Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
I would enjoy hearing theories or even a proof positing why so many 19th Century US stamps were affixed all the way over on the uppermost right side of envelopes, so far to the right that often stamps were damaged when opened on the right side or damaged because the application of the stamp actually "fell off" the envelopes edge, left to hang in mid air during transit.
I'm not sure when if any postal regulation existed or if so was ever enforced commanding that stamps be placed on the upper right portion of the envelope. A casual perusal of covers from the 19th Century will bury that dictum, if it existed, rather quickly. Even assuming a portion of the population was aware of this possible postal regulation, should one deduce that the wording commanded the sender place the stamp in the upper most portion of the envelope?
It is understood that the average person had no special considerations about stamp placement extremes but certainly one would think that by the 1850s into the 1860s, stamp collectors were known by the general population so that a modicum of care would be exercised.
Bruce
Login to Like
this post
Perhaps a search on 'shall be placed' will get you started:
US Postal Bulletins 1880-1971 ... digitized & searchable
Login to Like
this post
Great resource. Tried several search combinations but no luck on a reg.
Bruce
Login to Like
this post
The answer is surprisingly simple: the vast majority of people are right-handed. If you try to place the stamp on the left-hand side you have to move your arm less naturally to do so. It can be done (and someone will undoubtedly try it so they can post "Bull-roar! I did it with no effort!") But try doing it quickly with 50 Christmas cards and it becomes obvious pretty quickly.
Cheers, Dave.
Login to Like
this post
Hey Bruce, I just caught your line "one would think that by the 1850s into the 1860s, stamp collectors were known by the general population so that a modicum of care {[red]MOC[/red]} would be exercised". One would think that would be the case, but I think the evidence is that what we consider reasonable now wasn't always necessarily the case - or at least not widespread outside "serious" collectors.
Just consider the issue of hinging new stamps - Scotts starts specifying prices assumed for MNH somewhere around the 1940s with earlier issues commanding a premium. Obviously a MOC failure today!
Even so, some people just can't learn. My father-in-law (79) collected stamps from the time he was a child growing up in Montreal, as did his father. Each year his dad bought him every new Canadian stamp and told him to "take good care of them". He continued that himself every year since. He boasted about his fabulous collection of every new stamp since the 1920s but never showed it to me (still mad that I married his only daughter no doubt).
Last year on our 20th anniversary he finally realized I was a keeper, and actually called me "son" for the first time ever. For a gift, he said he was too old to continue the stamp collection and wanted "to pass this cherished family legacy" on to me as I had started collecting (or at least compiling) recently and he said "I know you will treat it "with the same love and respect I have over the past seven decades".
So imagine my joy when I opened the large box, saw a beautiful array of albums, and opened the pages to find hundreds of pages with handwritten notes (in his beautiful, precise engineer penmanship) and...
...every stamp before 1960 licked and pasted to the page, and every stamp/souvenir sheet afterwards hinged thereupon.
MOC MY A## !!! 
While extremely grateful for the gesture, I still haven't had the heart to tell him how horrified I was - and how nauseous it still makes me in telling the story.
Cheers, but still not cheerful, Dave.
Login to Like
this post
"... the vast majority of people are right-handed ..."
Color me unconvinced.
If you look at very old covers, you will find stamps all over the place: on the front, on the back, on the left, on the right ... wherever there was space.
If you look at postal stationery of almost any age, you find the indicia in the upper-right had corner.
Q/ Maybe we should be looking at UPU treaties & regulations?
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
Login to Like
this post
Color me unconvinced.
Hmm, you haven't proven to me that you are, in fact, unconvinced ikeyPikey. If you look at other people who have claimed to be such you find them to be in various states of "convincedness" (yes, I just made up that word).
There may be postal legalities involved in the positioning but I think if anything they followed the human factor, probably as a matter of processing efficiency. Or maybe to foil those historical scofflaws you uncovered who viewed the cover as a canvas to be enhanced with beautiful art (stamps) regardless of the conventions of the authorities or their own biologically-wired handedness (not a made-up word).
