Postal History and Covers

Postal history is the study of the postal system changes over the years. While most non-philatelists are aware of the collection of the first day cover commemorating the first use of a stamp (often with an artistic cachet on the cover), there are many other postal history interests. A popular collecting area is images of post offices, which are most often found on post cards. A special sub area of this is the collection of postmarks from "dead" post offices (DPOs), that is postmarks on letters and postcards from offices that have closed. Another popular collecting area is cancellation marks. These include the fancy cancellations, most often found on 19th century covers, Doane cancels (a particular machine) and flag cacels of the early 20th century. Some collectors look for cover with special marks, delivery notifications, and forwards. Finally old covers sometimes have aesthetic value beyond the value of the postmark, so the piece as a whole has to be judged.