Talk:Postage stamps and postal history of the United States

image layout
The 12 cent stamp shows as 1857 issue is wrong. That is the 1861 design. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.211.82.15 (talk) 21:23, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't find the "major cleanup" of images to be an improvement here - the "waterfall" style of alternating placement leads the eye on in a useful way, and lets the text flow around as needed, while the side-by-side squishes the text excessively, especially if the window is made narrower. (People do read these articles on PDAs, so not hypothetical concern). Stan 14:47, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


 * (I added the title, to bring this into and below the table of contents and subject the section to archiving. Nick Levinson (talk) 21:14, 23 October 2010 (UTC))

stamps without explicit face values
I have added a link to a site that shows the stamps issued that do not show their value, for example a 2002 stamp that of an antique toy. The site shows stamps from a time before the A rate stamp was issued. Until a suitable substitute can be found, I think this will help those who can not identify the value of a stamp - such as myself just now.


 * (I added the title, to bring this into and below the table of contents and subject the section to archiving. The section's opening post was added in 2006. Nick Levinson (talk) 21:14, 23 October 2010 (UTC))

Where are they in use ?
Hello. I remember that US stamps are used in some overseas US territories or associated states. Do some of you have the list of these states and the date of use ? It can be add in this article and link it to other's contries Ps&ph pages. Sebjarod 18:05, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
 * You mean like Puerto Rico or Micronesia or something? Stan 00:12, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, I do. Sorry I don't know how they are refered to in the US. Sebjarod 19:21, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

prehistory please?
could some helpful philatelist please donate 5 minutes to write 2 sentences about the prehistory of stamps? was it weighed & paid for at the post office? based on distance? were there postal carriers? or no post at all? --lquilter 15:18, 17 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Different for each country, but generally a complex system based on both distance and weight. People typically sent and received their mail from post offices. Mail has some more info, but is sketchy on the early modern age. Stan 15:32, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Excessive images
OK, I can't let this slide anymore - this article is supposed to be a narrative overview, not a stamp gallery, not a topical collectors guide. In general, there should be about 1 or 2 images visible on screen at any one time, their purpose generally being to support and illustrate the factual information being presented in the text. We certainly don't need advice about image viewing at the top of the article; WP has help pages for that very purpose, and there is nothing special about this article that requires additional instructions. It would be perfectly fine to split the topical areas into separate articles (keeping in mind the rules for notability and sourcing), and we already have separate articles for issues of particular interest, so material here should be basic and refer the reader to the separate articles. Stan (talk) 20:45, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I second your sentiments. AshLin (talk) 05:28, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * To respond to your user talk page comment, I don't think there is yet sufficient content to justify a stamps/postal history split. There has been relatively little text added, and most of that is related to topical collecting and too specialized for this article anyway.  Some of it is probably intrinsically non-notable as well; I seriously doubt that there is enough sourced material to ever back up an "Abraham Lincoln on US stamps" article. Stan (talk) 12:49, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Perhaps, but it is important to get some of this topical fluff out of the way. I'm a topical collector myself but image-rich unreferenced material doesn't make for encyclopaedic material. The postage stamps shouldn't cloud out the history aspect which I feel is much more important. In that case, we would need edit reverts and deletion. AshLin (talk) 17:08, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Indeed. I think major topical areas, with broad scope, could be made into good articles, although I don't personally have any sources to support the construction. Stan (talk) 21:13, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Would you be having any tomes on American philately? In India its hard to get anything much less tomes about philately of other nations. AshLin (talk) 03:31, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I've got about a half-dozen - Brookman for 19th-century, Johl for early 20th, Jon Rose's book on the 1869s, etc. They are pretty uncommon in the US too, buying online / from publisher is about the only way to go. Stan (talk) 13:18, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I 'm willing to help cleanup this article but I have no refs. :-( If you need me for a peer review or any such constructive help on this article which does not involve the addition of material, let me know. AshLin (talk) 14:12, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) As an encyclopaedia, the use of images is supposed to supplement the prose instead of bring a collection of random images. Virtually every guideline in WP:IG are being broken by the excessive use of images right now and many, if not all, image sizes are also being forced contrary to MOS:IMAGES. The images alone needs cleanup asap though the whole article is seriously lacking references. ww2censor (talk) 03:19, 18 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I've pruned much of the excess images (not stamps) down to 34 from 101, removed much of the unnecessary excess formatting code, but there are still too many images for the prose and the layout does not flow well yet. I removed most of the topical sections but perhaps more prose could be added to consolidate what is left with additional details into a single section with a few appropriate images. There are only 16 images in our only philatelic featured article Postage stamps of Ireland (yes I know I wrote most of it) which may be some guidance as to what is possible without excessive images that are purely decoration. We are not a stamp catalog nor a repository, in which case contributions to the WikiBooks United States World Stamp Catalogue would be more appropriate.ww2censor (talk) 05:05, 18 April 2010 (UTC)


