Cinderella stamps

When is a stamp not a stamp?

When it's a cinderella stamp it seems.

I've been curious about this category of stamps on eBay. My newest interest is art stamps, as well as architecture, myth and music stamps, so I have been getting quite familiar with how eBay organizes stamps. I finally satisfied my curiosity about the 'cinderella stamps' category I kept seeing. Here's what I discovered.

In philately, a cinderella stamp is "virtually anything resembling a postage stamp, but not issued for postal purposes by a government postal administration".

This beauty was a charity stamp for TB (tuberculosis)

In addition to stamps issued by non-recognised countries or governments, cinderella stamps include advertising stamps, charity stamps (eg. Christmas or Easter seals), commemorative stamps, purely decorative stamps, hotel stamps, local stamps, poster stamps, propaganda stamps, railway stamps, revenue stamps, telegraph stamps, and any other stamp created solely for amusement (such as labels or stickers).

While cinderella stamps tend to mimic official postage stamps, they may lack a country name (often replaced by the organization or cause) or a denomination. Sometimes a fictitious country or denomination may be used.

Following are a few examples, courtesy of WikiCommons (click to enlarge for details, especially entertaining of the mad cow stamp amuses you):

Review: Tokyo Rose (the Iva Toguri story)

Tokyo Rose: The History and Legacy of Iva Toguri and Japan’s Most Famous Propaganda Campaign during World War II by Charles River Editors
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A hero and a scapegoat
Iva Toguri was an innocent Japanese-American who got stuck in Japan in World War II. Having arrived for vacation on the last ship to sail, when she was unable to return home, she had to fend for herself for the duration of the war. Unwelcome as an American, she did her best to stay of the radar and blend in. She eventually fell into broadcasting, one of several women broadcasting in English, and all loosely referred to as "Tokyo Rose". But Toguri's broadcasts were unique: American soldiers listening to her broadcasts would hear news of attacks and anti-propaganda slipped in between the music she played and the official propaganda. Anything she could do to support the Allies and undermine the Japanese, she did. Despite these courageous acts, she was dismissed as a disloyal Japanese-American, sadly not surprising given the roundup and detention of Japanese in the USA during the war. She was furthermore treated as a scapegoat and prosecuted. Her brave efforts to support her country were lost in the process. In the end, it's a pretty sad story, and it is too bad she wasn't celebrated as a hero. I'm glad this book was written so that her story is not swept under the rug and forgotten.

View all my reviews