Portal:Philately/Nominate/Selected article archive

This page for making nominations for the Selected article section of the Philately Portal please add it to the list below.

Selected articles are typically high-quality articles about a specific some aspect of Philately, to showcase the content Wikipedia has on this topic.

What to do
The Selected article section is set up to randomly place a new article, from the selection of numbered sub-pages into the section every so often. If the random content is not working and no-one else has done it, be bold and go ahead and update it with one of the suggestions below. (If there aren't any, pick one yourself and try to use an image if possible!).

To add a new Selected article click here and select one of the unused numbered redlink section sub-pages, or add one with a new unse number if there are no redlinks, but please follow the exact format of the previous numbered pages, links and transclusions. After adding a new sib-page to the archive if there were none free, start editing the selected sub-page by clicking on the redlink for the chosen page number, add your text which should be a short introduction to the chosen article and, wherever possible, add an appropriate image. To use the existing format please copy it from one of the other numbered section sub-pages and substitute your data using the div style for the image and a hard break after the text.

Pillar box
 A pillar box is a free-standing post box where mail is deposited to be collected by the Royal Mail and forwarded to the addressee. Pillar boxes have been used since 1852, just 12 years after the introduction of the first adhesive postage stamps and uniform penny post. According to the Letter Box Study Group, there are more than 150 recognised designs and varieties of pillar boxes and wall boxes, not all of which have known surviving examples. Royal Mail estimates there are over 100,000 post boxes in the United Kingdom.

Most traditional British Pillar boxes produced after 1905 are made of cast iron and are cylindrical in shape, though other shapes have been used; the hexagonal Penfolds, rectangular boxes, and an oval shape used mainly for the large "double aperture" boxes seen in large cities, such as, London and Dublin. In recent years boxes manufactured in glass-fibre or ABS plastic have been produced.

The advent of the wayside post box can be traced to Sir Rowland Hill and his Surveyor for the Western District, the noted novelist, Anthony Trollope who was sent to solve the problem of collecting the mails in the Channel Islands caused by the irregular sailing times of the Royal Mail packet boats due to weather and tides. Trollope arrived in Jersey in early 1852 and his recommendation was to employ a “letter-receiving pillar” he may have seen in Paris.