An Old Post (Or, appreciating nineteenth century European stamps)

Ok, let's get this out of the way before we start.

There need be no argument.

Stamps are cool. Some of the greatest strange old things I have are stamps, some will be coming your way soon (If you're lucky...). These are part of a bag of 1200 I bought very recently,

 Various Nineteenth Century stamps from Holland, Romania and Denmark

These are just a handful, and heavily postmarked, but that's part of the fun. We can date the issues to specific years. Example, the Danish stamps on the second row up (called numeral issues) came out in 1875, but they were around for a good few years, so we cant know for sure how old they are. The post marks help us out, the romanian stamp on the bottom row second from right is dated 1903. Because it's all about quality, and stamps do not generally fair well with time, its easy to build up a nice collection of issues/countries with some really old dates. Danish stamps, although not massively interesting to look at, were changed fairly regularly from the 1860s onwards, and can be picked up easily and cheaply. The oldest and more valuable Danish stamps are square, rather than rectangular, and the currency is in 'skilling' which was replaced by the Kroner in the 1870s. Look out for dutch stamps similar to those in the second row down but marked 'nederland indie' from the Dutch empire in the east indies, prevelant until the 20th century and surviving until WW2. Danish stamps without a head on are usually 19th C (King Christian IX became the first monarch to be depicted on a stamp in 1904).
The Romanian issues (posta romana) are easier, as the monarch is always depicted. Identify the ugly mug and you can date the stamp with relative ease. King Carol I is our man here.

Stamps are documents, and the pattern they choose, words they employ and beaurocracy they represent are fascinating insights into the nations and people who produced them. More to come...