stamp

Philatelists are always looking to complete their postage stamps collections. Postage Stamps are always published using a standard model.

How could we use those information ?

Author

• Bilel Hawari (bilelhawari@gmail.com)

Examples of desired behaviors

Once properly structured, details that identify the stamp allow browser, applications or websites to produce richer interactions. For example, specific searches may be performed for stamp's subject or collection details via general search services such as Google and Wikipedia.

Examples of existing hStamp model on the web

Wikipedia (See metatemplate on the right sidebar): Inverted Jenny Treskilling Yellow Treskilling Yellow

Tunisian postal stamps : Freedom Revolution World Press Freedom Day

USA Postage Stamps : 1c 150th Birth Anniversary of Lincoln 1959 Palomar Observatory

Maltpost 2010 Series

Format

Schema

The hStamp schema consists of the following properties:

• hstamp
  • fn. required. text. the title of the stamp.
  • description. . optional. text. [experimental]
  • country. . required. text. [experimental]
  • face-value and currency. required. numeric. [experimental]
  • photo. optional. 1 or more. using any element containing a URL, such as IMG. [experimental]
  • designer. optional. 1 or more. [experimental]
  • issue-date and year. optional. [experimental]
    • size and unit. optional. [experimental]
    • catalog-name and catalog-id. optional. [experimental]

Implemntation

hStamp can be encoded as follows:

<div class="hstamp">
	<h1 class="fn">Freedom Revolution</h1>
<p class="description">
	Immortalizing the People's Revolution 
</p>
<p>
<img class="photo" src="http://www.tunisia-stamps.tn/gdata/2011/t1895.jpg" width="175" height="245" alt="Freedom Revolution">
</p>
<p>Country :
<span class="country">Tunisia</span>
</p>
<p>Face value:
<span class="face-value">1,350</span> <span class="currency">Dinar</span>
<p/>
<p>Issue Year:
<span class="year">2011</span>
</p>
<p>Issue Date:
<abbr class="issue-date" title="2011-03-25">March 25, 2011</abbr>
<p>
<p>Size:
<span class="size">37 x 52</span> <span class="unit">mm</span>
</p>
<p>Designer: 
<span class="designer">Abdelmajid AYED</span>
</p>
<p>
<ul>
<li>Catalog Name: <span class="catalog-name">Immortalizing the People's Revolution</span></li>
<li>Catalog number: <span class="catalog-id">1895</span></li>
</ul>
</p>
</div>

Roadmap

Some other philatelic details could be added to this model like stamp's condition (New / obliterated). Designer identity would be well presented using hCard Microformat.