually primitive, mostly hand-drawn text, often similar to what had already been made for local handbills, newspaper ads or letterheads. Product labels became promotional stickers with almost no changes. “Stickers” were promoted by local print shops as inexpensive ads which could be put almost anywhere, and sold cheaply to the public as interest spread. They can be found on envelopes & postcards as well as in children’s sticker collection books. [5]

More in Europe than in the US, printers made elaborate embossed stamps, printed and diecut in a single ink color, but on a tinted or foiled metallic paper for interest. In many cases these were ordered from Europe for the US. [6]  The popularity of embossed seals in large series showing a variety of color combinations peaked from 1900-10 and declined after that.

By then chromo-lithographed stamps, about 40 mm x 60 mm, able to show impressive art with multiple colors, were catching everyone’s attention.

 

1910-1920: The Golden Era

As Robert Bradbury has said, “the poster stamp craze was intense but brief”. [7]  The classic era fits easily into the decade of 1910-1920. Printing of poster stamps were originally done in Europe, especially Germany, but German print companies, such as Wentz, were expanding, and then moving- into the US for the bigger opportunities there. US companies began buying imported German printing before at the turn of the century, but multicolored poster stamp items show up beginning about 1910. Then mentions in the American printing trade press concerning Poster Stamps skyrocket from 1913 to 1915

World War One

World War One began in August of 1914 and disrupted all cross-Atlantic trade, but by then there were a large number of printers in the US with the capability to produce poster stamps [8], and production continued.

In Europe, Poster stamps were also widely used by both sides during World War One as patriotic  propaganda and as fundraisers for aid to soldiers, or later, refugees. Stamp collector periodicals featuring cinderellas also continued during most of the war on both sides. [9]

 

In America there was less war disruption, but even so, a drastic decline after 1915. Similarly with the 2 known poster stamp collector monthlies, both of which ended by mid 1916. [8] It seems the fad had burned too brightly: the decline happened before the US entered the war in April 1917, and there does not seem to be a drastic change after the war ended in November 1918.  The war surely had an effect, but poster stamps  in America never fully recovered (in output or collector interest) from the 1914-1915 peak.

The 1920’s and 1930’s: Recovery

In Europe after WW1 the period of 1918 to the mid 1920’s was one of great political upheaval, economic distress, regional wars and government changes. There are fascinating poster stamps to be seen, but primitive in printing and paper quality, concerned with those movements; some are not more than text on a rectangle.

After 1922, most European economies had stabilized and poster stamp output rebounded to a great extent.

 

A revolution in the fine arts also occurred.  Post-war event or ad stamps can be found that show influence from art movements such as Expressionism, Dada, and Surrealism.

For this period, popular art is often called Art Deco, when many designs were a transitional compromise between older representation and modern simplification. [10]. We must remember that ad stamps were guided by acceptability to the general public, so many are not much different looking from 20 years before.

There was a recovery of poster stamps and collecting during the 1930’s, perhaps partly because it could be a good depression era hobby to collect nearly free poster stamps given out by companies promoting products.

In 1914, seeing printing in color was rare, but by 1930, color was much more common in advertising: from magazines, to billboards, to Hollywood movies. American poster stamps were now an adjunct to ad campaigns in other media such as radio, not a central focus. A series of stamps and a special booklet to mount them were often given free to customers, as with Sinclair ‘Dino’ branded gasoline and their 1933 series of stamps showing dinosaur species, timed to get customers to return for the latest free stamp.

The quality of 1930s artwork is often not up to the classic era; the methods of printing were gradually becoming less dependent on handwork amd more on technology; 1930’s stamps are likely to be tinted photographs. But the promotional series were popular with the public, especially children, and many are still common and inexpensive to acquire.

 

Even if ad stamps of consumer products had ended,  the 1930’s brought more popularity in promoting  political causes. For example, in 1937 Irene Harand of Austria published a series of anti-Nazi poster stamps portraying the contributions made by Jews to civilization over the centuries.[11] But anti-Semitic slogans on stamps were also used in several European countries by fascist/nationalist politcial parties as part of campaigning.

