We must go back at 1819, the so called "pre-philatelic period", when in Italy, in Sardinia Kingdom appeared the cavallino (little horse),a sheet of paper for writing letters with stamped on a little horse imagine with the value on (15, 20, or 50 cents), so that you paid in advance postal fares. After a few years, in England, exactly the 6th of may 1840 started the postal reform of Sir Rowland Hill, that gave to the sender the duty to buy a little piece of paper and stick it on the envelope to pay postal fares. You can have a look at a nice stripe of the first stamp of the world , the so called "penny black".At the same time appeared a postal paper working more or less like the sardinian "cavallino"; the cards had an artistic print on the side of the address and were known as "Mulready enveloppes" , from the name of the artist.