Postal stationery

A piece of postal stationery is a stationery item, such as a stamped envelope, letter sheet, postal card, lettercard, aerogram or wrapper, with an imprinted stamp or inscription indicating that a specific rate of postage or related service has been prepaid.

[1][2] It does not, however, include any postcard without a pre-printed stamp,[3] and it is different from freepost for preprinted cards issued by businesses.

Other countries quickly followed suite, including the United States, which released the Nesbitt series of stamped envelopes in 1853.

To the point that Great Britain, Finland, Switzerland and Württemberg had all issued postal cards by 1871.

A variation of the letter card called an aerogram was introduced in 1933 by a Lieutenant Colonel while he was doing a tour in the Middle East theatre.

An aerogram is a thin, lightweight piece foldable paper that is used for writing letters and sending them via airmail.

In the 19th century, it was common to collect "cut squares" (or cut-outs in the UK),[7] which involved clipping the embossed or otherwise pre-printed indicia from postal stationery entires.

The current, but now dated, principal encyclopedic work is the nineteen volume Higgins & Gage World Postal Stationery Catalog.