Thursday, August 2, 2012

People in Libraries on Postage Stamps

I'm a collector of libraries and librarians on postage stamps which is sometimes called bibliophilately. Of the hundreds of thousands of postage stamps that have been issued by the countries of the world, less than a thousand fall into this category. Of that group only 30 to 40 depict people inside of a library (this does not include images of celebrities in a library). I'm an advocate for a United States postage stamp or group of postage stamps honoring public libraries. Stamps showing people using public libraries would be a great way to do this. Below are some of the stamps in my collection showing people in libraries.

Bophuthatswana, Issued 1990
Greenland, Issued 1980
Iceland, Issued 1968
Kenya, Issued 1984
Norway, Issued 1985
Poland, Issued 1954

Barbados, Issued 1972



5 comments:

Pneumatic Seals said...

nice stamps

Omaha Public Library said...

Fun! Thanks for sharing your finds.

Kyra said...

Thank you for sharing these stamps. I hadn't ever considered stamps with images inside a library.

Chris Wolak said...

These are marvelous stamps and, like Kyra, I never thought about such stamps. I inherited a stamp collection from my aunt and will have to look through it for library stamps.

Linda Kepner said...

I'm glad you made good use of the Peterborough Town Library pin I sent you. I have linked our Town web site to yours, since you have written such a nice summary of the history of public libraries.
I wanted to mention 2 of the libraries I've visited - if you're ever in the area, you should drop by. Dunedin (Fla.) public library and Craftsbury (Vt.) library. In the tradition of most original libraries, they were created in/took over the space of previous stores - Dunedin is in an old Grants bldg., Craftsbury in the original General Store. Keeps up the historical mystique!