Wrapper (philately)

A folded British Queen Victoria one penny newspaper wrapper addressed to Augsburg, Bavaria with a Bristol squared-circle cancellation of 10.00 AM 27 November 1901, just five days after the Queen's death. It bears an Augsburg received mark on the back (not shown) dated 29 November showing the journey to have taken only two days.

In philately a newspaper wrapper is a form of postal stationery which pays the cost of the delivery of a newspaper. The wrapper is a sheet of paper, large enough to wrap around a folded or rolled newspaper and with an imprinted stamp to pay the cost of postage.

History

The first country to issue newspaper wrappers was the United States (1860), followed by New South Wales (1864), North German Confederation (1868),Victoria (1869), Romania (1870), Great Britain (1870), in total 110 countries issued newspaper wrappers.

All the countries which issued newspaper wrappers have now discontinued producing them due to the declining usage. Most countries stopped production by 1940, some of the last countries to cease issuing wrappers were Australia in 1980, Ireland in 1984, Barbados in 1990 and Cyprus in 1991.

Collecting

In the early days of philately it was the practice to cut the stamp out and dispose of the rest of the wrapper with the result that some intact wrappers are now rare. Today, collectors prefer to collect the whole wrapper as it may have postal markings that provide interesting additional information.

Stamps cut from whole postal stationary items are known as cut-outs or cut squares.

Stamped-to-order

Stamped to Order newspaper wrapper for W H Smith & Son, addressed to Alexandria Egypt, in addition to the impressed stamp there is an advertising ring around the stamp, the embossed stamp is dated 13.1.1882, postmarked with a special precancel postmark for W H Smith, unfolded the wrapper is 129mm x 252mm.

Some countries permitted businesses and individuals to submit their own plain or printed sheets for impressing with an imprinted stamp. In Great Britain numerous businesses availed themselves of this facility and since anyone could use this service it resulted in private individuals producing "philatelic" newspaper wrappers. and withdrawn in 1973.

Stamped-to-order newspaper wrappers are also known from Australia, Austria, Bavaria, France, Germany, New South Wales, Switzerland, Tasmania and Wurttemberg

Further reading

• Higgins & Gage World Postal Stationery Catalog, 19 volumes covering the whole world.

External links

• Bibliography of literature about Newspaper Wrappers
• stampdomain.com Article on wrappers and images. Long list of web links.
• Wurttemberg Stamped to Order Newspaper Wrappers for Die Briefmarke.

See also

Newspaper stamp