Since the first stamp was affixed to a letter in the United Kingdom in 1841, other countries in the world soon followed with their own stamp issues. The stamps were, of course, intended to arrange payment for the processing of the postal items. But there was a special side effect. All those different stamps, all those novelties, all of this caught the attention of collectors. Stamps are fun to collect.
The first Dutch stamps
The very first stamp, with an image of king William III, pasted on a letter in 1852. The start of a long series of postage stamps issued by the Dutch Post Office (the predecessor of the later PTT, PTT-Post and PostNL). This also gave birth to a new hobby: philately, dabbling in stamps. A philatelist is a stamp collector. Philatelists don’t just collect stamps, but all kinds of things related to postal and postage stamps.
Limit your collection area
The stamp collector knows that (unfortunately) you cannot collect all stamps in the world. There are just too many. If you also want to add your stamps MNH, so unused, to your collection, then you will have to buy those stamps from the relevant postal services. If your collection area is the whole world, that will be a very expensive joke. In some countries hundreds of new stamps are released every year! In order to keep all stamps in an orderly manner, you should reserve a few rooms in your house for all those stamp books. In short, it is very practical to limit your active collection area.
The Netherlands
If your active collection area has become the Netherlands, then you still have a very large collection area. below Collection area of the Netherlands can you understand: all postage stamps issued in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. This also applies to countries that were part of the kingdom at one point in history, but are now independent. You take those countries with you in your collection up to and including the year of independence. In your collection area there are countries like
- The Netherlands
- Dutch East Indies
- Indonesia
- New Guinea
- Curacao
- Netherlands Antilles
- Caribbean Netherlands
- Aruba
- Suriname
- Bonaire
- St Martin
If all this is too much for you, no problem. Of course you decide which area you want to include in your collection or not!
Subdivision
Within each country in the kingdom a subdivision can be made, which also shows that certain items have come and gone. Telegram stamps, for example, were only issued between 1877 and 1903, hanging packs have been sold since 1995 and new issues are still appearing. The table below provides an overview of the options per country within the collection area of the Netherlands. The years indicate in which years (approximately) emissions of the item concerned took place.
Type | The Netherlands | Dutch East Indies | New Guinea (and West Nw G.) | Curacao | Netherlands Antilles | Aruba | Suriname |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Postage values | 1852-present | 1864-1948 (1949) | 1950-1962 | 1873-1948 | 1948-2010 | 1986-present | 1873-1975 |
Airmail | 1921-1980 | 1928-1933 | 1929-1947 | 1992 | 1930-1972 | ||
Postage Due Stamps | 1870-1958 | 1874-1946 | 1950-1957 | 1889-1945 | 1948-1959 | 1886-1956 | |
Service stamps | 1913 | 1911 | |||||
FDC | 1950-present | 1948 | 1958-1962 | 1957-2010 | 1986-present | 1953-1975 | |
Postage paid stamps | 2000-present | ||||||
FDC Postage paid | 2000-present | ||||||
Stamp booklets | 1902-present | 1905-1932 | 1977-1997 | ||||
Telegraph Stamps | 1877-1903 | ||||||
Safe stamps | 1921 | 1921 | |||||
Internment Seals | 1916 | ||||||
Service Int. Court of Justice | 1934-2010 | ||||||
Postal parcel set postage | 1924 | ||||||
Postal receipt stamp | 1884 | ||||||
Country mail stamp | 1845-1846 | ||||||
Vending Strips | 1989-2000 | ||||||
Seals in hanging packaging | 1995-present | ||||||
Prestige booklets | 1999-present |
FDC
The abbreviation FDC, which you see in the table above, means: First Day Cover. In Dutch: Envelope with the stamp (or series) with a special 1st Day cancellation. This stamp is only put on special, specially made and purchased envelopes, on which the entire series is pasted. And of course only on the day the stamp (series) is released for the first time.
Plate defects
Errors can occur in printed matter. In certain printing plates, a fragment may be missing, misplaced or sometimes even upside down. Some collectors are dedicated to collecting this type of error print. In stamp catalogs you can find overviews of known plate errors. Because plate errors can occur in all seals of all areas, this has been omitted in the above diagram.