25,252 Philatelic Products Cataloged :)

The category of philatelic products was created only 6 months ago and we have already reached an impressive number of 25,252 philatelic products cataloged.

«Les plumes d'écriture», Annual Gift, France, 2016, Colnect catalog

Philatelic Product category would not have happened without a dedicated work and passion of category coordinator Carlo-Bassi. We endlessly appreciate the work of the category coordinator and all philately lovers who contributed to the category with new items, translations, and editings.

Tropical fruits and plants of Madeira, FDC, Madeira Islands, 1990, Colnect catalog

The category of philatelic products includes 15 formats. Let us figure out with the most popular of them making top 3. 

The biggest number of items, 17,879, belongs to the format of First Day Cover. What is a First Day Cover?

A First Day Cover (FDC) is a postal card or envelope that has a newly issued stamp and a postmark for the first day the stamp was initially placed on sale by postal authorities.

A day of release of the new stamp is usually significant one to the subject of the stamp such as anniversary, commemorative date, opening and closing an event, etc. On the day following the First Day, the stamp is available in the post offices of an issuing country.

Int. Philatelic Expo Rio Grande, Postal Stationery, Argentine, 2012, Colnect catalog

The second bigger number of items in the category, 5,726 items, belongs to the format of Postal Stationery. We may define postal stationery as all the stationery issued by the postal authorities on which a design includes showing the item's value for postage.

The postal stationeries commonly are stamped envelopes, stamped letter sheets, postal cards, letter cards, and newspaper wrappers. Other kinds of stationery, such as forms for postal savings, money orders, or telegraph are also can be defined as postal stationery if they have value stamps printed on them.

The number 3 in our list of the popular formats in the category of philatelic products is First Day Sheet.

The first day sheet may be defined as a card which usually issued to commemorate a significant day, it includes stamps, cancellation, and information about the event, stamp issue, and cancellation on the back of it. The majority of first day sheets in Colnect catalog is from Germany. There is a special German term for the format, Ersttagsblatt. 

You can see a classic Ersttagsblatt "Europa (C.E.P.T.) 1993 - Modern Art" issued in Germany, 1993, here on the left. More details on the item are in the catalog.

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