 * The images illustrate the text and are nice to view anyway. What is the article about?  US stamps.  What are the images?  US stamps.  They are all very nice, just what a stamp-interested person wants to see.  Hmains (talk) 03:12, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

The Stamp of Jefferson labeled 1856 is in actuality an 1857 stamp. Perforated stamps were not introduced until 1857. If it is not corrected I will remove the stamp from the page. This "error" has already started enough problems as people have made claims of a "rare perforated 1856 stamp as can be found on Wikipedia" including a link that leads here. I have already explained to the seller that Wikipedia is by no means to be considered accurate for anything, let alone the identification of a "rare" stamp. None the less, the error needs correction or deletion.--75.17.214.225 (talk) 23:03, 3 May 2011 (UTC) Mark Leon
 * I tweaked the date references on the several pages that used this image. Thanks for pointing this out, and for the reminder that we need to be careful about checking our edits, since people do assume WP is accurate. Stan (talk) 14:22, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Wrong image for the 12 cent 1857 stamp. This shows the 12 cent 1862 stamp. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:204:D401:F710:91FD:1AB0:E259:B094 (talk) 14:09, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

living people on U.S. stamps
Possible addition to the article: I think only three U.S. stamps commemorated living people, all by error. One showed soldiers walking after winning a war; I think their identities were known but I'm not sure. One showed military members raising a flag at Iwo Jima; the survivors were identified. And one from 1995 showed women marching in the context of the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, on women's suffrage. The last was a photo montage and probably it was assumed that the women pictured were from around 1920, thus dead 75 years later, but close examination of a picture on the stamp suggests that it was of a 1960s or later demonstration, and demos of the kind were usually attended by younger women, so it's likelier that the demonstrators on the stamp were still alive in 1995. (At some demos, women were asked to wear white and probably some wore clothing in old styles in order to support political issues, so the oldness in the stamp imagery is likely deceptive in context.) Does anyone know who they are? Nick Levinson (talk) 20:41, 23 October 2010 (UTC) (Clarified a clause: 20:50, 23 October 2010 (UTC))
 * There are more than that - I think the Trans-Miss farming stamp showed some individuals of the time, and there is a recent ballet stamp that was derived from a current dancer's photo. Topic could conceivably be its own article, there are certainly plenty of Linn's articles presenting the evidence for particular stamps.  (The USPS standard reply is that happening to be one of the anonymous faces in a photo is not "commemorating".) Stan (talk) 21:56, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

The New Stamps sections says that there are 12 criteria for new stamps. The current criteria list is only 11. https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/csac/criteria.htm And while they did say they were going to drop the "no living person" rule in 2011. ( http://about.usps.com/news/national-releases/2011/pr11_109.htm ) The current criteria still includes that rule. Or possibly includes that rule again. I came here looking for answers to that question. But this page is not up to date. Sheherazahde (talk) 22:58, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

