Postage stamp stamps did not need to show the issuing country, so no country name was included on them. The UK remains the only country to omit its name on postage stamps, using the reigning monarch’s head as country identification. Following the introduction of the postage stamp in the UK, prepaid postage considerably increased the number of letters mailed. Before 1839, the number of letters sent in the UK was typically 76 million. By 1850 this increased five-fold to 350 million, continuing to grow rapidly until the end of the 20th century when newer methods of indicating the payment of postage reduced
Postage stamps of the Soviet Union cultural level of life of the people on the basis of high rates of development of socialist production, an increase of its effectiveness, scientific-technical progress, and an acceleration of the growth of the productiveness of labor". Such messages were typical of stamps for the Brezhnev and post-Brezhnev period until the changes occurred under Mikhail Gorbachev. New slogans, "perestroika", "uskoreniye", "demokratizatsiya", and "glasnost", were coined and appeared on the postage stamps of the USSR. A unique complete pane of 25 early Soviet Union stamps is known as "Soviet Air Post "Wide 5" surcharged". The stamp itself was produced in 1924 as