Ten high lights

Miniature sheet with ten stamps

In October 1999 the Dutch Postal Authorities issued a miniature sheet with ten stamps. Each stamp represented a Dutch historical high light from the 20th century. These high lights were chosen by the public. For the first time in history the stamps were presented to the public in a special television show. Also other issues paid attention to these eventful stamps.

Ten most striking events

But there were in this century other highlights in The Netherlands: philatelic highlights. The ten most striking events in our opinion were:
1902 The first stamp booklets. For the first booklets an extra charge had to be paid of 1 cent per booklet.
1906 The first stamps with an extra charge for charity purposes. The extra charge was collected for the fight against tuberculosis.
1919 The first stamps with surcharges. The stamps were emitted owing to a change of the postal rates.
1921 The first stamps for special flights. With these stamps the extra charge for the flight had to be paid.
1924 The first so called Children stamps on a regular basis. The stamps were issued to raise funds for the protection of health and mental condition of children.
1935 The first so called Summer stamps on a regular basis. These stamps were issued to collect money for general charity purposes.
1950 The first official first-day-cover has been issued. It is the first of a series of about 400 envelopes that were emitted during the last 50 years of the 20th century.

1956 The first Europe stamps. These stamps were the symbol for co-operation between six European countries in the postal field. These countries were Belgium, Germany-West, France, Italy, Luxembourg and The Netherlands.
1964 The first vending machine stamp booklets. There were two different booklets; one contained stamps for normal letters, the other contained stamps for printing matters.
1987 the first December (=Christmas) stamps. These first Christmas stamps were sold in the form of stamp booklets. People could use these stamps in the month of December to send their Christmas cards and envelopes at a lower rate.
No doubt the 21st century will bring other and probably many more high lights than the 20th century did. We are looking forward to new philatelic developments for that makes our hobby a vivid and interesting one.

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