The History of Stamp Collecting Part 19 – The Netherlands in 1863
In the late 1970s a fascinating series of articles written by Mr. K. Kouwenberg about the history of Stamp Collecting, appeared in the Dutch magazine Philatelie. This series has been the source of inspiration for PostBeeld owner Rob Smit to rewrite the history of stamp collecting in instalments. The last instalment and this refer to the growth of stamp collecting in The Netherlands.
We’ve previously published stories regarding unusual stamps and the strange subjects and materials used in the printing process, and this article shows how inventive stamp designers can be.
Royal Mail issued this set of stamps that give a timeline across thousands of years of history, from a glimpse of Stone Age ritual of 11,000 years ago, to the Iron Age of some 300 BC.
The steady decline of mail sent in the Netherlands has lead PostNL to a new “innovation”: the withdrawal of rubber stamps at postal service desks as of 1 January 2017. This does not affect regular mail, but only registered mail and parcels, which are almost always paid for at the desks or through a franking machine.
In this series, we have already seen that the stamp collecting virus had spread quickly in 1862 in Europe. But had the virus reached the Netherlands? The answer is yes, but not until the end of that year.
