In philately

Philately

Philately is the study of stamps and postal history and other related items. Philately involves more than just stamp collecting, which does not necessarily involve the study of stamps. It is possible to be a philatelist without owning any stamps...

, tête-bêche (French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 for "head-to-tail", lit. "head-to-head") is a joined pair of stamp

Postage stamp

A postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...

s in which one is upside-down in relation to the other, produced intentionally or accidentally. Like any pair of stamps, a pair of tête-bêches can be a vertical or a horizontal pair. In the case of a pair of triangular stamps, they cannot help but be linked "head-to-tail". Mechanical errors during the process of production can result in tête-bêches, but in most cases tête-bêches are produced for the purpose of collecting.

During the printing of stamps for booklets

Postage stamp booklet

A postage stamp booklet is a booklet made up of one or more small panes of postage stamps in a cardboard cover. Booklets are often made from sheets especially printed for this purpose, with a narrow selvedge at one side of the booklet pane for binding. From the cutting, the panes are usually...

, the pages of stamps are usually printed in multiples from a larger printing plate. This can result in tête-bêche pairs. It is unusual for these pairs to find their way into the postal system, as they are cut into individual booklet pages before binding into the distributed booklet. A block of 24 5d Machin

Machin series

The Machin series of postage stamps is the main definitive stamp series in the United Kingdom, used since 5 June 1967. It is the second series to figure the image of Elizabeth II, replacing the Wilding series....

 stamps, which should have been guillotined

Paper cutter

A paper cutter is a tool often found in offices and classrooms, designed to cut a large set of paper at once with a perfectly straight edge.-Description:...

 into four booklet pages, includes four tête-bêche pairs. This was sold in 1970, in the normal course of business, by the British Post Office

Royal Mail

Royal Mail is the government-owned postal service in the United Kingdom. Royal Mail Holdings plc owns Royal Mail Group Limited, which in turn operates the brands Royal Mail and Parcelforce Worldwide...

and is exhibited by a member of the Royal Mail Stamp Advisory Committee.

External links

• Hong Kong tête-bêche forgeries
• Israel tête-bêche blocks from the Sol Singer Collection of Philatelic Judaica
• Luxembourg tête-bêche block
• Pairs of pentagonal tête-bêche stamps