Denomination (postage stamp)


In philately, the denomination is the "inscribed value of a stamp".
The denomination is not the same as the value of a stamp on the philatelic market, which is usually different, and the denominations of a country's stamps and money do not necessarily match. For instance, there might be a 47c stamp to pay a particular postal rate but there is unlikely to be a 47c coin.

No denomination shown

Where no denomination is shown, it may be because the stamp is deliberately non-denominated to pay the cost of a particular service, or because the stamp is not a postage stamp. It might be a cinderella stamp of some kind such as a poster stamp or charity label.

Letter-denominated first-class stamps

Forever stamps

Changes of denomination

Sometimes a stamp may have its denomination changed by the post office due to local circumstances. For instance, stocks of one value may be overprinted to show a different value due to stock shortages. In cases of hyper-inflation stamps have had their denomination changed by overprinting as existing denominations became worthless. In other cases, changes to the local currency have led to changes in denomination. For instance, when the Ryukyu Islands changed its currency from Yen to Dollars, a number of airmail stamps originally printed with Yen values were overprinted and re-denominated to cents in 1959–1960.

Hyperinflation Denominations

During periods of hyperinflation, non-overprinted postage stamps of extraordinary denominations have been issued. As one example, in Hungary, on 15 July 1946 a AP40,000 stamp featuring a diesel locomotive was issued. This was the equivalent of 80 quadrillion pengő