Holography and Philately

Holograms on postage stamps have become a new topical subject in philately, and there has been a growing interest among philatelists in collecting such items for many years now. It was 25 years ago when the first definitive postage stamp with a hologram was issued in Austria in 1988. Since then many countries have issued hologram stamps or souvenir sheets, some of them on more than one occasion. Up until 2014 holographic stamps have been issued in approximately 80 countries, and the total number of different postal items containing holograms is estimated at 450 pieces. There was a peak in the number of hologram stamp issues at the turn of the 1999/2000 century celebrations. The use of holograms on postage stamps seems to be more of a new and attractive decoration, however, rather than a security device, which role has been adopted by holograms used on credit cards and passports. This book presents a chronological review of worldwide issues of postage stamps and souvenir sheets containing holograms. Each stamp is described and accompanied with a color photograph of the stamp. This also applies to miniature and souvenir sheets. In addition, official and special first-day covers (FDCs) with cachet holograms are presented and described. As regards holographic images, quite a few of them are space-related, including, for example, Earth, Moon, Jupiter, Sun, satellites, space crafts, space stations, gamma radiation, and cosmonaut images. Some hologram images are two-channel or animated types of images. A few of the stamp images of the animated type are quite unique, but philatelists are often unaware of this quality, being also, unfortunately, unable to correctly view such stamps. The book provides advice on how to proceed in order to get the best out of such holographic images. The book places emphasis on different types of hologram stamps and images, their producers and the story behind the stamps. Details concerning the items described, such as size, identification numbers, denomination, perforation and edition can be found in the Tables at the end of the book. In no other philatelic or holographic publication will the reader find such extensive information on hologram stamps, accompanied by an abundance of high-quality color illustrations throughout the book.