I looked at a random sample of 84 covers, from the 1920s to 1980s, including 16 from Asian countries where the language is written/read right-to-left, opposite to the western languages. 92.9% of total (and all of the Asian covers) had the stamps in the upper right corner.
Interestingly, 3.6% of the covers had at least one stamp placed upside down! I will leave the interpretation of that one to someone with a more advanced degree in Behavioral Psychology than my own, and rest my case that my hypothesis can now comfortably be reclassified as a theory.
Cheers, Dave.
Login to Like
this post
"... I looked at a random sample of 84 covers, from the 1920s to 1980s ..."
The date range you selected is well after the UPU.
By 'very old' I meant, say, the 1860s.
"... 3.6% of the covers had at least one stamp placed upside down! I will leave the interpretation of that one to someone with a more advanced degree in Behavioral Psychology than my own ..."
Not a matter of psychology. Just a matter of history & custom.
Upside-down meant "I love you" or "with my love".
Angled right meant something, angled left meant something, etc.
[New York Times: From Love to Longing to Protest: It's All in the Tilt of the Postage
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
Login to Like
this post
Please note that I am aware that stamps were placed all over the place on the front surface of the covers from the 19th Century but my unscientific poll based upon my own microscopic position in the polling universe has produced results tending toward the thought: Stamp placement was either through postal command or perhaps cultural indoctrination or the luck of the lick, with said placement oftentimes in the most extreme upper right corner, with in many instances, the perfs of said stamps clearly off the top or side edge, resulting in damage.
Don't get me started on the number of times I have seen beautiful 19 Century covers with stamps partially torn off, leaving a portion of the stamp on the cover (looking ashamed and embarrassed by this effort to strip it), either by well meaning relatives or friends who presumably wanted to pass along a stamp to a youngster or perhaps to a grizzled philatelic veteran. These desecrations pain me much more than the covers with the familiar square-shaped tear out, usually in the right hand corner I might add that seem to indicate the stamp or stamps were snagged for a collector or by a collector. Oh wait, there's more: I have read in the ancient philatelic press that old time collectors often threw away covers with manuscript cancellations, assigning these covers a kind of blasphemous trait not worthy of collecting. Oh, the humanity!
"I'm not sure when if any postal regulation existed or if so was ever enforced commanding that stamps be placed on the upper right portion of the envelope. A casual perusal of covers from the 19th Century will bury that dictum, if it existed, rather quickly. Even assuming a portion of the population was aware of this possible postal regulation, should one deduce that the wording commanded the sender place the stamp in the upper most portion of the envelope?"
--excerpt from my screed blurb at the top.
Bruce
Addendum: Quite a story, Dave!
Login to Like
this post
02:31:22pm
I always try to place the stamp 1/2 to 3/4 inch in from the top right corner in the hopes that a decent cancellation will be produced. The common exception being when I have to piece together mixed postage, in which case I try to put a common self stick rightmost.
What amazes and at times annoys me is the frequency that so many stampers, especially part time dealer/collectors seem to be trying to conserve space by affixing good collectable stamps tightly along the top right edge.
One would think that SoR members would think of that when sending mail to other members.
2 Members
like this post.
Login to Like.
Not sure why or when we started to place the stamp on the upper right corner.
When CDS (circular date stamps) were starting to be used they were not to be used to cancel the stamp so in the 1870's when duplex cancelers were being, the town name was on the left side of the canceler and the canceler for the stamp was on the right.
Vince
Login to Like
this post
Stampme: Its not that I don't feel your pain.
Consider this stamp, which suffered from overreaching the postcard's right edge.
Now, consider this stamp, again.
Initially, it was illegal to use Parcel Post stamps to pay the First Class Rate, and vice versa.
(Perhaps some bean-counter thought that this would be a useful way to double-check the revenue & traffic data being collected on first & fourth class mail.)
