Vintage Stamp
by David A. Norris
C
ollecting postcards often intersects with collecting
postage stamps. For this particular collector, some
of the most eye-catching postcards I have ever seen
were hand-made collages made of pieces of postage stamps
that were carefully cut and glued onto postcard stock.
The word “collage” comes from the French word coller,
which means “to glue.” Although sliced and glued postage
stamps are the main part of the images, there are also some
hand-painted sections, mainly faces, that were cut out and
pasted onto the cards as well. One card has a considerable
amount of hand painting in the background. All of this additional hand painting work appears to be in watercolor.
Two of the cards show figures being carried in sedan
chairs or palanquins; one has a man pulling a passenger in a
rickshaw; and the most elaborate one shows a lady working
on a piece of floral embroidery. None of the collage postcards that I have bore postmarks or stamps applied for mailing them. The stamps used in the collages are mostly from
China, Canada, Japan, and the United States. One postcard
had a bit of an Australian 2-penny red of 1913–1930, and
another had a slice of a stamp that read “Straits Settlements.”
Bits of cancellations can be seen on some stamps, and some
Chinese stamp fragments have partially visible red overprints.
Most of the stamp fragments come
from the Chinese sailing junk issues
of 1913–23. The fellow sitting in the
sedan chair is leaning on a cushion
made from a 3-cent red issue of
Canada (1912–25); his robe is from
a 10-sen blue Japan Scott 103
(1899–1907), and the side of the
chair comes from a Japanese 2-sen
carmine rose issue of 1883 (Scott
73). The message on the reverse
is dated 3/2/37 and is a thankyou note from Margie Shumate,
a Southern Baptist missionary in
China.
56 American Philatelist / January 2012
Positively identifying all of the stamps isn’t possible. All
of the perforations are cut away, for one thing. And, just try
checking a watermark on a tiny slice of a stamp that is glued
down onto a card! Nevertheless, the oldest stamp in these
four collages seems to be the Japanese 2-sen carmine rose
issue of 1883, Scott 73. The oldest American issue is a 2-cent
stamp from the 1894-1898 Bureau series. From what I can
see of the slice of the triangle in what was the upper left of
the stamp, the horizontal background lines don’t cross the
double-frame line of the triangle, making it a Type III (either
Scott 252, 267, or most likely, 279B).
Notes on two of the postcards shed some light on when
they were made, and for what purpose. One card bears the
message “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Love &
best wishes Milly O–.”
Another card has a longer message, dated March 2, 1937.
Margie Shumate, a missionary in China, wrote to thank Nat
Rackett of Richmond Virginia “for your contribution to my
work … I am using it to help meet my native preachers’ salaries, as I seem to always be short of funds for this purpose.”
The Chinese collage postcards were made on printed,
undivided-back postcard stock with red letters reading
“Union Postale Universelle Post Card” and “Made in China.”
With the 1937 date on one message and the issue dates of the
stamps, we can see these cards originated considerably af-
Collage Postcards
The postcard collages were made
from slices of common postage
stamps.
The background and foreground
of this stamp collage postage and
the floral embroidery on the screen
were hand painted in watercolor.
Canadian stamps used include
Canada’s 1-cent green 1912–25 and
1-cent yellow of 1922 (Scott 104 and 105, unless they were
coil stamps). United States stamps include the 1-cent green,
2-cent red, and 3-cent purple issues of 1922–29 (Scott A155,
A157, and A158; with the perforations missing I can’t tell if
they were originally rotary press or flat-plate printings, or
coil stamps, for that matter). The oldest is a slice of a 2-cent
Bureau issue of 1894–98; it appears to be a Type III. There
are also bits of at least two different Chinese stamps, from a
scarlet 4-cent sailing junk of 1913 or 1915, and a 7-cent violet
from the same series, 1913–23.
The reverse of the card
bears a Merry Christmas
message from “Milly O.”
January 2012 / American Philatelist 57
Most stamps in this design are from China, from the 1912–23 sailing junk issues and the
green 4-cent Sun Yat-sen issues of 1931–37. The red lining to the roof of the sedan chair is
from a Japanese 3-sen stamp of 1913–33.
A close-up of one of the figures in the collage shows in detail the hand-painted head and
the way that slices of stamps were shaped to make the image
ter the “undivided back” postcard era (which ended in 1907
in the United States). I have to wonder if the distributors of
these cards got the postcard stock cheaply (or free) because
it was obsolete. And, I wonder if the stamps were soaked
from covers that were mailed to China with contributions or
letters to missionaries and their families? Or, perhaps they
came from a charity mix, donated to help missionary work?
I also have seen two larger framed collages made from
sliced postage stamps. Both were roughly 11x17 inches, in
antique frames. The first one I saw was in a North Carolina
antique shop; I saw the second one in another antique shop,
this time in Nova Scotia while I was on vacation. Each image
was the British royal coat of arms, with the shield supported
by a heraldic lion and unicorn. The stamps dated from the
1890s, and included issues of Great Britain, the British Empire, and some of the 1890s U.S. Bureau issues. Alas, budgetary concerns at the time kept me from adding them to my
collection.
One hopes that the people who made collages like this
were careful about what stamps they chose. While the philatelic world can perhaps spare a few billion of, say, the twocent carmine George Washington stamps of the 1920s, I’d
sure hate to find a slice of a Penny
Black or a Graf Zeppelin stamp as
part of a collage!
T
he Author
David A. Norris is an artist and
writer who has written extensively
on American Civil War history and
other topics. His stamp collection
has been a source of enjoyment since
he was in second grade. He is still a
worldwide collector, although he
admits that worldwide stamps are
being turned out faster than he can
keep up with them.
Stamps of China,
Australia, and the
Straits Settlements are
included in this image.
58 American Philatelist / January 2012