Introduction to Poster Stamps

What is a Poster Stamp?

A Cinderella stamp is any bit of paper that looks like a regular postage stamp, but isn’t. That is a big category, which includes several parts. For example, stamps printed by national governments but used in payment of various taxes and fees, called revenues by collectors; or stamps printed by local groups that are used to pay for deliveries similar to regular mail, called locals.¹

The Cinderellas we care about were printed privately, by companies, non-profit groups, or even by individuals, and these include what US collectors call Poster Stamps.  Poster Stamps are advertising stamps made as ‘propaganda’. Propaganda in this case used in the original meaning  of the word: information used to propagate a point of view, using information and education that is probably not biased or misleading, but does use emotional appeal as part of its effect.² Poster Stamps did that with the graphic look of the stamp, but in a bigger size, with stronger colors, and a catchy ‘strong’ design.

The term Poster Stamp came about because many of these stamps were “poster-like” in their looks or even miniature copies of full size street posters. Colorful artworks, whatever the use or size, were rare around 1900–color printing was costly–so poster stamps caught the public’s attention.³ Because their classification is partly a subjective reaction to the graphics, the boundary lines of what is a poster stamp and what is not are rather fuzzy; the Poster Stamp Collectors Club takes a broader, more inclusive view on this website.

Poster Stamps can be classified by their purpose into categories:

• • As promotion for an event- such as a concert, exposition, or exhibit, or
  • As commercial advertising- for a product or service or tourist location, or
  • As political or social propaganda- for a movement or a political candidate, or
  • As promotion of charitable giving to a particular need or non-profit group, or
  • As a souvenir to be saved, commemorating something: that is, a poster stamp that is propaganda, but is “preaching to the choir”.

Poster Stamps proved to be a powerful medium in the early 1900’s, and almost immediately both children and adults began saving them. But the peak of popularity was long ago, thus many stamp collectors have not seen Poster Stamps and are surprised by their beauty and appeal.

Read more on the A History of Poster Stamps page.

1. The term cinderella developed, apparently just before World War II in Britain, and the word became the title of an international club called the Cinderella Stamp Club when it began in Great Britain in 1959. It’s used in the US, although collectors in the US use the term inconsistently.

2. Thanks to the cold war that began after World War II, the word propaganda came to mean for many Americans “the lies that the other side says”.

3. In Germany, the term is Reklamemarken, (advertising stamps). In France, Erinophile  or Vignettes.

Why and How Collect Poster Stamps?

First issued in Europe in the late 1800s to promote or commemorate events, poster stamps reached a peak of public interest in the years leading up to World War 1 (1914). Over the years they declined in popularity, but the last thirty years have seen new generations of collectors, and new catalogues have been issued for collectors with many varied interests and types of collections.

Topical Collecting

One of the greatest attractions of poster stamps is that the aesthetics of the collection outshines that of postage stamps. Because poster stamps were promotional in purpose, the majority of those issued are truly eye-catching. Well known graphic artists such as Mucha, Hohlwein, Parrish, Bernhard, Penfield and O’Neill have designed them.

Poster Stamps are the ultimate topical collectible and bring as much historical interest to stamp and ephemera collecting as any specialty. Topical collectors will find an almost unlimited number of categories. From Santa and Fire Fighting to Advertising, Ethnic, Fashion, Zeppelins and Zebras…the list of Poster Stamp topics is almost unending!

The number of topics featured on Poster Stamps equals or exceeds those on postage stamps and, almost always, with much more colorful and aesthetically pleasing designs. The number of topics also challenges those found in picture postcard collecting.

Pictured are just a few Automotive and Cycle poster stamps. This topic is featured in a three-volume catalogue by Charles Kiddle.

How one collects anything is, of course, a matter of personal preference. Poster Stamps, because of their vast variety of purposes and themes, leave open many collecting options.

Affordable

Poster stamps of many topics are available for less than a dollar to many hundreds of dollars for the rare and difficult-to-find stamps. Beautiful and meaningful collections are being put together for very reasonable prices. At this time, very few stamps sell for more than $100. More and more dealers are bringing poster stamps to shows and the number of dealers including poster stamps as one of their specialties is increasing as they see demand growing in the United States and Europe. Collectors can also find material online and from mail order dealers.

Beautiful

One of the greatest attractions of poster stamps is that the aesthetics of the collection outshines that of postage stamps. Because poster stamps were promotional in purpose, the majority of those issued are truly eye-catching. Well known graphic artists such as Mucha, Hohlwein, Parrish, Bernhard, Penfield and O’Neill have designed them.

Geographical Collecting

Many collectors specialize in items from a place of special interest to them:

• • by country
  • by region
  • by state (the examples shown are all from Illinois and date from the 1910’s)

Chronological Collecting

Because poster stamps are often dated, they may be selected & sorted by year as a slice of history, similar to the way postage stamps have been collected.

A collection of worldwide Poster Stamps from a given year, or continuous years, creates a visual story of that time period. Some are definitely more aesthetically pleasing than others, but they all have their importance from an historical perspective. The ones illustrated here were selected to show a variety of image types and topics.

Most dated poster stamps were issued in connection with Events – fairs, exhibitions, conferences, anniversaries, commemorations and the like.

Some stamps are not dated but a key period of history such as the First World War can be the basis of a collection, based on references both recent and of that time.

Used As Intended

Cinderellas can be found and collected used on mail.  Poster stamps were put on covers, picture postcards, bill-heads, even used as a letterhead to get the message on the stamps in front of their intended markets. Collectors use the phrase ‘tied on cover’ to indicate that a dated post office cancel or some other mark overlaps the poster stamp, confirming that the poster stamp was there when the item was mailed, and giving us an age for that stamp, which is often unknown.