During the 1930’s in Europe, dictators in Italy, Germany, and Russia all used modernist art forms to promote their rule [12].  Mussolini in Italy used poster stamps (and other ephemera) to promote Italian industry as well as fascism, both at home and abroad. Designs were issued for  massed long distance airplane flights with the latest Italian aviation models:  Over the Mediterranean, 1929; To Brazil, 1930; and to Chicago, 1933, for example.

Poster stamps from this time in Russia are rare, but they continued their popularity in central and eastern europe, and can be seen on many event stamps from Germany, Hungary, Austria and Czechoslovakia. Large international fairs in Europe often released long multilingual promotional sets, appealing to many countries.

In both Europe and the US  (and also in Canada and Australia), non-profits  and local governments seeked to improve depression era economies by promoting tourism. A large number of travel promoting stamps were issued by local government groups, private companies, trade associations, or even civic booster clubs. [13]

The 1940’s-1950’s and World War 2

With the advent of World War Two, government coordinated patriotic propaganda appears on stamps and on larger format items: window labels and decals, and small posters [pics] Some private companies promoted their products using war needs as justification.

 

The poster stamp interest that revived just before and during World War Two was a boost that seems to have continued into the 1950’s and 1960’s, but a gradual decline in effectiveness with the public meant fewer and fewer poster stamps were issued. Postage stamps, meanwhile, were in a period of wide spread popularity, and ever bigger quantities of larger, more colorful commemorative stamps took much from poster stamps.[14]

American poster stamp clubs survived only in a sporadic way after the 1940’s. We know that a National Poster Stamp Society existed from 1936 to 1951, because a newsletter, the Poster Stamp Bulletin, was printed over those years.[15].

After the war, the Christmas Seal and Charity Stamp Society, which had formed in 1931 and is still active, included articles and material for Poster Stamp collectors as part of the club in an unofficial way, although that diminished over time.

1960’s-1980’s: Forgotten

In the UK, the Cinderella Stamp Club began in 1959, and soon gained a percentage of members from the US, as there is no equivalent club in the US. It is still the biggest cinderella collector society worldwide.

The CSC has always considered a broad range of cinderella types, but poster stamps in particular had very little coverage in the quarterly journal of the club, The Cinderella Philatelist, until the  late 1980’s. During this postwar period the most common CSC articles were about locals, fantasies, and bogus stamps. Poster stamps generally got small articles or disapproving mentions. [clip?]

In the US, a newsletter kept alive by one individual, Ewald van Elkan, became inactive by 1988 [16].

1980’s-2000: Collecting rebounds

In the early 1980’s Walter Schmidt of Oregon began editing a specialty column in The Cinderella Philatelist covering cinderellas of World War One, gradually gaining interested British and American members, and, in 1984, started a series of catalogs on the French WW1 stamp publisher and con-man Delandre.  Similarly, Alan Jackson of New Zealand released For God, Kaiser and Fatherland in 1993.

 

The book Lick’em Stick’em, released in 1989 brought awareness to a new generation of collectors, helping Schmidt begin his newsletter in November of 1994, The Poster Stamp Bulletin. [17].

 

Two British philatelists, brothers Francis and Charles Kiddle, became active in the Cinderella Stamp Club, and began writing for clubs and for the largest British philately magazine, STAMP, bringing increased respectability to this collecting area. Charles operated as a dealer as well as a prominent collector, and over 30 years published a series of over 50 catalogs covering poster stamp subjects before his death in 2022. [18]

1980s-now: Artistamps

Cinderellas of modern self-adhesive materials, still often called “stickers” in the US, continue to be produced today, but rarely as advertising for consumer products, as was so important in 1914. And street or window posters, a big inspiration in 1910, are almost unheard of in the US, except at movie theaters.

