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Stamps! I decided that
stamps would be the perfect souvenir.
So I chose coins instead. Since every country requires you to use
their currency when you pass through their borders, I knew it would
be easier to collect coins than stamps. Stamps, though, have a
history all their own; they tell a story, just like a country music
song does.
The very first postal services were set up by kings and
governments exclusively for their own use. Later, when ordinary
citizens wanted to send mail as well, a system was established that
required the person who received the letter to pay for it at the
time of delivery. They were charged according to how much the letter
weighed as well as the distance that it went. In fact, Ben Franklin
invented the odometer to measure the distance that the letter
carriers traveled.
Things began to change in 1838 when James Raymond, the postmaster
general of New South Wales, Australia, introduced the world's first
prepaid postage system by stamping letters. It was set up the same
way in which a bank teller stamps your checks.
Two years later, an Englishman named Sir Rowland Hill came up
with the idea of using postage stamps. Hill suggested lowering the
cost of postage to a penny and, since the stamp was black, it was
called the Penny Black. The Penny Black contained an image of
Britain's Queen Victoria and was first issued in England in May of
1840. The British postmaster general thought that the postage stamp
was a crazy idea at the time. Hill's next great idea was the
mailbox, now that postage was being prepaid by the sender. (That
Hill thinks of everything, doesn't he?)
Stamps made their way to America in 1847, and Ben Franklin was
the first person to appear on a U.S. stamp; he was also our first
postmaster general. The 5-cent Franklin stamp was soon followed by
the 10-cent George Washington stamp.
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In 1860 the Pony Express opened with a recruitment ad that read:
"WANTED: Young skinny wiry fellows not over 18. Must be willing to
risk death daily. Orphans preferred. Wages $25 a week."
The Pony Express riders could travel the 2,000 miles from St.
Joseph, Mo., to the West Coast in only 10 days, which was half the
time that it took to travel the distance by train. One of the riders
was 14-year-old William Cody -- as in Buffalo Bill Cody -- who once
outran a party of 15 Indians who were trying to rob him. Cody and
his fellow riders delivered news of the outbreak of the Civil War
the following year. After just 19 months, the Pony Express was
replaced by the telegraph.
In case you've always wondered, but were afraid to ask...
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Even though the
English invented the postage stamp, they remain the only country
in the world that does not put their country's name on
their stamps.
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The 1-penny stamp
from New South Wales, Australia, which showed the seal of the
colony, is worth around $5,000 in mint condition today.
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The first person
other than royalty to appear on a British stamp was William
Shakespeare in 1964.
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The best-selling
U.S. commemorative stamp of all time is the 1993 Elvis Presley
stamp, of which 124 million have been sold.
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In 1973 the country
of Bhutan issued a stamp that looked like a record and would
actually play the Bhutanese national anthem.
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Cats were used for
mail service in Belgium in 1879, but this experiment failed
because the cats weren't disciplined enough to deliver the mail!
And that's a good one with which to end this story.
[Paul Niemann]
Paul Niemann may be reached at
niemann7@aol.com.
Copyright Paul Niemann 2006
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