'Visual' about US expansion
Since this 'visual' is about a specific theme I've moved it to the 'Post offices and postmarks' section. IMO it belongs in the Topical stamp collecting page. For your info' this 'visual' will not play on Internet Explorer, which means it will not play on most public library computers which as a rule all use the IE browser. At least so here in California. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 18:04, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The visualization has nothing to do with Topical stamp collecting, at all. Did you even watch it? The video is a fascinating visualization of U.S. postal history, last year it was "Media of the day". And do you intent to remove all videos from Wikipedia, because some IE versions in some libraries in one country don't play the files? Video integration in Wikipedia is being improved all the time, bugs opened and fixed. I find it hard to understand the reasons for your edits. --Atlasowa (talk) 08:38, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I placed the visual in the Post offices and postmarks section. What is hard to understand about that? I also informed you it will not play on IE and hence it will not play on library computers and didn't use this as a reason to try and delete the image again. You're welcome. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 15:38, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I must say it seems to fit very well in Post offices and postmarks. This is clearly about postal history. Philafrenzy (talk) 16:57, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

A Gallery of U. S. Postmasters' Provisional Stamps, 1845-47
It has been suggested that the entry A Gallery of U. S. Postmasters' Provisional Stamps, 1845-47 be merged into "Postage stamps and postal history of the United States." The purpose of the provisionals entry, however, was to allow Wikipedia users to see all of those early provisionals together, while merging it into the Postage Stamps article would require cutting out most of the images, given that the approach here is to employ selective rather than all-inclusive illustration. A link, of course would be appropriate.BFolkman (talk) 20:14, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I see no point in this page. While the individual articles are notable in their own right, a gallery page is definitely not notable and is out of scope of the wiki. It fails several of the notability requirements; such as "Significant coverage" and secondary reliable sources. Besides which all the images are available and shown on the commons category commons:Category:Postmaster provisional stamps of the United States and adds very little to that by way of encyclopaedic information that is not in the main US stamps article in the "Provisional issue stamps" section; in fact it is basically duplication without so many images. You should also remember the image use policy section WP:IG which states: Articles consisting entirely or primarily of galleries are discouraged, as the Commons is intended for such collections of images. That section also notes that a commons category link can be added to each of the individual articles, and it can also be added to Postage stamps and postal history of the United States. Sorry, this is nothing personal but this should be put it up for deletion immediately. If there were no individual articles and no section in this article, then a general article about the stamps would be appropriate but that is not what this is. ww2censor (talk) 21:39, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The Gallery of U.S. Postmasters' Provisional Stamps, 1845–47 has changed significantly since the discussion above was concluded 3 years ago, including the addition of more referenced text (rather than images). This means that many of the arguments given above by ww2censor, while very valid at the time, no longer have the same strength. Given this, I've removed the merge templates, but won't be offended if a new proposal is make - might generate a new round of discussion.Klbrain (talk) 00:03, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Area for expansion
If anyone wants to work on this, I think there should be an addition of a section having to do with the security features of stamps and how such has progressed over time.

Stamps, like currency, have incorporated more complex security measures as they have been developed. I added a brief excerpt related to the incorporation of microprinting in 1992. David Condrey  log talk  05:23, 8 October 2015 (UTC)


 * It might be better to expand the appropriate sections in Security printing as it is essentially a feature of the printing process or even create a stamp specific article, such as Postage stamp security features or similar or a wider article on Postage stamp printing, and then link back to that here. The US is not the only country to be concerned about the security of their stamps and incorporate such features in their production. ww2censor (talk) 10:21, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Suggestion for article on an aspect of Postage stamps... of the United States
I was curious about the Black Heritage Stamp Series of the US Postal Service. I went to Wikipedia but was rather surprised not to find a suitable article. I could find an article on Distinguished Americans series, and there is this useful list, but I think something about the Black Heritage series should be findable. Possibly it might be a portion of an article on the somewhat broader topic of depictions of black Americans on US stamps, which would include issues like the Booker T. Washington stamp of 1940. I don't know enough about stamps to write such an article, but I think some Wikipedian could do it. One of the references or starting points could be this page on the USPS website. Oaklandguy (talk) 01:47, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

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