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Tabs and Labels
From 1935 to 1949, Czechoslovak stamps of larger format were printed in panes of one hundred stamps, but the arrangement of the stamps within the pane was rather peculiar. The top row of stamps (in sheets of vertical stamps) had sixteen stamps followed from top to bottom by a further six rows of fourteen stamps each. On each side of the rows with fourteen stamps one stamp space remained empty, whereas in the top row of sixteen stamps, one stamp protruded on each side from the vertical rows. That meant that on each side of the sheet, one stamp jutted out at the top, leaving six empty spaces under it. At first, these tabs were left as they were, without any printing. Later, some texts and designs were printed on them, relating to the occasion for which the stamp was issued. Other countries printed stamps with tabs, too, either perforated all round or with marginal tabs perforated on three sides. One of the popular tab countries was Israel.
As time passed, more postal administrations started to use tabs. They had become a means of producing additional income because of collectors’ interest in them. When tabs were introduced, specialized collectors were no longer satisfied with one ‘normal’ stamp. They tended to buy two such stamps, or three or more in order to obtain all types of tabs and their variations. Soon, tabs started to appear not only on sheet margins but also right in the centre of post office sheets. Stamps and tabs in such a sheet are tessellated so that it is possible to form all sorts of combinations of stamps and tabs.
In 1893, the Belgian post office introduced a novelty. Postage stamps were printed in such a way that underneath every stamp was a special label separated from the stamp with a perforation. A bilingual text was printed on the label in French and Flemish: Do not deliver on Sunday. The purpose of these labels, which were in use until October 1914, was to give the postmen a free Sunday, and stamps with these labels were called Sunday stamps. If someone insisted on the delivery of his mail on a Sunday, he tore off the label. Otherwise mail bearing stamps with the label had to wait until Monday for delivery.
Another specialty to be found in some countries was the publicity label. Publicity texts of business firms could be found not only on sheet margins but also on special labels of stamp size se-tenant with stamps (Belgium, Britain, Italy). In 1924 and 1925, Italy issued stamps with a publicity label of various firms. In this case, the label was not separated from the stamp with a perforation, but was directly joined to the stamp.
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