Portal:Philately/Stamp of the month archive/14

Epaulettes are the colloquial name of the first series of postage stamp issued by Belgium that depicted King Leopold I and his prominent epaulettes from which the name derives. They were first usable on 1 July 1849 when two values, with the same design were issued: a brown 10 centimes and a blue 20 centimes. Their introduction proved extremely successful and led to a large expansion of the postage system. The Epaulettes were soon superseded by new types.

The brown 10 centimes denomination, could be used to send a letter up to a distance of 30 kilometres (19 mi); the blue 20 centimes could be used on all other ordinary national mail. The stamps depicted Leopold I wearing military uniform, with highly visible epaulettes, and were printed using the Intaglio method. They were inscribed "POSTES" ("post") at the top, along with the stamp's value in numbers. At the bottom was the stamps face value in French language text. No Dutch language version was produced.