In the age before overnight shipping and real-time tracking, getting a letter or parcel to its destination quickly wasn’t always easy. But there was a solution one that came with a bold label and a special stamp. It was called Special Delivery, and it revolutionized how urgent mail was handled in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
These labels and stamps weren’t just decorative, they were functional, and they made a promise: this item gets priority from the moment it reaches the delivery office.
What Is Special Delivery?
The term special delivery referred to a service that prioritized mail handling after it reached the final delivery post office. While the broader term “express mail” usually covers faster transmission across the entire journey, special delivery was focused on accelerating the last leg from the post office to the recipient’s hands.
In other words, if you mailed a letter marked for special delivery, postal clerks wouldn’t let it sit around. It would be whisked away from the delivery office and handed off with urgency, long before other routine mail got sorted.
A Service Born in the USA
The United States Postal Service was the first to introduce special delivery stamps, doing so in 1885. At that time, the stamps were only valid for delivery from designated Special Delivery offices, which had specific staff dedicated to handling this fast-track service. Just three years later, by 1888, the service was expanded to include all delivery offices, making it more widely accessible to the public.
The visual identity of these stamps was bold and instantly recognizable. The blue 20c stamp featured in this post, showing one hand reaching out to receive a letter from another, says it all: urgency, care, and personal handover.
Global Adoption
Seeing the success of this system, other nations quickly followed suit. Canada, New Zealand, Italy, and Mexico all began issuing their own special delivery stamps, recognizing the growing public demand for more responsive postal services.
Both the USA and Canada even went a step further, issuing special delivery airmail stamps. These combined the speed of air transport with the prioritized handoff of special delivery—two premium services in one stamp.
Behind the Stamp: A Practical Solution
For collectors, special delivery stamps are more than just pretty pieces of paper. They mark an important innovation in the logistics of communication. At a time when entire businesses, legal filings, or personal messages relied on dependable mail, this system offered reassurance that your message would reach its destination without delay.
These stamps also reflect a shift in expectations: people were no longer content with “eventually.” They wanted accountability and speed, and postal systems adapted accordingly.
Collecting Special Delivery Stamps Today
Because they often required a higher face value and were used for a relatively narrow window of time, many special delivery stamps were printed in smaller quantities than regular issues. That, combined with their historical significance, makes them especially appealing to philatelists.
They also offer rich context when included in postal history exhibits. Covers bearing both airmail and special delivery stamps, for instance, can trace routes that span continents—and tell stories about the urgency behind the message.