SE-TENANT STAMPS ON COVER -- NOT JUST A PRETTY FACE
Collecting by format is a fun and yet challenging area that is likely to become more popular. One such area that is attracting a small but increasing number of people weary of endless mint issues is postally used se-tenants (different stamps that are joined). Many people think of such collectors as pioneers, forgetting that cylinder blocks, booklets and even first-day covers are also collecting by format.
In addition to pairs and blocks, full panes and other examples, it is a challenge to look for logical usages of se-tenants on cover. Such usages, which are just elusive enough to make the hunt interesting, help show how these stamps perform many postal functions and offer more than just a pretty face.
What follows is a small sampler of some of the many and varied se-tenant covers that can make an unusual collection on their own or add interest to a one-country or thematic collection.
Most collectors forget that the first-ever postage stamp, the penny black, is a se-tenant issue. This is because the check letters on each stamp, introduced as a security device, mean that each stamp on a sheet of 240 is different. So any multiple is an early se-tenant.
Indeed, a quite early and elusive se-tenant cover in my collection from the very first days of adhesive stamps bears a nice, four-margin, plate 2 penny black pair tied by red Maltese cross cancellations. This portion of an entire letter is noteworthy for two reasons. First, the pair on the double weight cover is a much scarcer vertical one; penny black pairs tend to be horizontal because clerks often cut them into horizontal strips to facilitate sales at the counter. So this one might have been from a sheet or block purchased by one of the law firms that used so many of the first postage stamp.
Second, the red Glasgow back stamps clearly shows the item was posted on 23 May, 1840, just 17 days into the stamp era. Covers from May 1840 carry a sizeable premium, but, astonishingly, the date was not mentioned in the auction description by the British firm that sold it. Perhaps not surprisingly, the firm is no longer in business.
At least two other early classic stamps also were issued in se-tenant formats – Brazilian bull’s-eyes and the Geneva cantonals of Switzerland. Indeed, the next cover I would like to describe bears a pair of the latter on cover – well, not exactly. This cover does date from the middle of the 19th century, but the stamps are modern versions from a mini-sheet added to an old entire letter in 1943 to create an anniversary cover. The stamps, like the 1843 classics, are se-tenants because the design above the 5c stamps is different on the left- and right-hand sides. Indeed, mini-sheets are a treasure trove for collectors looking for se-tenant issues.
Moving fully into the early and middle 20th century, more typically the era of the se-tenant, it is possible to find examples of another group of "classic" se-tenants that, again, are not often recognised as such. South Africa’s and South-West Africa’s bilingual issues came in English and Afrikaans versions and solved a potential language problem over decades. Again, any pair of these apart from a few coil issues is a se-tenant multiple.
Many South African covers are sent to the mother country, but a particularly interesting one in the context of se-tenants is a 1948 commercial cover from a printing firm in Mossel Bay to England. It bears a block of four halfpenny stamps that pays the then-current 2d surface rate. What is particularly interesting about this cover is its logical usage of the block of four. As students of these stamps have long realised, a block of four provides every possible vertical and horizontal combination of the English and Afrikaans pairs. That is to say, each block includes a pair with the English-language stamp on the left and on the right, and on the top and the bottom.
In the German area, many se-tenants can be found thanks to multi-value booklet panes and varied formats on semi-postal issues, although usages on cover of older stamps tend to be elusive. A good illustration of a se-tenant pair from a booklet is found on this non-philatelic postcard sent by a dentist in the Bremen area in 1943.
Many and varied booklets were produced using the Hindenburg definitives, the idea being that customers could buy a booklet and use the various stamps contained for a variety of rates. This postcard, posted in May 1943, is a cheap, wartime product with room for a message on the reverse. The sender even had to cut the card from a sheet for his routine message, as is shown particularly by the slanting right side. This pair can also be found the other way around, with the 1pf stamp on the left, and many other combinations exist, but do tend to be elusive on cover. The older Germania stamps were also issued in many booklet combinations, but these are extremely elusive on cover.
The United States has produced hundreds of se-tenants and these also result in interesting postal history. The 25-cent grosbeak and owl booklet stamps of 1988 were printed in the many millions and used pairs and blocks are common, but locating logical usages on cover is much tougher. As it happens, in 1988 the overseas airmail rate was double the domestic rate, and a pair on a cover to the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh neatly covered the 50-cent tariff. This cover also neatly illustrates the importance of pairs and blocks as sources of se-tenants.
Another group of issues that isn’t thought of as being se-tenant but can be are the computer-vended coils that for years have been dispensed mainly in northern Virginia post offices. The postal user specifies the face value, which is then printed by the machine, so it is a simple matter to create se-tenants.
