Paleophilatelie.eu
is a focal point
between Paleontology and Philately
The World of Prehistoric Fishes and their Reflection in Philately |
When I was 12-13 years old, I found my first fossil.
It was a tooth of a prehistoric fish in a piece of stone.
I took it to the Natural History Museum
where an employee explained to me what I had found.
It was astonishing, because in Lviv, the Ukrainian city, where I grew up,
there was no sea or even a river.
Prehistoric creatures began to occupy my imagination. I started to collect fossils,
mostly small shells, ammonites and belemnites.
As I have no place and budget to purchase skeletons of big prehistoric animals #
I started to look for alternatives.
Postage stamps allowed me to create and maintain the “Museum in Album”.
People who interested in stamps collecting of the subjects related to this website: Paleontology and Paleoanthropology are welcome to join the following Facebook groups: "Paleophilately", created and run author of this website, and "Evolution of mankind and Philately".
The first stamps were issued without the holes.
It was required to cut them from sheets with scissors.
It was a slow and tedious process, often led to damages.
Great Britain was the first country to issue postage stamps with perforations.
The first machine specifically designed to perforate sheets of postage stamps
was invented in London by Henry Archer, an Irish landowner and railroad man
from Dublin, Ireland.
The 1850 “Penny Red” was the first stamp to be perforated during trial course
of Archer's perforating machine.
After a period of trial and error and modifications of Archer's invention,
new machines were purchased and in 1854 the Great Britain Postal Authority
started continuously issuing perforated postage stamps in the Penny Red
and all subsequent designs.
Today some Postal Administartions continue to issue small number of
imperforated stamps mainly for stamp collectors.
A watermark is a security measure, akin to hidden signature,
that helps prevent counterfeiting.
These marks are created during the papermaking process,
often involving a variation in thickness or density of the paper,
which can be seen when held up to light.