Bird stamp

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
air mail stamps.[1]
1875 stamp of Japan featuring illustration of a wagtail.

A bird stamp is a postage stamp that illustrates one or more birds. It is a popular theme in topical stamp collecting.[2]

Birds started appearing on stamps by 1875, when Japan issued a series of three stamps bearing stylized illustrations of the three species

Motacilla alba, Accipiter gentilis and bean goose.[3][4] The first United States bird stamp, depicting an eagle with wings outspread, was issued in 1869 on Scott #116 and #121, on stamps that were issued for general mail usage. The UK issued its first in honor of "Nature Week" in 1963.[3]
As of 2003, over 10,000 bird stamps had been issued around the world.

A prominent collector is Chris Gibbins whose collection of over twelve thousand stamps portrays about three thousand species.[2] Organisations that cover this field include the American Topical Association and The Bird Stamp Society.[5]

References and sources

Notes
  1. ^ Esten, Sidney (1941), "Birds on Stamps", Stamps, 35: 20
  2. ^ a b Koeppel 2006, p. 14.
  3. ^ a b Malcolm Ogilvie, "Birds on Stamps" Archived 2015-11-18 at the Wayback Machine, Birds of Britain: The Monthly Web Magazine for Birdwatchers, March 2002.
  4. ^ "1875 Bird definitive stamps of Japan". colnect.com. Retrieved 2015-11-18.
  5. ^ "The Bird Stamp Society brings bird stamp collectors together". The Bird Stamp Society. 2015. Retrieved 2015-11-17.
Sources

External links