One example is a highly contrived but probably unique cover to Edinburgh, Scotland. It bears a 21-cent stamp sandwiched between two 20-cent ones, overpaying the 60-cent rate by a penny, and making up an A11 plate number coil (PNC) strip of three. (These plate numbers were only printed on roughly every 50th stamp, so are elusive on cover and are highly popular in the US.) So it is doubly se-tenant in that it has stamps with different face values and one stamp with a catalogued variety, and highly popular collecting area in the US.
A priceless classic it most definitely is not, but it does show the infinite variety in the collecting world open to collectors who keep their eyes and minds open.
The se-tenant story
"Se-tenant" is a French term that means joined to each other. In stamp collecting it has come to mean two different stamps or varieties of stamps that remain attached. While it is often put in italics in stamp articles because of its foreign origins, I believe it has been fully adopted by English-speaking collectors, who after all don’t have an equivalent term in their native tongue. Therefore I believe it is no more deserving of italics than other adopted terms such as café or en suite.
As for the origins of the term’s use in philately, discovering just when it came into widespread use has not been easy. Logically it could have been after the Second World War, when so many more "modern" stamps were issued, but perhaps a website visitor can supply information on this subject.
The variety of se-tenants is enormous. The earliest definitions in philatelic literature (but still from just a few decades ago) tend to emphasis different die varieties attached to each other, but more subtle examples include pairs in which one stamp exhibits an overprint variety Other variations to look for include stamps with labels such as adverts or even the current Smiler stamps with their attractive labels.
Mini-sheets are another rich source for se-tenants, and yet small enough to be found on cover occasionally. Often they present several stamps that together to make up a picture. Such combinations are sometimes described as contiguous se-tenants, and of course can be found in sheet stamps as well, as with the attractive and cleverly designed Royal Mail issue marking the 150th anniversary of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Each stamp depicts the Rocket locomotive and tender or two following carriages in the train.
The author’s interest in se-tenants, by the way, stems from a trip to a satellite shop of Libritz Stamps in the pleasant area of Palmers Green, north London, in the mid-1980s. A bit of spare cash after a period of relative poverty prompted a trip to the nearest stamp shop to see if some of it could be spent.
During a happy hour or two someone came in and asked the owner if any modern used US stamps were of any value or interest. He said they really weren’t, apart from used se-tenant blocks. That bit of information taken on board, any such blocks started getting put aside, and it quickly became evident they provided the makings of an unusual, challenging and yet inexpensive collection. And as the accumulation of blocks and other multiples advanced, it was not long before it also became evident that good usages on cover should be collected that way rather than soaked off.
In addition to pairs and blocks, full panes and other examples, it is a challenge to look for logical usages of se-tenants on cover. Such usages, which are just elusive enough to make the hunt interesting, help show how these stamps perform many postal functions and offer more than just a pretty face.
What follows is a small sampler of some of the many and varied se-tenant covers that can make an unusual collection on their own or add interest to a one-country or thematic collection.
Most collectors forget that the first-ever postage stamp, the penny black, is a se-tenant issue. This is because the check letters on each stamp, introduced as a security device, mean that each stamp on a sheet of 240 is different. So any multiple is an early se-tenant.
Indeed, a quite early and elusive se-tenant cover in my collection from the very first days of adhesive stamps bears a nice, four-margin, plate 2 penny black pair tied by red Maltese cross cancellations. This portion of an entire letter is noteworthy for two reasons. First, the pair on the double weight cover is a much scarcer vertical one; penny black pairs tend to be horizontal because clerks often cut them into horizontal strips to facilitate sales at the counter. So this one might have been from a sheet or block purchased by one of the law firms that used so many of the first postage stamp.
Second, the red Glasgow back stamps clearly shows the item was posted on 23 May, 1840, just 17 days into the stamp era. Covers from May 1840 carry a sizeable premium, but, astonishingly, the date was not mentioned in the auction description by the British firm that sold it. Perhaps not surprisingly, the firm is no longer in business.
At least two other early classic stamps also were issued in se-tenant formats – Brazilian bull’s-eyes and the Geneva cantonals of Switzerland. Indeed, the next cover I would like to describe bears a pair of the latter on cover – well, not exactly. This cover does date from the middle of the 19th century, but the stamps are modern versions from a mini-sheet added to an old entire letter in 1943 to create an anniversary cover. The stamps, like the 1843 classics, are se-tenants because the design above the 5c stamps is different on the left- and right-hand sides. Indeed, mini-sheets are a treasure trove for collectors looking for se-tenant issues.
Moving fully into the early and middle 20th century, more typically the era of the se-tenant, it is possible to find examples of another group of "classic" se-tenants that, again, are not often recognised as such. South Africa’s and South-West Africa’s bilingual issues came in English and Afrikaans versions and solved a potential language problem over decades. Again, any pair of these apart from a few coil issues is a se-tenant multiple.
