Early Years
In the early years, from 1840 until 1850, all stamps were issued imperforate, and had to be cut from the sheet with scissors or knife. This was time-consuming and error-prone (as mangled stamps of the era attest). Once reliable separation equipment became available, nations switched rapidly. Imperforate stamps have been issued occasionally since then, either because separation equipment was temporarily unavailable (in newborn nations for instance), to makers of automatic stamp vending equipment (the United States did this in the 1900s and 1910s), as novelties for stamp collectors (particularly when stamps are issued in souvenir sheets), or as errors.
Read more about this topic: Postage Stamp Separation
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:
“The girl must early be impressed with the idea that she is to be “a hand, not a mouth”; a worker, and not a drone, in the great hive of human activity. Like the boy, she must be taught to look forward to a life of self-dependence, and early prepare herself for some trade or profession.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“In a famous Middletown study of Muncie, Indiana, in 1924, mothers were asked to rank the qualities they most desire in their children. At the top of the list were conformity and strict obedience. More than fifty years later, when the Middletown survey was replicated, mothers placed autonomy and independence first. The healthiest parenting probably promotes a balance of these qualities in children.”
—Richard Louv (20th century)