The foregoing statement is open to much question, in view of the lapse of twenty years since the matter was first aired in The Philatelic Record. If authentic, these would be the earliest denominated stamps for the prepayment of postage, the Dutch stuiver in use in the colonies being a copper coin equal to about one penny. Perhaps the introduction of the matter in these Chats will, in the light of increased modern facilities for research, bring the subject before the notice of our Dutch philatelic confrères.
The Sardinian letter sheets of the early nineteenth century are now tolerably well known to stamp-collectors. They, however, represented a Government tax on the privilege of letter-carrying, rather than a direct prepayment of postage. These were the product of a curious anomaly in the exercise of the postal monopoly by the Government of Sardinia. It was forbidden to send letters and packets otherwise than through the Government post; but as this latter was very inefficient, and in many parts of the country was practically non-existent, the authorities established by decree, in 1818, a system whereby the people for whom the Government post was inconvenient, if not absolutely useless, could send their letters by other means. To effect this the senders had to supply themselves from a post-office with a stock of special letter sheets, stamped with a device of a mounted post-boy, within a circular, oval, or octagonal frame, at a cost of 15, 25, or 50 centesimi apiece. The use of these stamped letter sheets, bought from the post-office, was an authority for their conveyance by private means, but not through the ordinary channels of the Sardinian postal organisation. Thus, while the Post Office took its full charges for the conveyance of such letters, it did not perform the work of collecting, transmitting, and delivering them. The three denominations, 15, 25, and 50 centesimi were used for letters conveyed varying distances according to the Government postal tariff, from which, however, the actual messenger derived no benefit, his remuneration being over and above these official charges.
SARDINIAN LETTER SHEET OF 1818: 15 CENTESIMI.
THE 25 CENTESIMI LETTER SHEET OF SARDINIA.
Issued in Sardinia, 1818: the earliest use of Letter Sheets with embossed stamps.
The next proposal of stamped covers the historian has to note, is that embodied in a Bill introduced in the Swedish Riksdag, March 3, 1823, by Lieutenant Curry Gabriel Treffenberg. His proposals included: "Stamped paper of varying values, to be used as wrappers for letters, should be introduced and kept for sale in the cities by the Chartæ Sigillatæ deputies, or by other persons appointed for that purpose by the General Chartæ Sigillatæ Office at Stockholm, and in the rural districts, by the sheriffs and other private persons." Private persons were to be granted the privilege of selling these "Postage Charts" by the local officials representing the Crown authorities on obtaining proper security.