Different types of covers

Oh dear , where do we start?


Items sent through the mail are generally classified as “Postal History”

1. Before stamps were introduced. “Pre stamp Covers “would be envelopes or folded letter sheets sealed with wax, they often have postmarks and handwritten or hand stamped charge markings.

2. Stamped covers with the correct postal rate for a particular service “commercial “ eg printed matter, local, international, maritime, airmail , express, registered, mail train

3. There have always been collectors who wanted “used” stamps who arranged “philatelic” covers , which legitimately went in the post , but often can be detected by having more stamps than necessary , eg. For First day cancels. These created pre 1950s are collected and described for what they are and the “philatelic” nature is generally accepted by most collectors . How else would you get a used set of George V 1935 silver jubilee from SierraLeone for example?

Since the 1960s there has been a vast increase in First Day Covers etc and these can only be described as “philatelic”
1. Home made handwritten and mailed in a local post box, sometimes rather amateur and untidy
2. Commercial productions with an illustration made by a dealer , printed or typed address, .
3 . Private productions , charity covers, philatelic groups , special commemorative covers for some anniversary ( these may not be FDC unless co-incide, with a new stamp )
4. Postal administration Official FDCs with a generic bureau date stamp
5. Official and semi official FDCs with a special illustrated date stamp relevant to the stamp design.


many items in the last two categories may be produced and cancelled but never actually travel in the post , merely sold cancelled to order as collectors items . 

if accepted for what they are ie , not commercially used, they are collectable but less desirable to some collectors due to the speculative production . 

Let the purist hunt for genuine commercial used stamps if that is his/ her objective, but sometimes the pure item just does not exist!

Okay, so I checked the links and I’m using the term “philatelic cover” wrong. I thought it meant not postally used!  But it is the term for postally used covers. The covers the guy in Austria was showing me were post office manufactured with no address, but cancelled First Day Covers - definitely not postally used. I have enough of those types of covers from my younger days of collecting.  I’m gravitating towards postally used covers these days. 

While I agree with most of what  ameis33 has said in his post , I must take some issue with the two statements above .

”contemporary”  we must have a wide range of latitude here . 

for example

1.mint stamps from 1972 are still valid for use in UK and if I send a letter to my lawyer and frank it with 3 or 4 old stamps, they will be acceptable but not recently contemporary. It may be a commercial business letter. Do the stamps make it philatelic?

2.I am a collector , my lawyer is not , but because I am a collector , is my business letter philatelic and never to be collected by someone?

 ( I do understand what he means of course, when you collect covers for a special country , often some addresses turn up in large numbers and you recognise collectors or dealers who obviously prepared many covers for purely philatelic interest ) 

3 last month I had  Christmas card from Italy which had Lire and Euro stamps to pay the postage . The Lire stamps are still valid but certainly not contemporary , but it came as regular ordinary airmail in the post . “Commercial” or “philatelic”

And look at this...

If the previous one was "semi-philatelic", this is definetly philatelic...

Clean, maybe also with the correct postal rate, but...
BTW! The unperforated 50zl airmal stamp, i don't believe has been purchased at the post office...

Yes it is a very grey area .......we must chose for ourselves , to collect or not collect., that is the question.



So often from years past, specially created covers are all that is available for most collectors, as absolutely genuine commercial usage is so scarce as to be almost impossible to find.

The old time collector making a few covers, contemporary but philatelic , may be the only source, and often we have to accept that and be grateful . If we realise this then the price for philatelic must always be lower than the price for genuine use. It may sometimes be hard to be definite for sure.

You are welcome Ma’am, it is often discussed by collectors . There are those who like covers what ever their origin , there are those who would prefer genuine used contemporary Mailings, and there are the others ( generally those with deep pockets) who fiercely insist “Only Genuine Usage “ and denigrate items philatelically created. ( fortunately they are in an elite minority but their comments can hurt!)

Many years ago when I had not long started collecting early Samoa, I paid a substantial sum for a registered cover with Samoa stamps which had gone by ship and cancelled in Levuka Fiji en route to London . All perfectly correct and quite unusual.
The sender, addressed to himself in Germany,  was a Dr Franke.

My purchase was mocked publicly by an Expert now deceased. “Philatelic .... not worthy of including in a serious collection of Samoa”.

My pride was dented , but I come back strongly by saying , “OK , find me a couple of others like this, if Dr Franke had not prepared such a cover in 1901 , how many covers would exist for collectors like me to illustrate a correct postal process which hardly ever happened? “

I still have the cover , maybe I paid too much but in 20 years I have only seen one other Dr Franke letter and that sold for $500

I hope not to be considered such "purist"...
I must say i like more a genuine (i.e. non philatelic) item, but that doesn't stop me to put this letter in my collection. Anyway, it is not difficult to please myself when i see it...

I have been keeping all my "covers" mailed to me in a box. All are "philatelic" in nature, but then aren't we all philatelists?

I like these covers covered in stamps. I shudder to think that my brother would just chuck them all in the garbage if I should die before him! But the market for these covers would be rather limited.

I'm leaving instructions on what to do with them, with one option being a donation to the Trenton Stamp Club. They can also get my books and catalogues as well & maybe some of my collection.