Cinderella stamp
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A cinderella stamp is a label similar in appearance to a postage stamp but which does not normally pay a fee associated with sending mail beyond a purely local service. The term typically covers a variety of objects, including revenue stamps, which pay fees that are not mail-related; charity labels, such as Christmas seals; and purely decorative items created for advertising or amusement.
Several offshore islands, particularly in the United Kingdom have issued local carriage labels, which in some cases were in genuine use to pay for transport of the mail to the mainland by ferry (though some are produced simply to sell to collectors and tourists). Usually they had to be placed on the back of the envelope, with a conventional stamp on the front to pay for onward delivery by the official postal service. Islands for which such labels have been issued include the Summer Isles, Lundy and the Calf of Man.
In the United Kingdom, the railway letter service, a special facility offered by most British railway companies since 1891, under licence from the Postmaster General, has produced a great variety of stamps and labels, which were originally an official requirement of the service. Current officially licenced Heritage railway-operated services include the Ffestiniog Railway Letter Service. It should be noted that United Kingdom railway letter stamps almost always specify a fee (often, even in Victorian times, priced higher than the current postage fee, which additionally had to be paid with regular postage stamps) for the use of this official and once-important British postal facility.
Cinderella design generally follows the principles of postage stamp design, but they typically lack country name (often replaced by the organization or cause being promoted), and a denomination. Sometimes a "denomination" may be present, but with a fictitious unit of currency.
Cinderellas are often collected in a manner similar to stamp collecting. While a great many are common and readily available, others were privately produced in limited numbers, are little-known, and can be quite rare.
From 1951 to 1966 UNESCO issued a series of 41 "gift stamps." Considered to be Cinderellas, they were produced to raise money for the organization. The series is unusual in being an international cooperative effort. Most are readily available from specialized dealers.
A significant number of cinderella stamps issued in the 1910s and 1920s were advertising poster stamps. One of the most notable creators of cinderella stamps was A. C. Roessler, a stamp dealer, who created many visually attractive cinderellas during the 1930s.
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- Charles F. Adams, Stamp Collecting (Dell, 1992), pp. 17-18