Many South African covers are sent to the mother country, but a particularly interesting one in the context of se-tenants is a 1948 commercial cover from a printing firm in Mossel Bay to England. It bears a block of four halfpenny stamps that pays the then-current 2d surface rate. What is particularly interesting about this cover is its logical usage of the block of four. As students of these stamps have long realised, a block of four provides every possible vertical and horizontal combination of the English and Afrikaans pairs. That is to say, each block includes a pair with the English-language stamp on the left and on the right, and on the top and the bottom.
In the German area, many se-tenants can be found thanks to multi-value booklet panes and varied formats on semi-postal issues, although usages on cover of older stamps tend to be elusive. A good illustration of a se-tenant pair from a booklet is found on this non-philatelic postcard sent by a dentist in the Bremen area in 1943.
Many and varied booklets were produced using the Hindenburg definitives, the idea being that customers could buy a booklet and use the various stamps contained for a variety of rates. This postcard, posted in May 1943, is a cheap, wartime product with room for a message on the reverse. The sender even had to cut the card from a sheet for his routine message, as is shown particularly by the slanting right side. This pair can also be found the other way around, with the 1pf stamp on the left, and many other combinations exist, but do tend to be elusive on cover. The older Germania stamps were also issued in many booklet combinations, but these are extremely elusive on cover.
The United States has produced hundreds of se-tenants and these also result in interesting postal history. The 25-cent grosbeak and owl booklet stamps of 1988 were printed in the many millions and used pairs and blocks are common, but locating logical usages on cover is much tougher. As it happens, in 1988 the overseas airmail rate was double the domestic rate, and a pair on a cover to the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh neatly covered the 50-cent tariff. This cover also neatly illustrates the importance of pairs and blocks as sources of se-tenants.
Another group of issues that isn’t thought of as being se-tenant but can be are the computer-vended coils that for years have been dispensed mainly in northern Virginia post offices. The postal user specifies the face value, which is then printed by the machine, so it is a simple matter to create se-tenants.
One example is a highly contrived but probably unique cover to Edinburgh, Scotland. It bears a 21-cent stamp sandwiched between two 20-cent ones, overpaying the 60-cent rate by a penny, and making up an A11 plate number coil (PNC) strip of three. (These plate numbers were only printed on roughly every 50th stamp, so are elusive on cover and are highly popular in the US.) So it is doubly se-tenant in that it has stamps with different face values and one stamp with a catalogued variety, and highly popular collecting area in the US.
A priceless classic it most definitely is not, but it does show the infinite variety in the collecting world open to collectors who keep their eyes and minds open.
The se-tenant story
"Se-tenant" is a French term that means joined to each other. In stamp collecting it has come to mean two different stamps or varieties of stamps that remain attached. While it is often put in italics in stamp articles because of its foreign origins, I believe it has been fully adopted by English-speaking collectors, who after all don’t have an equivalent term in their native tongue. Therefore I believe it is no more deserving of italics than other adopted terms such as café or en suite.
As for the origins of the term’s use in philately, discovering just when it came into widespread use has not been easy. Logically it could have been after the Second World War, when so many more "modern" stamps were issued, but perhaps a website visitor can supply information on this subject.
The variety of se-tenants is enormous. The earliest definitions in philatelic literature (but still from just a few decades ago) tend to emphasis different die varieties attached to each other, but more subtle examples include pairs in which one stamp exhibits an overprint variety Other variations to look for include stamps with labels such as adverts or even the current Smiler stamps with their attractive labels.
Mini-sheets are another rich source for se-tenants, and yet small enough to be found on cover occasionally. Often they present several stamps that together to make up a picture. Such combinations are sometimes described as contiguous se-tenants, and of course can be found in sheet stamps as well, as with the attractive and cleverly designed Royal Mail issue marking the 150th anniversary of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Each stamp depicts the Rocket locomotive and tender or two following carriages in the train.
The author’s interest in se-tenants, by the way, stems from a trip to a satellite shop of Libritz Stamps in the pleasant area of Palmers Green, north London, in the mid-1980s. A bit of spare cash after a period of relative poverty prompted a trip to the nearest stamp shop to see if some of it could be spent.
During a happy hour or two someone came in and asked the owner if any modern used US stamps were of any value or interest. He said they really weren’t, apart from used se-tenant blocks. That bit of information taken on board, any such blocks started getting put aside, and it quickly became evident they provided the makings of an unusual, challenging and yet inexpensive collection. And as the accumulation of blocks and other multiples advanced, it was not long before it also became evident that good usages on cover should be collected that way rather than soaked off.
posted by Chad Neighbor at
3.7.08
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