These stamps have risen in popularity in the last few decades, but are not stamps in the conventional sense. The often appear similar to stamps in size, design, often value but are issued for a multitude of reasons, but not for conventional postage. They usually lack a country name or denomination, and in some cases a fictitious denomination has been applied. The term covers a variety of stamps used for revenue purposes, charity posts, railway letters and even decorative stamps for sealing Christmas post, etc.

In the United Kingdom many offshore islands use Cinderella stamps as local carriage labels. Most of these are used to pay for the transport of the postage to the mainland ferry, and are usually placed on the front or back of the envelope alongside normal stamps. Some of the most popular come from such places as Lundy island or Staffa. Some are used for genuine postal transport but many are produced as an extra income from tourists!

Railway letter services are also popular Cinderella stamps with collectors, and were offered from most railway companies since the 1890’s and were run under licence from the Post Master General.

Britain for example issued a series of 24 Cinderella stamps for the King’s coronation in 1937. These were very popular at the time and were sold with collectors albums, although they held no postal value and were not in any way endorsed by the post office.

During the first and second world war, many propaganda labels were produced all around the world, with the intention of raising moral amongst the troops on the front line and the families left at home.

Cinderella stamps have become very collectable although many people such as Stanley Gibbons, decline to catalogue them, purely on the basis that these stamps can be issued by anyone for any reason without licence from any governing Postal Service.

Values vary, and are completely dependant on what collectors are willing to pay. In recent years, Cinderella stamps produced based on characters and events from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series of books were made available, and in auctions these stamps can achieve sale prices of hundreds of pounds, even though the face values are fictitious!

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