Yesterday I read a story on internet from website of mental-floss, I think it is an interesting story and would like to post here. The translation is based on Google software, it is no accurate, just for your reference.
昨天我在网站mental-floss读到一个集邮故事，我认为这是一个有趣的故事，现在这里转载， 中文翻译是根据谷歌的软件，它不很准确，错误难免，仅供参考。
The Stamp That Went Underground
During the early 20th century, the postal delivery system met its biggest challenge since mailman-hating dogs: street traffic. In large cities across Europe and America, mail delivery wagons had to maneuver through swarms of horse-drawn carriages, streetcars, and pedestrians—all of which severely slowed down the postal system. Eventually, post office officials figured that if the mail couldn't get through city traffic, they would try going under it. Thus emerged pneumatic mail tubes, a kind of subway system for letters. In major metropolises such as Paris, Rome, Vienna, Berlin, and New York, mail tubes were constructed underground to link major post offices. Compressed air propelled containers of mail through steel tubes at speeds up to 30 mph, increasing the postal service's delivery pace by leaps and bounds. In most cases, people still used regular stamps for pneumatic mail. Italy, however, printed special pneumatic stamps between 1933 and 1966. Such subterranean mail tubes operated until as recently as the 1980s, but as cities grew and post offices moved around, rerouting the underground mail networks proved too difficult. The tubes were abandoned in most cities, though Prague still has a few pneumatic tubes in use.
回复 1#williamzhang The Stamps that Stick Without a Lick
Getting stamps to stick hasn't always been a simple task. Most stamps made after 1840 came with an adhesive gum on the back. But the gum—made from various plant products such as cornstarch, sweet potatoes, gum Arabic, and sugar—wasn't always of the highest quality, meaning stamps often fell off letters. The U.S. Postal Service tried various gum formulas to remedy the situation, including special "summer gum" that was resistant to humidity, and "winter gum" that resisted cracking in cold, dry winter air.
Finally, in the 1960s, the South Pacific island kingdom of Tonga broke the mold when it printed a series of self-adhesive stamps. Not only did they not require licking, they came in odd shapes—the most famous of which was this 1969 stamp (below) shaped like a banana. These unusual stamps were a big hit and, for a time, became a significant source of revenue for the country. Collectors went crazy for them. In fact, they became so popular that one dealer ordered more copies of a particular stamp than had been printed. Most countries followed Tonga's lead, and today, the die-cut, peel-and-stick stamps are the most common type of stamps in the United States.
图片附件: stamp under.jpg (2016-7-11 19:22, 10.93 KB) / 下载次数 45
