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Postage Stamp Collecting, or Philately: Prussia

The ensuing year witnessed emanations from Austria, Bavaria, Lombardo-Venetia, Prussia, Saxony, Sardinia, and the first of the interminable issues of Spain: also the long solitary pair recording the abortive insurrection of Schleswig Holstein in 1848-50. The postal representatives of Schleswig, of Holstein, and of the two States in combination, now number two dozen! This succession of stamps will ever possess a strong historical interest in consequence of their country's connexion with the startling events attendant on the continental convulsions of 1866. A similar value in relation to European annals, entitling them, to the style and title of Paper Medals, must be laid on the now extinct hosts of Hanoverian labels and envelopes, with those of the defunct office of Thurn and Taxis, overwhelmed by the needle-guns of Prussia, after an existence of more than three hundred years. An approximate idea of the number of postage stamps, current and extinct, may be obtained from the latest edition of any good catalogue. That of Oppen's Album (10th edition) contains about 2,800 distinct individual stamps, but includes no varieties of colour other than those recognised by the most fastidiously disposed collectors, such as the light and dark blues of Thurn and Taxis, first issue; neither does it take much note of proofs or essays, or any of railway or local British labels, or of differences in watermark or mode of perforation; which latter variations are now considered important by the higher order of philatelists.