 

 

A small subcultural phenomenon is the making of custom designed personal stamps, often with perforation and water activated gum, sold as art objects. These artist fantasy stamps appeared at least as early as 1961 with artist Robert Watts.  The first museum show concerned specifically with this artistic medium opened in  Canada in 1974. Collector T. Michael Bidner coined the term ‘artistamp’ in 1982, by then the phenomenon was already worldwide. [19]

Artistamps are unlikely to become a large scale phenomenon, as print runs are very small, often sold as full panes printed in quantities of at most a few hundred; the combination of cost and subject matter is not made for a mass audience. These are “artisan” products in the modern parlance, with panes often signed and numbered similarly to a print studio work.

 

Small artisan shops that have obtained older machines for perforating continue to inspire artists.  The Olathe Press (W.C.Porter) of Colorado was active circa 1990-2010 in printing artistamp panes and selling pre-perforated and gummed paper.

Although not very active now, one can still find information at www.wcp-nm.com.

John Held Jr.’s book, Small Scale Subversion: Mail Art & Artistamps, was published on April 11, 2015.

In 2017, Niko Courtelis  launched The Portland Stamp Company to revive “the lost tradition of limited edition, commemorative poster stamps” using vintage perforation equipment–and occasionally vintage printing. Their artist stamps are shown in a monthly subscription service, and received mentions in Print magazine and O, the Oprah Magazine. [20.]
[www.theportlandstampcompany.com]

References

1. Wikipedia “Poster Stamps”       The Hodder Stamp Dictionary. The Complete Guide to Stamps and Stamp Collecting.
2. The Newark Posters Catalog – A Celebration of the 250th Anniversary. by the Committee of 100. New Jersey Essex Press, co.1916. pp. 2-9. A catalog of the top 60 entries in the design contest of 1915. Contest was open to the public, but prominent commercial artists were also invited.  First prize Robert Trent directs the landing, by Albert Treidler; the 2nd prize, by Helen Dryden, poster No. 19, and Most popular’ vote winner as 3rd place poster No. 24, by A. E. Foringer.
3. Kiddle, Charles and Francis. “Letter Seals” in STAMP Magazine, UK:  October 2003. pp. 51-53.  Partially mechanized perforation equipment was developed by 1850, but was originally expensive and difficult to maintain.
4. Kantor, A.P. & M.S. Sanitary Fairs-A Philatelic & Historical Study of Civil War Benevolences. Illinois, SF Publishing (self-published) co.1992 ISBN
5. refer to #12 in Top 12 Books ..introductory sections have more discussion of this era.
6. ?
7. Bradbury, Robert C., United States Advertising Poster Stamps 1912-1915. p.iii
8.  8. refer to Bradbury
9. Much, but not all, of the European poster stamp output during WW1 is covered by the catalogs for the Central Powers and French/Delandre; refer to #3 and #asd of the Top 12 Poster Stamp Collector Books… American stamps of WW1 partially appear in Political cinderellas, etc.
10. It is difficult to differentiate most post war from pre war stamps. The Chronicle Books series on early modernism uses some poster stamp examples mixed in with posters and periodical ads, and is a good source of information. need to rewrite
11. Rogers, Peter. “Irene Harand and The Truth About Anti-Semitism.” in The Cinderella Philatelist. Vol.48, No.3, July 2008, p.124.
12. Heller, Steven. Iron Fists – Branding the 20th-Century Totalitarian State. Phaidon Press Ltd, London 2008. ISBN 978 0 7148 4846 4.
13. see article on this website: Australia Centennial events.
14. A number of Life magazine issues featured color photographic spreads of postage stamps of the world during the 1950s-60s.
15. Refer to the links section and “Alphabetilately” for an archive of the Poster Stamp Bulletin from 1936 to 1951.
16. Schmidt, Walter. Editorial  “Poster Stamp Society of America”  Nov. 1994.  Elkan, Ewald van. Poster Stamp and Cinderella Collecting. Self-published, co. 1983. 32 pages blk & white, color cover.
17. This website is gradually scanning older issues of the Poster Stamp Bulletin, available to members in the Library.
18. A seperate listing of the Kiddle catalogs is here.link
19. Wikipedia article “Artistamp”
20. “Sincerely Yours”. O, the Oprah Magazine. New York: Hearst Communications. October 2017.

Further Reading