This 2-cent coil stamp of the US 1954 Liberty series was used heavily throughout the 1950s and 60s.

A coil stamp is a type of postage stamp sold in strips one stamp wide. The name derives from the usual handling of long strips, which is to coil them into rolls, in a manner reminiscent of adhesive tape rolls. A large percentage of modern stamps are sold in coil form, since they are more amenable to mechanized handling in large quantities than either sheet stamps or booklet stamps. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1000x565, 190 KB) United States 2c coil stamp of 1954, scanned September 2005 by User:Stan Shebs File links The following pages link to this file: Postage stamp separation Coil stamp User:Stan Shebs/Gallery/Philately ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1000x565, 190 KB) United States 2c coil stamp of 1954, scanned September 2005 by User:Stan Shebs File links The following pages link to this file: Postage stamp separation Coil stamp User:Stan Shebs/Gallery/Philately ... A selection of Hong Kong postage stamps A postage stamp is evidence of pre-paying a fee for postal services. ... Two rolls of adhesive tape. ... A postage stamp booklet is a set of one or more small panes of postage stamps, usually totalling about 10-20 stamps, folded over and placed in a cardboard cover. ...

Coil stamps first appeared at the beginning of the 20th century. In the United States for instance, vending machines companies began to experiment with the automated dispensing of stamps. Early efforts to break sheets into strips manually did not work well, since they were prone to tearing and jamming, and soon the companies began to request imperforate sheets from the post office, cutting those into strips and punching holes of various shapes between each stamp. A variety of these "private coils" is known, some quite rare. The first US government-produced coils appeared in 1908, produced by pasting together enough imperforate sheets to make rolls of 500 or 1,000 stamps, cutting them into strips and perforating between. In the UK, coil stamps first appered in 1907, to supply newly installed stamp vending machines. As these were cut from complete sheets, they are perforated on all four sides. As each stamp was worth either a half or one old penny and 240 pence made up one pound sterling, the coils were in rolls of 960 or 480 each. (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999 in the... A typical U.S. snack vending machine A vending machine is a machine that provides various snacks, beverages and other products to consumers. ... For postage stamps, separation is the means by which individual stamps are made easily detachable from each other. ... Year 1908 (MCMVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... A stamp vending machine (SVM) is a mechanical, electrical or electro-mechanical device which can be used to automatically vend postage stamps to users in exchange for a pre-determined amount of money, normally in coin. ... For the NBA basketball player with the nickname see Penny Hardaway A variety of low value coins, including an Irish 2p piece and many U.S. pennies. ... GBP redirects here. ...

A vertical coil pair with a joint line, US 1917

Later a rotary press was adopted, which eliminated the pasting stage. The cylindrical plate used on a rotary press has a seam where ink tends to accumulate, resulting in joint line pairs. A rotary printing press is a printing press in which the impressions are curved around a wheel so that the printing can be done on long continuous rolls of paper, cardboard, plastic, or a large number of other substrates. ... In philately, a line pair is a coil pair of postage stamps bearing an inked line between the two stamps. ...

The perforations of coil stamps are usually found along the right and left sides ("vertical perf"), but they have also been produced with perforations along the top and bottom ("horizontal perf").

A recent innovation enabled by self-adhesive technology is the linerless coil stamp. While most self-adhesives have backing paper, linerless coils are like a roll of adhesive tape. Such rolls tend to be enormous, with thousands of stamps, and tend to be used only by large mailing operations.

While in most countries coil production is restricted to the workaday stamps used in large quantities, Sweden has produced coil versions of most of their stamps since 1920. Year 1920 (MCMXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display 1920) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

See also

• Plate number coil