Editing First day of issue (section)

==Features of a cover==
===Postmark===
[[File:Centenary of the Red Cross cover 1963.jpg|thumb|left|1963 Centenary of the Red Cross cover with West Wellow postmark - where [[Florence Nightingale]] was buried]]

The [[postmark]] is one of the most important features of a cover. Stamps are cancelled by a postmark, which shows they have been used and cannot be re-used to send a letter. Circular Date Stamps (CDS) are the 'bread-and-butter' postmarks used on everyday mail by Post Office counters across the UK. A CDS postmark is very straight forward and only features the town’s name and the date. There is no picture. If one wanted to use a CDS postmark from a town relevant to the stamp's issue, one would have to go to the town’s local Post Office to get it. On a cover, the postmark should touch each stamp and link them to the envelope.
Postmarks came to the foreground in the early 1960s, when collectors started to demand more interesting cancellations on their first day covers. For the Red Cross issue in 1963, a special [[Florence Nightingale]] cover was posted at her birthplace, West Wellow. The Botanical Conference issue of 1964 featured primroses on the stamps, so one clever cover dealer posted his covers at [[Primrose Valley]]. This kind of relevant postmark made a cover worth often ten times more than the same cover with a standard postmark issued by the [[Philatelic Bureau]] at Edinburgh (a place with no connection to the stamps).<ref>{{cite web|last1=Buckingham|first1=Tony|title=Glossary|url=https://buckinghamcovers.com/glossary/index.php|website=Buckingham Covers}}</ref>  In the US, the U.S. Postal Service chooses a city, or several, as 'official' first day cities. These have a special connection to the stamp issue being released, and these postmarks are the only ones that have the wording: 'First Day of Issue'.<ref>{{cite web|title=A Short Course on First Day Covers|url=https://www.afdcs.org/fdccourse.html|website=American First Day Cover Society}}</ref>

===Special handstamps===
[[File:1924 British Empire Exhibition special postmark and slogan postmark.jpg|thumb|right|Examples of special slogan and special postmarks for the 1924 British Empire Exhibition]]

With postmarks becoming more and more important to the covers, pictorial postmarks became very popular. Pictorial postmarks are also known as Special Handstamps/Postmarks. In 1924, the first commemorative set of stamps for the British Empire Exhibition had both special postmarks and a special slogan, but it was not until the late 1960s and early 1970s that dealers and organisations really caught on that you could sponsor/design a connected postmark and it would make an ordinary cover something special.{{Citation needed|date=February 2022}} These days anyone can sponsor a postmark. They need to design the postmark, get it approved by [[Royal Mail]] and then pay a fee. The postmark then becomes the property of Royal Mail and anyone is allowed to use it on their covers. This means that to a certain extent, most cover producers “borrow” other people’s postmarks. However, to be an “official” cover, a postmark has to be on the cover produced by the organisation that sponsored the postmark in the first place.<ref>{{cite web |author=Royal Mail |title=All About Postmarks |url=http://www.royalmail.com/sites/default/files/Postmarks_2012.pdf |year=2007 |website=Royal Mail |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150616000314/https://www.royalmail.com/sites/default/files/Postmarks_2012.pdf |archive-date=16 June 2015}}</ref>

===Cachet===
As the collecting of first day covers became more popular they began to appear on prepared envelopes, often with an illustration (commonly referred to by collectors as a [[cachet]]) that corresponded with the theme of the stamp.<ref>[[#Hudgeons|Hudgeons, 2009]], pp.592-609</ref> Several printing companies began producing such envelopes and often hired freelance illustrators to design their cachets such as [[Charles R. Chickering]] who in his earlier years designed [[postage stamps]] for the U.S. Post Office.<ref>[[#Lerner|Lerner, 2010]], pp.10-11</ref> Cachets, which should not be confused with postmarks, are basically rubber stamps. Postmarks can only be applied by official [[Post Office]]s whereas anyone can design a cachet and put it on their cover. A cachet makes a cover unique and helps tell the story of the cover.  It can say whether the cover was carried (for example, covers were carried on the very last flight of the [[Concorde]]), who the signer was or information about the postmark. Royal Mail no longer counts pre-decimal stamps as valid and won’t postmark them, a cachet can therefore be used to ''cancel'' a pre-decimal stamp on a cover. It provides a link between that stamp and the envelope. They can also be used to ''cancel'' [[Cinderella stamps]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Buckingham |first1=Tony |title=Glossary |url=https://buckinghamcovers.com/glossary/glossary-letter.php?letter=C |website=Buckingham Covers}}</ref>