Before the advent of electronic everything, people used to send hand written letters to each other. In order to show that you had paid for your letter, each one had to have stamps on it.

These stamps always have an image on them for whatever theme the post office of the country is promoting at the time. Aviation is important around the world, so many stamps feature aeroplanes. Here are some examples.

Australian Stamps

Australia Post released some cool stamps for the Cocos (Keeling) Islands a few months ago. These feature some historical aircraft such as Boeing 727s and the Lockheed Electra, among others.


Previously, they also had a set featuring the Qantas Lockheed Super Constellation and the Short Empire Flying Boat. Both of them are pretty cool as well.


Papua New Guinea featured Australian airline service for many years, so that explains the Ansett Fokker F27 Friendship on the one below. I imagine it would have been a bumpy service in that part of the world.


The 2S on the black and white Qantas one gives away its age as it is using the pre-decimal Australian Pound currency. Pretty cool, right?

Boeing 707s

An airliner responsible for ushering in the jet age is the Boeing 707 and many places commemorated the aircraft. Here are some from Ascension in Polynesia.


Ireland also had the aircraft placed with their national airline, Aer Lingus. Of course, this meant that An Post issued a stamp featuring the jet.


Both Maltese and Australian airlines also purchased this aircraft. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find any national carrier that did not have either the Boeing 707 or Douglas DC-8 back in the day.


Looking pretty good, right? It’s certainly interesting at least!

A Lockheed TriStar Interlude

At the top of this post is a stamp from Bermuda featuring the British Airways Lockheed L-1011-500 TriStar which was brand new in 1980. It clearly served Bermuda.


British West Indies Airways or BWIA – pronounced bee-wee – also operated the TriStar. This was commemorated on a stamp from Trinidad and Tobago which you can see above.

A Gaggle Of Vickers VC10 Stamps

The whole reason for this post is due to stumbling across a stamp with a Vickers VC10 on it. That one is included here, along with some others I found online.


Nicaragua and Qatar are not the first places you would think of when thinking of the VC10. However, as you can see above, it managed to get on stamps from both countries.


Two of the smaller operators of the aircraft, British Caledonian and East African Airways. Each had a small fleet of four or five examples.


Naturally there is a British stamp about the jet engine and it decides to use the Rolls-Royce Conway, the engine that powered the VC10. Really very nice!

Overall Thoughts

There are probably hundreds of examples of stamps throughout the world featuring aircraft. Ever since aviation became a thing, the images on stamps have featured them.

I hope you enjoyed this little look at postage stamps. Have you ever come across a cool aviation themed stamp yourself? Thanks for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.

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Some images via Pinterest and STAMPBOARDS.com.
Certain stamps via Boeing Aircraft In Stamps.