About Us

 Philately is the study of revenue or postage stamps. This includes the design, production and uses of stamps after they are issued by postal authorities. Although many equate it with stamp collecting, it is a distinct activity. For instance, philatelists will study extremely rare stamps without expecting to own copies of them, whether because of cost, or because the sole survivors are in museums. Conversely, a stamp collector may choose to acquire and arrange the little pictures without being much troubled about their origin or usage. In practice, a basic knowledge of philately will save the collector from spending a great deal of money on a stamp that is really almost worthless. 

Basic or technical philately, then, is the study of the technical aspects of stamp production and stamp identification. It includes the study of

• The initial stamp design process
• Paper (wove, laid, etc, and including watermarks)
• Printing methods (engraving, typography, etc)
• Gum
• Separation (perforation, rouletting)
• Overprints on existing stamps
• Philatelic fakes and forgeries, especially the identification of forgeries

A topical philatelist might be interested in which subspecies of giraffe is represented on this 1925 stamp of Tanganyika.

Topical philately is the study of what is depicted on the stamps. There are hundreds of popular subjects, such as

• People on stamps
• Maps on stamps
• Birds on stamps
• Insects on stamps
• Ships on stamps
• Stamps on stamps
• Chess on stamps

 Numismatics is the study of the physical embodiment of various payment  media (i.e. currencies). The study of numismatics as it applies to coins  is often in the research of the production and use of the coins to  determine their rarity.  

Numismatics differs from historical and economic studies of money.  Numismatists study the physical attributes of the payment media rather  than the use and function in an economy. The term numismatics is often  used interchangeably with the coin collection, though it connotes more  intensive study than just simply collecting coins. It could be said that  all numismatists are coin collectors, but not all coin collectors are  numismatists. It is widely believed that numismatics began during the  early European Renaissance, as part of an effort to re-discover all  things classical. 

The first English usage of the word “numismatics” was in 1829, stemming  from the word adjective numismatic, which translates to "of coins”, and  stemmed from the French word numismatiques, which itself derived from the Latin word numismatis. 

Numismatists study the physical technology and historical context of  coinage and money. Coins or other tokens that are rare or unique or that  have some special history that can be documented are considered most  interesting for study and valuable as collectibles. Specimens that show  errors from their production process of striking the coins or printing  the notes are especially notable. 

COMING SOON 

DATABASE OF BOOKS ON PHILATELY AND NUMISMATIC

A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional services, which vary by country. These include providing and accepting government forms (such as passport applications), and processing government services and fees (such as road tax, postal savings, or bank fees). The chief administrator of a post office is called a postmaster.

Before the advent of postal codes and the post office, postal systems would route items to a specific post office for receipt or delivery. 

The term "post-office" has been in use since the 1650s, shortly after the legalisation of private mail services in England in 1635. In early modern England, post riders—mounted couriers—were placed, or "posted", every few hours along post roads at posting houses (also known as post houses) between major cities, or "post towns". These stables or inns permitted important correspondence to travel without delay. In early America, post offices were also known as stations. This term, as well as the term "post house", fell from use as horse and coach services were replaced by railways, aircraft, and automobiles.

Today, the term "post office" usually refers to government postal facilities providing customer service. "General Post Office" is sometimes used for the national headquarters of a postal service, even if the building does not provide customer service. 

In India, post offices are found in almost every village having panchayat (a "village council"), towns, cities, and throughout the geographical area of India. India's postal system changed its name to India Post after the advent of private courier companies in the 1990s. It is run by the Indian government's Department of Posts.India Post accepts and delivers inland letters, postcards, parcels, postal stamps, and money orders (money transfers). Few post offices in India offer speed post (fast delivery) and payments or bank savings services. It is also uncommon for Indian post offices to sell insurance policies or accept payment for electricity, landline telephone, or gas bills. Until the 1990s, post offices would collect fees for radio licenses, recruitment for government jobs, and the operation of public call telephone (PCO) booths. Postmen would deliver letters, money orders, and parcels to places that are within the assigned area of a particular post office but there are no post offices in the location. Each Indian post office is assigned a unique six-digit code called the Postal Index Number, or PIN. Each post office is identified by its PIN..

The ubiquitous letter box is perhaps the best symbol of the outreach of the postal service in the remotest corners of India. Unassuming, yet instantly recognizable, the letter box has been part and parcel of our everyday lives, an icon of stability in an ever-changing world. The Letter Box has witnessed the phases of change and evolution of postal services in our country as well as in the rest of the world, and has itself undergone several incarnations. Historically they have been of different shapes and sizes, combining functionally while also representing the authority of the state and its prerogative of being the

sole provider of postal service in the country. The genesis of the present day Letter Box lies in ‘Stone Post’. From the seventeenth century onwards Dutch and English ships made long voyages around the Cape of Good Hope. When they stopped for fresh water at the Cape, they would leave their letters under a big stone, from where they were collected by the next ship going in the opposite direction. It is said that France was the first country to introduce roadside Letter Boxes as early as in 1653, followed by Germany and Belgium. In Britain, Rowland Hill first suggested installation of the roadside Letter Box in 1840. However, the first Letter Box in the British Isles came to be set up only in 1852, when pillar boxes were erected at St. Hellier in Jersey on the recommendation of Anthony Trollope, who was working as a Surveyor’s Clerk for the Post Office.

In 1853 the first pillar box on the British mainland was erected at Botchergate, Carlise. These letter boxes were called Victorian Boxes. In 1859 the design was improved by moving the aperture from the top to below the rim, and this became the first standard national pillar box. Green was adopted as the standard colour for the early Victorian boxes.

The Victorian Crown type was the first Letter Box imported to India in 1856-57. This was followed by the Lotus type Letter Box, also known as the Penfold Letter Box, after its designer. Between 1866 and 1879 the hexagonal Penfold box with a cap decorated with acanthus leaves became the standard design for pillar boxes, and it was during this period that red became adopted as the standard colour. In 1879 a cylindrical design of pillar box was adopted universally, in India and other countries of the world. From 1887 the words POST OFFICE were also placed on either side of the aperture. Later, the hours of collection also came to be indicated on the letter boxes. From 1857 onwards the wall box-type letter boxes came into use, for fixing onto existing walls. Small lamp-post boxes also came to be introduced in 1896. Thus, over the years, the design of the letter box has undergone a series of changes, adapting to different needs and climatic conditions also. But installation of a letter box remains a matter of great convenience and pride. At present two types of letter boxes, the TY type and the Pillar type are used by the Department of Posts in India. To facilitate differentiation of mail at the very initial different mail segments, certain colour variants of letter boxes were also introduced. The green letter box was for collecting local letters, i.e. within the same town, while the blue letter box was front end of the metro channel, serving metros. Yellow letter boxes depicting Rajdhani Channel were erected as collection points for letter destined for Delhi from all over the country.