Most recently we have celebrated National Postal day. It was on October 9. Letters were a part of human life before emails and sms came to existence. People used to wait for days and months to receive a letter from his dear one. Now those nostalgic days have gone. So through this article, let us remember the letter writing habit, through the story of stamps.

The story of stamp

Have you ever thought why stamps are pasted on the top of envelopes and why duty has to be given for letters by receivers where those stamps are absent? Stamp is the duty paid by us to take the letter to destination. Earlier its expense was given directly and for those paid letters a seal ‘paid’ was placed. If the letter is not given the ‘paid’ seal, the receiver should pay for it. Certain persons were tricky and they used to send messages as codes on the top of envelope. So, the messages were easily communicated in code language between two people, without giving any payment. Sir. Rolland Hill, a teacher was the first person who found a solution to this. He made stamps and penny black was the first stamp released in 1840, the grandfather of all stamps of today!

Though the head of Queen Victoria was imprinted on it, they frget to print ‘England’. This procedure was very soon followed by Brazil in 1843, America in 1847, France and Belgium in 1849, Austria in 1850 and Canada in 1851. In India, first stamp came soon after independence – in 1947, November 17. The tri-colour flag was imprinted on it. If it’s the case of Asian countries, it happened for the first time in Sind provinces in the year 1852 and its seal was Sind Daka. Sind District Governor Sir. Henry Bartle released stamps in round shape.

Most interesting fact is that stamps with perfume were released for the first time in the world in India. Those stamps carried the pictures of elephants, sandalwood trees and jasmine flowers.

Now every feels that e-mail letters are more convenient as they reach the destination within seconds. They save both money for covers as well as stamp duty. Yet a lot of people are still there among us, whose favourite hobby is stamp collection. 

Read more about letters.

Article Posted By : Sandhya Rani  On March 23, 2013lView All Articles

Though not write letters now, a great lover of letter writing

Article Source :

http://www.veethi.com/articles/story-of-stamps-and-posts-article-1832.htm

Keywords :
stamps , first stamp , letter writting , perfumed stamps , stamp duty