POSTAGE STAMPS.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXI, Issue 8782, 9 April 1907, Page 1

POSTAGE STAMPS.

.— : The immense number of postage stamps of different countries shown at a recent English Exhibition, together with the multitude of minute differentiations between specimens of the same country, makes the Spectator conclude that the desire of the average man to make anything like a representative collection of postage stamps is about as hopeless as the rfioth's desire for the star. "In the sixties and seven-

I ties almost anybody could make a good collection of the stamps of the world ;. to-day it may take a man of means to make—that is, buy—a decent collection of the stamps of a single country." The total number of postage stamps issued by Governments up to January Ist has just been computed at 20,496, of which 6158 belong to the British Empire, and 14,843 to the rest of the world. Europe has made 4361 issues, Asia 3856, Africa 4469, America 4688, the West Indies 1637, and Oceania 1485. The totals would be doubled if they were made to include varieties only distinguished by differences of water mark, perforation, and so .forth, " local" and non-government stamps. It is a curious fact that the stamps of all the leading -nations, except the United States, have shown a steady degeneration from issue to issue in colours, workmanship, and design. The earliest penny and two-penny stamps of Great Britain are models that have never been equalled since. Most of the other countries,'"which started with excellent workmanship, have gone' from bad to worse till the present day. New Zealand is no exception to this rule, but this colony has still to perpetrate a stamp as bad as the sickly green and yellow [1873 penny issue of Victoria, of which a philatelist remarked:—"The Yankee may boast that he licks creation, but it would take a man and an Australian to lick that."