Motives aside, I can easily imagine postal clerks & customers rolling their eyes at this nonsense rule and, on 01/July/1913, it became lawful to, well, cross-post those stamps ... and this one is postmarked 07/July/1913.
Remind me to care about those lost perfs 
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
First Class Use of Parcel Post Stamps (Linn's)
Login to Like
this post
"... The bulletin link provided by Ikey does not have a workable search engine ..."
Of course it does. You will need to turn-on Java (script), allow cookies, and - also new to me - allow pop-ups.
"... By 1900 the practice was entrenched ..."
I am going to be stubborn, and note that the UPU dates from 1874, even though the original treaty omits any mention of the positioning of postage stamps.
"... postmasters writing the fee due or paid in the upper right corner by hand in the pre-stamp era, and they likely did that because they could see the rest of the cover while they were doing it, and the majority were right-handed ..."
Well-spotted!
"... it's hard to explain why the public would repeatedly place the stamps so close to the edges ..."
Q/ How fast to people drive when there is a posted speed limit?
You instruct people "upper right" and they are going to ask "how upper?" and "how right?" and, in the absence of firm guidance to the contrary, the folks who are inclined to follow directions are going to place that stamp as-far-upper & as-far-right as they can.
From there, you only need an occasional small mis-estimation to get stamps over-hanging the upper edge or over-hanging the right. The latter is more easily understood, as the right-handed person is going to place the left side of the stamp down first.
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
Login to Like
this post
Try changing the time-out limits in Firefox?
Login to Like
this post
Before you turn on anything, read this and make sure your Java is up to date.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35159851
Login to Like
this post
06:26:58pm
Hi,
I would enjoy hearing theories or even a proof positing why so many 19th Century US stamps were affixed all the way over on the uppermost right side of envelopes, so far to the right that often stamps were damaged when opened on the right side or damaged because the application of the stamp actually "fell off" the envelopes edge, left to hang in mid air during transit.
I'm not sure when if any postal regulation existed or if so was ever enforced commanding that stamps be placed on the upper right portion of the envelope. A casual perusal of covers from the 19th Century will bury that dictum, if it existed, rather quickly. Even assuming a portion of the population was aware of this possible postal regulation, should one deduce that the wording commanded the sender place the stamp in the upper most portion of the envelope?
It is understood that the average person had no special considerations about stamp placement extremes but certainly one would think that by the 1850s into the 1860s, stamp collectors were known by the general population so that a modicum of care would be exercised.
Bruce
Login to Like
this post
re: All the way over to the top most right hand side edge of the envelope...
Perhaps a search on 'shall be placed' will get you started:
US Postal Bulletins 1880-1971 ... digitized & searchable
Login to Like
this post
11:43:11am
re: All the way over to the top most right hand side edge of the envelope...
Great resource. Tried several search combinations but no luck on a reg.
Bruce
Login to Like
this post
re: All the way over to the top most right hand side edge of the envelope...
The answer is surprisingly simple: the vast majority of people are right-handed. If you try to place the stamp on the left-hand side you have to move your arm less naturally to do so. It can be done (and someone will undoubtedly try it so they can post "Bull-roar! I did it with no effort!") But try doing it quickly with 50 Christmas cards and it becomes obvious pretty quickly.
Cheers, Dave.
Login to Like
this post
re: All the way over to the top most right hand side edge of the envelope...
Hey Bruce, I just caught your line "one would think that by the 1850s into the 1860s, stamp collectors were known by the general population so that a modicum of care {[red]MOC[/red]} would be exercised". One would think that would be the case, but I think the evidence is that what we consider reasonable now wasn't always necessarily the case - or at least not widespread outside "serious" collectors.
Just consider the issue of hinging new stamps - Scotts starts specifying prices assumed for MNH somewhere around the 1940s with earlier issues commanding a premium. Obviously a MOC failure today!
Even so, some people just can't learn. My father-in-law (79) collected stamps from the time he was a child growing up in Montreal, as did his father. Each year his dad bought him every new Canadian stamp and told him to "take good care of them". He continued that himself every year since. He boasted about his fabulous collection of every new stamp since the 1920s but never showed it to me (still mad that I married his only daughter no doubt).
