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Bird stamp

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Since the advent of manned flight, postal services have used birds as a common illustration for air mail stamps.[1]
1875 stamp of Japan featuring illustration of a wagtail.
2024 Colombia stamp depicting the Long-tailed Sylph.

A bird stamp is a postage stamp that illustrates one or more birds. It is a popular theme in topical stamp collecting.[2]

Birds started appearing on stamps by 1875, when Japan issued a series of three stamps bearing stylized illustrations of the three species Motacilla alba, Accipiter gentilis and bean goose.[3][4] The first United States bird stamp, depicting an eagle with wings outspread, was issued in 1869 on Scott #116 and #121, on stamps that were issued for general mail usage. The UK issued its first in honor of "Nature Week" in 1963.[3] As of 2024, over 40,000 bird stamps have been issued around the world, depicting more than 4,000 species of birds.[5]

A prominent collector is Chris Gibbins whose collection of over twelve thousand stamps portrays about three thousand species.[2] Organisations that cover this field include the American Topical Association and The Bird Stamp Society.[6]

The Bird Stamp Society publishes Flight four times a year.

References and sources

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Notes
  1. ^ Esten, Sidney (1941), "Birds on Stamps", Stamps, 35: 20
  2. ^ a b Koeppel 2006, p. 14.
  3. ^ a b Malcolm Ogilvie, "Birds on Stamps" Archived 2015-11-18 at the Wayback Machine, Birds of Britain: The Monthly Web Magazine for Birdwatchers, March 2002.
  4. ^ "1875 Bird definitive stamps of Japan". colnect.com. Retrieved 2015-11-18.
  5. ^ Scharning, Kjell. "Statistics". Theme Birds on Stamps. Retrieved 15 June 2024.
  6. ^ "The Bird Stamp Society brings bird stamp collectors together". The Bird Stamp Society. 2015. Retrieved 2015-11-17.
Sources
  • Bleeker, Sonia (1966), The Golden Book of Bird Stamps
  • Daly, Kathleen (1955), Bird Stamps
  • Eriksen, Hanne; Eriksen, Jens (1996), Collect Birds on Stamps, Stanley Gibbons, ISBN 9780852594087
  • Esten, Sidney (1954), Birds of the World on Stamps, American Topical Association
  • Bird Stamps of All Countries with a Natural History of Each Bird, Grosset & Dunlap, 1935
  • The World of Birds on Stamps, Hayes, 1975
  • Jackson, Christine (1978), Collecting Bird Stamps, ISBN 0854931260
  • Koeppel, Dan (2006), To See Every Bird on Earth: A Father, a Son, and a Lifelong Obsession, Penguin, ISBN 9781440627033
  • Lant, Hugh (1975), Bird Stamps of the World Check-List, ISBN 0950476803
  • Collect Birds on Stamps, Stanley Gibbons, 2002, ISBN 9780852595329
  • BIRDS ON STAMPS
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