Promoting the project

To promote this project the banner {{WikiProject Philately}} was developed as recommended by the WikiProject Council guide. Please post it on the talk pages of philatelic articles that don't already have it by adding this template:

{{WikiProject Philately
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Philately NA‑class

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Philately, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of philately and stamp collecting on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PhilatelyWikipedia:WikiProject PhilatelyTemplate:WikiProject PhilatelyPhilately articles NA This article has been rated as NA-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.

Please use one of these templates on all postage stamps and postal history articles.

Please use the following template on all revenue stamps articles.

New articles

New articles with interesting or unusual facts should be suggested for the Did you know? box on the Main Page.

Bot detected new articles

Updated articles

Newer articles at the bottom, please.
Feel free to list Philatelic-related articles that have had recent major updates or revisions here.

• List of people on stamps of the United States - improved referencing

Country Studies

This is the biggest task currently being undertaken by the project. Our aim is that each stamp-issuing entity, current or historic, should have either a main article or a postal history section within a major article about the entity, that describes both its postal history and its postage stamp issues. In practice, every issuer has a reference in the Category:Compendium of postage stamp issuers which forms the index for the country survey. The compendium references are all micro articles and many are complete in themselves, while others provide summary information and linkage to a main article elsewhere. As described in the To-do Box above, however, relatively few main articles have been written so far, but progress is being made.

Current issuers should have a standalone main article that is xref'd from the country's main article, typically from a "miscellaneous topics" section or from a short postal history section. Alternatively, the postal history section can be expanded to contain all the necessary information. The latter approach should be considered for a small country, a former colony or a country that no longer exists as an independent nation: e.g., Abu Dhabi. Many issuers were foreign powers operating in another country either through a post office abroad or through military occupation; as these issues involve more than one country, it is recommended that they have independent articles and not a section in the article of one country or the other, but they should be xref'd as before.

Entities which made only a small contribution to postal history need only a section in a general article about the entity, assuming that the entity itself has its own article. Otherwise, the reference in the Compendium may be sufficient. Be careful about redirecting historic entities to the present-day countries that replaced them as this can be fraught with difficulty in postal terms. For example, German East Africa had a postal history that was entirely independent of Tanganyika and Tanzania.

A word about article titles. Depending on the actual coverage of the article, titles such as Postage stamps and postal history of X or Postage stamps of X or Postal history of X are generally used. For military occupations, a title such as Postal History of the German Occupation of Poland (1939-1945) could be appropriate, and for peacetime postal services of one country outside its own borders, a title such as Russian post offices in the Turkish Empire. In some cases, none of these will be appropriate and it is then best to stay close to the naming used by major catalogues like Stanley Gibbons Ltd.

A postal history should note key dates and begin with the first introduction of a regular postal service, the introduction of postage stamps, etc. Any significant postage stamps or issues should be discussed, preferably with reference to information in the Gibbons catalogue. Any political or historical events that impacted the postal service should be mentioned. The length and depth of the survey will depend mainly on the country. Please conform to Wikipedia standards and provide suitable linkages as necessary.

Illustrations will help the presentation and should ideally include images of covers, postmarks or stamps that are representative of a period. Common stamps are preferable to rarities as it is important to convey the idea of regular usage. Postmarks connecting a stamp to a specific place and time are a good idea. For examples of country studies completed to date, see Category:Postal history by country.

The definitive index to all postal studies by issuer is the Compendium which contains references to all issuing entities in alphabetic order. These references are micro articles and many of them are complete in themselves, though most will contain a link to a main article elsewhere on the site. This work includes not just a reference to the main issuer in its commonly understood form but also ancillary references such as abbreviations on overprints or alternate names on inscriptions that may be the reader's reason for lookup.

There is also a quick reference in three parts: List of entities that have issued postage stamps (A - E), List of entities that have issued postage stamps (F - L), and List of entities that have issued postage stamps (M - Z); plus List of postal services abroad which can be used to determine progress to date.

See also category:Postal organisations for authorities such as the Royal Mail or Deutsche Post.

Stamp issue articles

Many issues of stamps justify closer attention than is appropriate for the general survey: e.g., the Empire issue of Italy; the Prexies of USA; and the Yacht issue of the German Colonies. These articles should be in much greater depth with content primarily aimed at philatelists. They should be indexed via category:Postage stamps.

Stamp articles

Some famous postage stamps such as the Penny Black, Inverted Jenny, etc. have justified creation of their own individual articles. Please see: category:Postage stamps.

Most individual stamps do not justify construction of a main article but some may be worthy of mention in articles about their issuers. The most practical approach to this would be to include a separate sub-section about the individual stamp in the main article about its issuer or in an article about its own general issue (see above), if appropriate. However, there are several redlinks on the List of postage stamps that likely are notable enough to justify a standalone article.

{{Infobox postage stamp
| common_name            = 
| image                  = 
| caption                = 
| stamp_type             = <!-- eg. [[Definitive stamp|Definitive]] [[postage stamp]] -->
| country_of_issue       = 
| country_of_production  = 
| location_of_production = 
| date_of_production     = <!-- {{Start date|YYYY|MM|DD}}–{{End date|YYYY|MM|DD}} -->
| date_of_issue          = <!-- {{Start date|YYYY|MM|DD}}–{{End date|YYYY|MM|DD}} -->
| face_value             = 
| commemorates           = 
| depicts                = 
| notability             = 
| designer               = 
| engraver               = 
| printer                = 
| dimensions             = <!-- {{convert|width|x|height|mm|in|abbr=on}} -->
| perforation            = 
| nature_of_rarity       = 
| number_printed         = 
| number_in_existence    = 
| estimated_value        = 
}}

Topical lists

WP has great potential as an aid for topical collectors, as in List of people on stamps and Ships on stamps.

Stamp images

Note: Always confirm the copyright status of any stamp images, preferably before you upload. Freely licensed stamps can be uploaded to the commons but check the commons Public Domain stamp templates page first. If a stamp will be used in a stamp article and is still in copyright it may be uploaded to the en wiki under a fair use claim, so long as it meet all the on-free content criteria and has a fully filled out fair use rationale. We have a dedicated stamp fair-use template {{Stamp rationale}} you can use but please read the template instructions before use.

• US National Postal Museum has a large library of US stamps and also quite a few worldwide stamps on display. Most are mint and in decent quality though not very large resolution they are quite usable. Some covers are also available. Some are public domain and some are still copyright.

• Sandafayre's Stamp Library has many worldwide stamp images of varying quality. Some are public domain and some are still copyright.

• SnapDargon has many worldwide first issues, stamp booklets and commemorative sheets images of varying quality. Some are public domain and some are still copyright.

• Colnect is an online stamp catalogue with a large number of image though the quality is variable.

Misc

• Cleanup listing

• Category:Philately articles needing attention

Requested articles

Revenue stamps articles

• Many countries/entities still do not have a dedicated article about their revenue stamps.

Notable or iconic stamp issues

• Kangaroo and Map stamps (Australia, 1913–1946)
• Perot Provisionals (Bermuda, 1848–1861)
• Cape of Good Hope triangular stamps (Cape of Good Hope, 1853–1864)
• In addition, many existing articles about notable stamps need a rewrite, eg. for British stamps: Penny Black, Penny Red, Two Penny Blue, Penny Lilac, Jubilee Issue etc all need more references and can be greatly expanded.