The first postage stamps were introduced in Great Britain in 1840, when the price for all half-ounce letters was standardized, allowing for pre-payment. The first stamp was worth one penny, and featured a profile of Queen Victoria on a black background. When mailed, the stamp would be marked with ink to indicate they had been used. Britain's postal system reforms were so successful that dozens of jurisdictions around the world began to copy them within a decade, including Zurich (1843), Brazil (1843), the United States (1847), France (1849), Belgium (1849), Spain (1850), and multiple German and Swiss states. By the 1860s, most countries in the world issued adhesive, prepaid postage stamps.

Early postage stamps are almost all rectangular and feature the image of a political or historical leader. After the mid-1850s, stamps were usually printed in larger perforated sheets, although they have also been printed in rolls or on ready-to-use envelopes. As the use of stamps proliferated, so did the creativity of their designs. Stamps have been issued in a variety of geometric shapes, including circles, triangles, and pentagons, as well as in more fluid shapes like fruit. Images on stamps include ships, animals, famous people, historical events, dinosaurs, hobbies, sports, holiday themes, and a plethora of other subjects. Early stamp images were almost always produced from an engraving; in the mid-twentieth century, stamp issues produced by other forms of printing began to emerge, such as lithography, photogravure, intaglio and web offset printing, which allow for a greater range of subjects and colors.

People have collected stamps as long as they have been produced, and the hobby is popular enough to support some countries issuing stamp editions specifically aimed at collectors, or mailing out first day covers, which feature a new stamp on the day it was issued and often come on a commemorative envelope. Other companies produce albums that feature information about particular stamps alongside spaces to place those stamps once collected. Collectors acquire stamps through direct purchase from postal systems, personal correspondence, trading with others in philately societies, or purchase from stamp dealers. Most collectors have a focus for their collection, which might be geographic, historical, or based on subject matter.

Sources:

American Philatelic Society. Accessed December 10, 2025. https://stamps.org/

"Postage Stamp," Wikipedia, November 12, 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postage_stamp

Smithsonian National Postal Museum. Accessed December 10, 2025. https://postalmuseum.si.edu

"Stamp History - History of Postage Stamps," Sammler.com. Accessed December 10, 2025. https://www.sammler.com/stamps/history.htm