Various postage stamps are printed in different countries on paper which differs enormously in type and quality. It’s hard to keep an eye on numerous series and collections. As a rule, postage stamps are devoted to momentous events like Olympic Games, New Year, Christmas, etc.

We seldom think over values of postage stamps. Taking into consideration some information on prices and origin of one or another stamp, we reckon it makes us feel full confidence that we’re well-informed.

Being a profound collector, one should remember that stamps work their way up from small pieces of paper to the most popular way of paying for retail mail. For example, classical stamps were printed on hand-made paper which was of the best quality. They can be both thin and thick of a high quality. They never turned yellow. These postage stamps were very expensive and produced mostly from rags.

People found a cheaper source to print stamps. They also kept in mind a type of paper that could be snow-white, grayish, colored. Depending on geographical environment and location white paper exhibits a tendency to turn yellow, a slightly bluish tinge or a brownish shade.

By the way, some countries tried to print stamps on aluminum foil (Hungary), silk (Poland), gold foil (Tonga), sugar bags (British Guiana), and even on plastic. The State of Latvia printed postage stamps on the reverse side of maps left behind by the German General Staff in Riga Probably, these countries have enough the abovementioned resources and materials, or it’s a shortage of paper and wood.

To sum up, remember that postal services do all their best to cater for people’s needs and necessities.

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Vatican City, or the State of the Vatican City, is a theocratic independent city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within Rome. It is well known that Vatican City is ruled by the Bishop of Rome, the Pope. This information should be mentioned to enlighten you and give just minor knowledge about this small country.

Vatican City has its own postal service and postal history, issues postage stamps (as many other countries all around the world). In general, the postal history begins after official foundation of the City in 1929. Some time later Vatican City and Italy signed a postal agreement. Go to Vatican City official site and learn more.

The first Vatican postage stamps appeared in August. And then in April the Vatican issued its first semi-postal stamps. Since then the postage stamps started their official issue. By the way, Vatican produces attractive issues in limited quantities (on the average 300,000-500,000 stamps a year). Vatican stamps are produced under the authority of the Philatelic and Numismatic Office of the Vatican City State.

There are a great many Vatican postage stamps. Main information concerning latest and upcoming issues of stamps (2003-2007) you can find on the site of Vatican Philatelic Society. Surely, if you go to Rome visit this little country, especially the Poste Vaticane. You won’t pay heed that you cross a border. It’s an opportunity to send a Pope postcard to the Catholics you know.

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As we know the most expensive and collectable stamps are those that have one or another oversight called a printing error. Take the “Yellow - Sweden – 1885″ as an example. Thanks to a printing error this stamp became one of the most expensive and unique stamps in the world. Likewise the “1 and 2 Penny - Mauritius – 1847“, on which the watchmaker made an error and printed “Post Office” instead of “Post Paid” on both types of stamps.

Last year, namely at the end of December, one of the most famous postage stamps in the USA philately history sold for $825,000 to an unidentified Wall Street executive. The “Inverted Jenny” is a United States postage stamp of 1918 in which the image of the Curtiss JN-4 airplane in the center of the design was accidentally printed upside-down.

Accoring to Heritage Auction Galleries president Greg Rohan, the buyer is the same collector who lost an auction last month in which another “Inverted Jenny” sold for $977,500.

By the way, the mint condition red, white and blue stamp is one of the finest known surviving stamps from the original sheet of 100 misprints. The original 100 were bought at a Washington, D.C., post office in 1918.

Invert errors occur when part of a postage stamp is printed upside-down. Such stamps are quite rare and highly valued by collectors. Sure thing not every inverted stamp is valuable, e.g. the Dag Hammarskjöld invert of 1962 consists only of a misprinted yellow layer.

Errors, gaps and oversights make these small pieces of paper a part of history. We should take this fact into consideration.

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