The shapes of postage stamps present but little variation; a very large majority being more or less unequally sided rectangles. Few are perfectly square. The set of Bergedorf, and the disused Danish and Thurn and Taxis adhesives are instances, the former showing the further peculiarity of different sizes in regular gradation according to value. The impressions run sometimes on upright, sometimes on oblong rectangles. The narrowest of the latter is one of those of Wells, Fargo, and Co.; of the former, a very rare English essay, too elaborate for description.
Some few are octagonal, more or less irregular; some oval; some perfectly round; some indescribable, as the one-and-ninepenny Ceylon; and the ninepenny envelope of the Mauritius. The earlier emissions of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were printed in such a way as to render the stamp lozenge-shaped.
A small minority are triangular; the superseded stamps of the Cape of Good Hope, a solitary type of Newfoundland, and one of New Granada, are the only ones we can recollect ever seeing, except a black Austrian newspaper adhesive. The Langton local is unique in form.
Many stamps have been issued exclusively for newspapers, feuilletons, and printed matter in general, such as some Austrian and Venetian impressions. The B. G. and tassa gazzette of Modena, the 6 c. and 9 centesimi of Parma, and others, were of like nature; as are the lower priced French, Italians, and Belgians. That of Frankfort is not adhesive, but hand-stamped, like those on our own newspapers, and is by some considered inadmissible in strictly postal collections.