Last year on our 20th anniversary he finally realized I was a keeper, and actually called me "son" for the first time ever. For a gift, he said he was too old to continue the stamp collection and wanted "to pass this cherished family legacy" on to me as I had started collecting (or at least compiling) recently and he said "I know you will treat it "with the same love and respect I have over the past seven decades".
So imagine my joy when I opened the large box, saw a beautiful array of albums, and opened the pages to find hundreds of pages with handwritten notes (in his beautiful, precise engineer penmanship) and...
...every stamp before 1960 licked and pasted to the page, and every stamp/souvenir sheet afterwards hinged thereupon.
MOC MY A## !!!
While extremely grateful for the gesture, I still haven't had the heart to tell him how horrified I was - and how nauseous it still makes me in telling the story.
Cheers, but still not cheerful, Dave.
Login to Like
this post
re: All the way over to the top most right hand side edge of the envelope...
"... the vast majority of people are right-handed ..."
Color me unconvinced.
If you look at very old covers, you will find stamps all over the place: on the front, on the back, on the left, on the right ... wherever there was space.
If you look at postal stationery of almost any age, you find the indicia in the upper-right had corner.
Q/ Maybe we should be looking at UPU treaties & regulations?
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
Login to Like
this post
re: All the way over to the top most right hand side edge of the envelope...
Color me unconvinced.
Hmm, you haven't proven to me that you are, in fact, unconvinced ikeyPikey. If you look at other people who have claimed to be such you find them to be in various states of "convincedness" (yes, I just made up that word).
There may be postal legalities involved in the positioning but I think if anything they followed the human factor, probably as a matter of processing efficiency. Or maybe to foil those historical scofflaws you uncovered who viewed the cover as a canvas to be enhanced with beautiful art (stamps) regardless of the conventions of the authorities or their own biologically-wired handedness (not a made-up word).
I looked at a random sample of 84 covers, from the 1920s to 1980s, including 16 from Asian countries where the language is written/read right-to-left, opposite to the western languages. 92.9% of total (and all of the Asian covers) had the stamps in the upper right corner.
Interestingly, 3.6% of the covers had at least one stamp placed upside down! I will leave the interpretation of that one to someone with a more advanced degree in Behavioral Psychology than my own, and rest my case that my hypothesis can now comfortably be reclassified as a theory.
Cheers, Dave.
Login to Like
this post
re: All the way over to the top most right hand side edge of the envelope...
"... I looked at a random sample of 84 covers, from the 1920s to 1980s ..."
The date range you selected is well after the UPU.
By 'very old' I meant, say, the 1860s.
"... 3.6% of the covers had at least one stamp placed upside down! I will leave the interpretation of that one to someone with a more advanced degree in Behavioral Psychology than my own ..."
Not a matter of psychology. Just a matter of history & custom.
Upside-down meant "I love you" or "with my love".
Angled right meant something, angled left meant something, etc.
[New York Times: From Love to Longing to Protest: It's All in the Tilt of the Postage
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
Login to Like
this post
09:06:03am
re: All the way over to the top most right hand side edge of the envelope...
Please note that I am aware that stamps were placed all over the place on the front surface of the covers from the 19th Century but my unscientific poll based upon my own microscopic position in the polling universe has produced results tending toward the thought: Stamp placement was either through postal command or perhaps cultural indoctrination or the luck of the lick, with said placement oftentimes in the most extreme upper right corner, with in many instances, the perfs of said stamps clearly off the top or side edge, resulting in damage.
Don't get me started on the number of times I have seen beautiful 19 Century covers with stamps partially torn off, leaving a portion of the stamp on the cover (looking ashamed and embarrassed by this effort to strip it), either by well meaning relatives or friends who presumably wanted to pass along a stamp to a youngster or perhaps to a grizzled philatelic veteran. These desecrations pain me much more than the covers with the familiar square-shaped tear out, usually in the right hand corner I might add that seem to indicate the stamp or stamps were snagged for a collector or by a collector. Oh wait, there's more: I have read in the ancient philatelic press that old time collectors often threw away covers with manuscript cancellations, assigning these covers a kind of blasphemous trait not worthy of collecting. Oh, the humanity!
