Christmas seal

Christmas Seals were sometimes mistaken for Christmas stamps used for postage, prompting the US Post Office to adopt a policy requiring seals to be affixed on the reverse side of a postcard or envelope, but the policy was generally unfavorable and often ignored, ultimately resulting in its withdrawal.

In 1904, Einar Holbøll, a Danish postal clerk, developed the idea of adding an extra charitable stamp on mailed holiday greetings during Christmas.

[3][4] Prior to his death in 1927 Holboell was knighted by the king of Denmark for his contributions in the effort to fight tuberculosis and for associating Christmas with the need to help those afflicted with the disease.

The same year the sanatorium was transferred to the administration of the Danish National Association to Combat Tuberculosis as it was considered a waste of resources to have two organizations working towards the same purpose.

He insisted that people should find another way to help the charitable cause to fight tuberculosis and boycott the Christmas seal in question.

Most of the people of Denmark, however, paid little attention to Negerdard's comment and continued to buy the Christmas seals that depicted Santa Claus.

One such facility was located in Brandywine, Delaware, and almost at the point of its termination, where a doctor, Joseph Wales, remembered his cousin Emily Bissell who was experienced in fundraising efforts.

[12] The great success of Christmas seals in Europe prompted Danish born Jacob Riis, a muckraking journalist, photographer and a friend of Theodore Roosevelt, to write an editorial advocating their sale in America.

Bicknell along with Dr. Livingston Farrand, a member of the faculty of Columbia University proceeded in the summer of 1910 to arrange a partnership in the sale of Christmas Seals with the Red Cross, which lasted until 1920, when the Red Cross turned over the entire Christmas seal operation to the National Tuberculosis Association.

[14][15] Initially printed by the Lithograph process, the seals were sold in post office lobbies across the United States.

[18] By 1920, the Red Cross withdrew from the arrangement and sales were conducted exclusively by the NASPT, then known as the National Tuberculosis Association (NTA).

They featured notables in the fight against tuberculosis, including Einar Holbøll, Robert Koch, René Laennec and Edward Livingston Trudeau.

[24] Various promotional schemes were tried: in 1954 the small town of Saranac Lake, New York (home of the Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium) won a nationwide competition selling Christmas seals, the reward for which was hosting the world premiere of the Paul Newman film The Silver Chalice; the cast participated in a parade in the town's annual winter carnival.

Other ideas were employed in the effort to promote Christmas seals, including postmark/cancellations and various forms of advertising, shown in the examples below.

[25] Beginning in 1919 the sale of Christmas seals were sold in a form of a bond in order to accommodate big contributors to the fight against tuberculosis.

Interested people in Toronto and Hamilton, Ontario began Christmas seal campaigns to build and support sanatoriiums, as tuberculosis hospitals were then called.

Early in December, the Globe began running a daily story on the front page giving news of the campaign.

[28] Finally, in 1927, it was agreed that the Christmas seal campaign was to be the official method for tuberculosis associations to appeal to the public for funds.

Christmas seals have been issued by hundreds of different societies, nationally, and locally in Asia, Africa, North and South America, and Australia.

[2][13] Various governments from around the world have also issued semi-postal postage stamps to help raise funds for the Red Cross and for the fight against tuberculosis, with countries like France, Spain and Belgium having produced hundreds.

[32] The other European countries that have issued semi-postal stamps for the Red Cross and various tuberculosis foundations include Belgium, Finland, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, among others.

[33] Korea, after much effort to sell the idea in of raising funds to combat tuberculosis there, issued its first Christmas seal in 1933.

[34] Mexico, through the Comite Nacional de Lucha contra la Tuberculosis, in their effort to fight the dreaded lung disease, issued its first Christmas seals in 1943.

Subsequently, by 1911 the U.S. Post Office adopted a policy that prohibited the placement of Christmas Seals on the same side of a postcard or envelope as the address.

To help bring recognition and raise funding for the program.the Holy Childhood foundation issues their own type of Christmas seal for sale at various Catholic Churches and other institutions.

[citation needed] When Christmas seals first appeared at the beginning of the 20th century they received much favor and acclaim from the general public, and from stamp and postal history collectors in particular.

[46] On December 4, 2014, a postcard bearing a rare variety of a 1911, type 5, considered the rarest U.S. Christmas seal, sold at auction on eBay for a record amount of $$3,433.83.

The postcard was postmarked December 20, 1911, at Station C in Los Angeles and mailed to Fort Wayne, Indiana[47] In another definitive example, a 1919 issue U.S. Christmas seal of a rare type was sold at auction and realized a price of $3,872,533.

The quantities produced were documented for many years by The Christmas Seal and Charity Stamp Society members Joe Wheeler and Jerry Grigaitis.