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Postal service in the United States began with the delivery of stampless letters whose cost was borne by the receiving person, later encompassed pre-paid letters carried by private mail carriers and provisional post offices, and culminated in a system of universal prepayment that required all letters to bear nationally issued adhesive postage stamps. [1]
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail). Then the stamp is affixed to the face or address-side of any item of mail —an envelope or other postal cover (e.g., packet, box, mailing cylinder)—which they wish to send. The item is ...
Hill later served as a government postal official, and he is usually credited with originating the basic concepts of the modern postal service, including the invention of the postage stamp.
^ James Chalmers put forward this idea in December 1837. However, Sir Rowland Hill is more commonly stated to have invented the idea of adhesive postage stamps, having put it forward at the time of his evidence before the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Management of the Post-Office Department on 13 February 1837.
Postal rates to 1847. Initial United States postage rates were set by Congress as part of the Postal Service Act signed into law by President George Washington on February 20, 1792. The postal rate varied according to "distance zone", the distance a letter was to be carried from the post office where it entered the mail to its final destination.
1840 6 May - The Penny Black and Two Pence Blue, world's first postage stamps, become valid for the pre-payment of postage. 1842 1 February City Despatch Post New York local post. 1843 1 March - Zürich issue their first stamps: Zürich 4 and 6. 1843 1 August - Bull's Eyes, first stamps of Brazil.
The U.S. Parcel Post stamps of 1912–13 were the first such stamps issued by the U.S. Post Office Department and consisted of twelve denominations to pay the postage on parcels weighing 16 ounces and more, with each denomination printed in the same color of "carmine-rose". Their border design was similar while each denomination of stamp bore its own distinctive image in the center ( vignette ...
The Penny Black was the world's first adhesive postage stamp used in a public postal system. It was first issued in the United Kingdom on 1 May 1840 but was not valid for use until 6 May. The stamp features a profile of Queen Victoria . In 1837, British postal rates were high, complex and anomalous. To simplify matters, Sir Rowland Hill ...