Postal history is a philatelic collecting specialty in its own right. Postal History tells the story of how mail has been handled, who has handled it and why. Postal history refers to stamps as historical documents, as it does postmarks, postcards, envelopes and the letters they contain. Postal history can include the study of postal rates, postal policy, postal administration, political effects on postal systems, postal surveillance and the consequences of politics, business and culture on postal systems, and basically anything to do with the function of collection, transportation and delivery of mail. A piece of mail receives postal markings as it travels through the system; postmarks, backstamps, transit markings, registered marks, ship marks and so on, that testify to its routing, what postal services were used, when it was picked up and delivered, and what transportation was employed. Decoding the marks involves retracing how a specific piece of mail reached its destination. The postage paid or due, whether a manuscript mark, , postage stamp, meter marking or label, documents the postal rate demanded for carrying and delivering the item at the period in which it was mailed. It is this evidence of ‘postal history’ that generates so much interest in collecting and studying covers. However, social, economic, and political events as they affect the post and are mirrored on covers and in letters also have their proponents. Terms related to these collecting groups abound. ‘Adversity’ and ‘inflation’ refer to downturns in national economies. ‘Quarantine’ and ‘disinfected covers’ refer to public health crises. ‘Crash’, ‘wreck’, and ‘earthquake covers’ speak of disastrous events. ‘Mourning covers’ suggest public and private sentiments of grief. ‘Patriotic’, ‘propaganda’, ‘prisoner-of-war covers’, and ‘siege mail’ are evidence of ideologies and wars. In postal history, research is necessary to interpret a cover and its postal markings. The backbone of the Alexander Collection is the "Postal History" of the Holy Land from the fifteenth Century until the present day.