Garland
The difference between these two sets of Christmas stamps is tagging, a marking of the stamps that’s visible only with an ultraviolet light.
Tagging U.S. stamps started in 1963. This is a process of coating the stamp, either completely or partially, with luminescent or phosphorous liquids – sometimes within the paper before printing. The purpose of this was to save on labor costs. It takes time to look at each envelop, decide which side is the front and which way is up so that the address may be read and the envelope routed properly. It doesn’t take much time, just a few seconds for each envelop that’s first looked at backwards and upside down. However, those few seconds spent on most envelops adds up when processing millions of letters a day.
With the public trained to place stamps on the front top right corner of envelops or it will be rejected, a sorting machine would scan each envelope for the stamp by using the tagging, With this detection, it detrmines which way to face and turn the envelope before it reaches someone who will check the zip code and other address details to type in the routing information to send it on its way.
Note
These are pretty stamps and were nice stamps for sending Christmas cards to friends and family. Each year, at least one Christmas stamp is issued depicting Mary and Jesus as an infant – almost always a reproduction of a famous painting several hundred years ago – and at least one other stamp that doesn’t have a Christmas theme. The latter ones like these were intended presumably to be used for sending cards for other holidays around the same time (e.g., Hanukkah). For most years, I prefer the non-Christian holiday stamps.
Contains 8 spots: own 8 – 8 unused, 0 used.
Page is finished.
Album or Web Page Last changed May 3, 2025
Stamp Details
The table below lists information about the stamps shown on this page of Lighthouse’s stamp album. For more details about a particular stamp, click on its description. That will take you to the related web page of Colnect.
spot |
own |
catalog |
subject |
description |
comment |
Christmas & Holidays
✓ |
1254 |
Holly |
5c (nov 1964) |
||
✓ |
1255 |
Mistletoe |
5c (nov 1964) |
||
✓ |
1256 |
Poinsettia |
5c (nov 1964) |
||
✓ |
1257 |
5c (nov 1964) |
|||
✓ |
1254a |
5c (nov 1964) |
|||
✓ |
1255a |
5c (nov 1964) |
|||
✓ |
1256a |
5c (nov 1964) |
|||
✓ |
1257a |
5c (nov 1964) |
Footnotes
Spot refers to the postion of the stamp on the album page (e.g., 3.2 indicates row 3, position 2).
Amt. is an abbreviation for the face amount of the stamp.
Own indicates the stamp status: ✓ for unused; ✗ for used or canceled; ⭑ signifies I ordered one; ; ✨ indicates it was bought recently; ✠ means an auction bid is pending; and ◎ is used, and it costs too much for unused.
To search by catalog number, go to the search box and enter it in the catalog number box. However, it’s a bit broken; I need to fix it.
