Wrapper (philately)

The wrapper is a sheet of paper, large enough to wrap around a folded or rolled newspaper and with an imprinted stamp to pay the cost of postage.

[9] Following this in the course of the debate on 22 May 1834, in the House of Commons, Matthew Davenport Hill MP, brother of Sir Rowland Hill, advocating the payment of a penny upon an unstamped newspaper sent by post, stated: "...to put an end to any objections that might be made as to the difficulty of collecting the money, he would adopt the suggestion of a person well qualified to give an opinion on the subject—he alluded to Mr Knight, the publisher.

Today, collectors prefer to collect the whole wrapper as it may have postal markings that provide interesting additional information.

In Great Britain numerous businesses availed themselves of this facility and since anyone could use this service it resulted in private individuals producing "philatelic" wrappers.

[13] Stamped-to-order wrappers are also known from Australia, Austria, Bavaria, France, Germany, New South Wales, Switzerland, Tasmania and Wurttemberg

A folded British Queen Victoria one penny wrapper addressed to Augsburg , Bavaria with a Bristol squared-circle cancellation of 10.00 AM 27 November 1901, just five days after the Queen's death. It bears an Augsburg received mark on the back (not shown) dated 29 November showing the journey to have taken only two days.
A wrapper issued in 1899 overprinted SPECIMEN. Specimen stamps and similar items were supplied to the Universal Postal Union for distribution to members.
A Stamped to Order wrapper for W H Smith & Son , addressed to Alexandria Egypt, in addition to the impressed stamp there is an advertising ring around the stamp, the embossed stamp is dated 13.1.1882, postmarked with a special precancel postmark for W H Smith.