"I'm not sure when if any postal regulation existed or if so was ever enforced commanding that stamps be placed on the upper right portion of the envelope. A casual perusal of covers from the 19th Century will bury that dictum, if it existed, rather quickly. Even assuming a portion of the population was aware of this possible postal regulation, should one deduce that the wording commanded the sender place the stamp in the upper most portion of the envelope?"
--excerpt from my screed blurb at the top.
Bruce
Addendum: Quite a story, Dave!
Login to Like
this post
Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
18 Dec 2015
02:31:22pm
re: All the way over to the top most right hand side edge of the envelope...
I always try to place the stamp 1/2 to 3/4 inch in from the top right corner in the hopes that a decent cancellation will be produced. The common exception being when I have to piece together mixed postage, in which case I try to put a common self stick rightmost.
What amazes and at times annoys me is the frequency that so many stampers, especially part time dealer/collectors seem to be trying to conserve space by affixing good collectable stamps tightly along the top right edge.
One would think that SoR members would think of that when sending mail to other members.
2 Members
like this post.
Login to Like.
re: All the way over to the top most right hand side edge of the envelope...
Not sure why or when we started to place the stamp on the upper right corner.
When CDS (circular date stamps) were starting to be used they were not to be used to cancel the stamp so in the 1870's when duplex cancelers were being, the town name was on the left side of the canceler and the canceler for the stamp was on the right.
Vince
Login to Like
this post
re: All the way over to the top most right hand side edge of the envelope...
Stampme: Its not that I don't feel your pain.
Consider this stamp, which suffered from overreaching the postcard's right edge.
Now, consider this stamp, again.
Initially, it was illegal to use Parcel Post stamps to pay the First Class Rate, and vice versa.
(Perhaps some bean-counter thought that this would be a useful way to double-check the revenue & traffic data being collected on first & fourth class mail.)
Motives aside, I can easily imagine postal clerks & customers rolling their eyes at this nonsense rule and, on 01/July/1913, it became lawful to, well, cross-post those stamps ... and this one is postmarked 07/July/1913.
Remind me to care about those lost perfs
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
First Class Use of Parcel Post Stamps (Linn's)
Login to Like
this post
re: All the way over to the top most right hand side edge of the envelope...
"... The bulletin link provided by Ikey does not have a workable search engine ..."
Of course it does. You will need to turn-on Java (script), allow cookies, and - also new to me - allow pop-ups.
"... By 1900 the practice was entrenched ..."
I am going to be stubborn, and note that the UPU dates from 1874, even though the original treaty omits any mention of the positioning of postage stamps.
"... postmasters writing the fee due or paid in the upper right corner by hand in the pre-stamp era, and they likely did that because they could see the rest of the cover while they were doing it, and the majority were right-handed ..."
Well-spotted!
"... it's hard to explain why the public would repeatedly place the stamps so close to the edges ..."
Q/ How fast to people drive when there is a posted speed limit?
You instruct people "upper right" and they are going to ask "how upper?" and "how right?" and, in the absence of firm guidance to the contrary, the folks who are inclined to follow directions are going to place that stamp as-far-upper & as-far-right as they can.
From there, you only need an occasional small mis-estimation to get stamps over-hanging the upper edge or over-hanging the right. The latter is more easily understood, as the right-handed person is going to place the left side of the stamp down first.
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
Login to Like
this post
re: All the way over to the top most right hand side edge of the envelope...
Try changing the time-out limits in Firefox?
Login to Like
this post
Approvals
re: All the way over to the top most right hand side edge of the envelope...
Before you turn on anything, read this and make sure your Java is up to date.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35159851
Login to Like
this post