Strange names for postmarks

It has always surprised me a little why stamp impression collectors have given such strange names to some types of stamps or letters used in stamps. Take the 'long stamp', for instance. Where did that name come from? As a counterpart to a 'short stamp'? No, this name is given to the name stamps so named by the PTT itself! Or, in full, the office name stamps.

Long stamp in a cabinet

It gets even crazier when we sometimes hear or read that people talk about a 'long stamp in a box'. And this term is then used for a name stamp with a border! Like, for example, in a list of this type of stamp in the stamp book of 1882, where they are referred to by the PTT as 'Name stamps with border'.

Strange letters

Have you ever heard of Egyptian or Grotesque letters? These terms are used to designate a typeface used in old postmarks. But if you ask a printing press employee to format a specific text using these types of letters, you are looked at as if you are from another planet. And yet, it is so simple. If the term 'serif letters' is used instead of 'Egyptian letters', and 'serif letters' instead of 'Grotesque letters', the printer understands. Just look at the examples of the old stamps from Roermond, the first of which (Egyptian letters) has serifs and the second (Grotesque letters) lacks serifs. And that also applies to the name stamps, such as Blokzyl and Wognum, with serifs.

The origin of the strange names?

Where do those strange names come from, then? Mr. O.M. Vellinga uses these terms in his book 'De posttempels van Nederland 1676-1915', published in 1932. And almost every collector of stamp impressions or old, used postage stamps has adopted these terms uncritically. Do you use the 'strange' terms too?