Vended postage

An odd corner of the stamp world is the vended postage produced by computers, machines and meters.  Here is a batch from Switzerland, showing that they can have a variety of design or be plain ink on paper.  

Also, as you can see from the "Jour d'Emission" postmarks, they get their own First Day markings.  I can't picture an actual ceremony to celebrate that yet another of these has been issued, but it does look like it's a thing.

These are most often found imprinted with the current first class letter rate, in this case 90c, but other values are also common.  They can have any printed value at all (within reason), so I always wondered how you would collect these.  Do you only need one of each design or do you try to collect every value you can find, never knowing if other values are out there?

They are also known as "machine stamps", "Variable value stamps", "computer-vended postage labels", "ATM stamps" (because you could get them from an ATM machine), "automat stamps" or "Frama labels."  Some of these names refer to specific subsets based on exact printing methods or ways the stamps are made available.  But why Frama?  Because Frama was the Swiss company that designed the paper and printing methods for a widely popular line of these which made their debut in Australia in the 1980s.

Here is a good article about methods of collecting these: "Collecting Frama Stamps - By Sel Pfeffer".

ateeme.com has a fine introduction and history of this field of philately.  Wow, this site is extensive, with hundred of articles and information from 25 years of contributions.  This is an international collectors group and they even have their own magazine called Variable.  I am impressed.  What little I knew about these has been dwarfed by the expertise of this group.  I hope you will enjoy it.