First day of issue

Depending on the policy of the nation issuing the stamp, official first day postmarks may sometimes be applied to covers weeks or months after the date indicated.

Sir Rowland Hill calculated that the cost to the Post Office was far less than what some people were paying to send/receive their mail; this figure was just a fraction of 1d.

Hill believed that sending mail should be affordable to all so proposed that postage should be pre-paid, based on the weight rather than the number of sheets and the cost should be drastically reduced.

It was later decided that an adhesive label should be used to prevent forgeries and mis-use of the postal service and the Penny Black stamp was born.

A design on the left side of the envelope (a "cachet") explains the event or anniversary being celebrated.

Philatelic covers are envelope prepared with a stamp(s), addressed and sent through the mail delivery system to create a collectible item.

[6] Computer vended postage stamps issued by Neopost had first-day-of-issue ceremonies sponsored by the company, not by an official stamp-issuing entity.

Circular Date Stamps (CDS) are the 'bread-and-butter' postmarks used on everyday mail by Post Office counters across the UK.

Postmarks came to the foreground in the early 1960s, when collectors started to demand more interesting cancellations on their first day covers.

For the Red Cross issue in 1963, a special Florence Nightingale cover was posted at her birthplace, West Wellow.

[10] As the collecting of first day covers became more popular they began to appear on prepared envelopes, often with an illustration (commonly referred to by collectors as a cachet) that corresponded with the theme of the stamp.