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A sheet of stamps is the original form in which they were manufactured, typically consisting of an array of one of more stamps (possibly of different types), plus a margin that may have its own design and textual inscriptions. A block is a part of a sheet that consists of one or more stamps in a contiguous group.

Nearly all types of stamps have an associated sheet type. In the se-tenant case, several stamp types will share a single sheet type.

Souvenir sheets, miniature sheets, and booklet panes are all special cases of sheets.

Properties

Most properties of a sheet are inherited from the stamps on the sheet, such as issuer, issue, watermark, gum, etc.

Id - a unique number identifying the sheet.

Design - this optionally describes any graphical material that may be on the sheet that is not part of any stamp, such as an overall painting for which the stamps are individual details, and so forth.

Design type - this optionally describes graphical material that is common to several sheets.

Variant - minor versions of the sheet design. As with stamps, variants are changes that are intentional by the issuer, but not usually visible to casual inspection.

Inscriptions - textual elements on the parts of the sheet not in any stamp. Inscriptions may include a symbolic representation of the plate number positions.

Plate numbers - a collection of the different plate numbers that are possible for the sheet. Sheets of multicolored stamps may have more than one plate number on the sheet, one for each color.

Width, height - the physical dimensions of the sheet, in millimeters.

Layout - arrangement of the stamps within the sheet.

Layout

Layout describes how the different types of stamps and/or labels are arranged within the sheet.

Notes

For many modern stamps, what is sold as a "sheet" of stamps is actually a pane cut from a larger "press sheet", and some postal administrations have sold uncut press sheets in addition to regular sheets. We may add the distinction in future.