It’s the time of year for Christmas Seals, those little pieces of paper resembling postage stamps but used as a fundraiser for the American Lung Association. The use of charity stamps has been around almost as long as postage itself, giving a charity the opportunity to raise funds while offering supporters a way to show off their dedication with every letter they send. In history, however, charitable giving hasn’t been the only reason to add non-postage stamps to letters; there’s a strong history of using labels in protest.
Between 1902 and 1905, Arthur Griffith founded Sinn Fein, a group protesting England’s control over Ireland and desiring a parallel dual monarchy between the two countries. The failure of the United Irishman newspaper in 1906 left a void which Griffith filled, titling his paper Sinn Fein, initially publishing as a weekly but with the intention to grow into a daily paper. In January 1908, Griffith announced his plan for financing the daily Sinn Fein: for a penny, supporters could buy a block of four “Celtic Cross” labels or an allegory of Eire. Griffith asked his supporters to add the Sinn Fein stamps to the front of letters, in addition to the regular British postage, as a sign of their political views. Although Griffith suggested the Celtic Cross stamp be placed opposite the regular postage’s position, his supporters sometimes placed them alongside the regular postage, and the practice grew to such a degree that the Post Office had to step in. The Postmaster General released a statement that only official postage may appear on the front of an envelope; any mail with non-postage stamps on the front would be returned to sender. Stamps on the back, however, would continue to be handled by the post office, so Griffith’s protest stamps continued to make it through the mail. The Sinn Fein even did become a daily newspaper for a short while, but the Celtic Cross stamps were discontinued after about a year. After the Easter Uprising in 1916, however, an unknown party printed up a number of the Celtic Cross stamps and distributed them among the now more millitant Sinn Fein, and these protest stamps appeared on postage again for a short time.
The Sinn Fein Celtic Cross wasn’t the first protest stamp. These so-called “cinderella stamps”, or non-postage stamplike 
labels, existed in small numbers before the Sinn Fein’s successful stamp was released. One particularly notable protest stamp came about in opposition to Queen Victoria’s reign. The Jacobite movement declared that the Habsburg lineage was the true line to the British throne, which had been – by their reckoning - usurped by William and Mary in 1688. Uprisings and rebellions occurred throughout the 18th century, but into the 19th century the Jacobite movement had lost steam and their banner was raised as a matter of pride moreso than outright rebellion. In April 1893, unknown Jacobite supporters in England released their own postage stamp in support of she whom they believed to be the true sovereign of the country, Marie Therese von Habsburg, otherwise known as “Mary IV and III.” Jacobite supporters were to place the Mary IV and III stamp in the place of the regular postage; the proper postage stamp, depicting Queen Victoria, was to be placed below the Jacobite stamp and affixed upside-down to show her ‘rightful’ position. The stamps were sold a hundred at a time for 3s., a hefty amount of money at the time, and while they had gained a degree of notariety during the final years of the 19th century, they were not widespread, and are exceedingly rare today.
The process has continued into modern times, and isn’t restricted to nations in civil turmoil. In early 1990s, the US Postal Service issued a series of stamps each year commemorating the 50th anniversary of various WWII events, from Pearl Harbor stamps in 1991, until 1995 when they planned to release stamps commemorating the end of the war. In that final set of stamps, the USPS had included a stamp with a bright red mushroom cloud, commemorating the US’ development of nuclear weapons. Citizens in both the US and Japan felt the stamp was in poor taste, given the civilian toll of the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and that nuclear disarmament was an ongoing debate. The USPS relented and replaced the A-Bomb stamp with one depicting Truman announcing the end of the war. Others, largely WWII veterans and others unwilling to take the apologist role, felt the replacement was unwarranted, and printed up their own stamps depicting an atomic mushroom cloud. Several variations were released and were sold to supporters of the original stamp to put on their letters in addition to the regular postage.
As exonumia is to coin collecting, the field of cinderella stamps is broad and uncharted. Although it might feel like you’re limited to cute depictions of Santa in various situations, be aware that there’s much more to be found in non-postage labels, from Irish independence to wronged kings to how history is interpreted through a modern lens, a range nearly as political and historical as postage stamps themselves.
