Epaulettes (stamp)

Epaulettes
Brown ten centimes version
Country of production	Belgium
Location of production	Brussels
Date of production	1849
Designer	Charles Baugniet
Engraver	John Henry Robinson
Dimensions	18 mm × 24 mm (0.71 in × 0.94 in)
Perforation	None
Depicts	King Leopold I
Notability	First Belgian postage stamp
Face value	10 and 20 centimes
Estimated value	€7,100 (mint unhinged)

Epaulettes (French: Épaulettes, Dutch: Epauletten) is the colloquial name of the first series of postage stamps issued by Belgium. The stamps, which depicted King Leopold I and his prominent epaulettes from which the type's name derives, became legally usable on 1 July 1849. They were produced as the result of a series of national reforms to the postal system in Belgium, based on the success of similar British reforms in 1840. Two denominations with the same design were issued simultaneously: a brown 10 centimes and a blue 20 centimes. The stamps allowed postal costs to be pre-paid by the sender, rather than the receiver, and led to a sharp increase in the volume of mail. Although quickly superseded by new types, the Epaulettes proved extremely influential and have since inspired several series of commemorative stamps.

Heavily influenced by the example of the British postal system, which issued its first stamp, the Penny Black, in 1840, the Belgian government supported the inauguration of a Belgian equivalent. Under the existing system, postage costs were paid by the receiver rather than the sender, which discouraged people from receiving, and therefore sending, letters. The idea of postage stamps, which would allow the sender to pay in advance, was officially sanctioned by Leopold I on the Loi apportant des modifications au régime des postes ("Law bringing modifications to the postal system") on 24 December 1847 while the radical liberal and future Prime Minister, Walthère Frère-Orban, served as Minister of Public Works. The debate on the reform of the postage in Belgium occurred at the same time as widespread postage reform, influenced by the British example, in France, Bavaria and elsewhere.

A second act, the Loi sur la réforme postale ("Law on postal reform"), was signed on 22 April 1849. The second law set out more detailed terms for the launch of the postal system and on 17 June 1849, Leopold I officially requested the new Minister of Public Works, Hippolyte Rolin, to act on the new laws.