History of the Postage Stamps of the United States of America Part 30

The 1847 and 1851 stamps are obsolete, and no longer receivable for postage. The subsequent issues of ordinary stamps are still valid. The newspaper and periodical stamps of 1865 are also uncurrent; those of the issue of 1874 can be used only by publishers and news agents for matter mailed in bulk under the Act of June 23rd, 1874. The official stamps cannot be used except for the official business of the particular Department for which it is provided.

All the specimens furnished will be ungummed, and the official stamps will have printed across the face the word "Specimen" in small type. It will be useless to apply for gummed stamps or for official stamps with the word "Specimen" omitted.

The stamps will be sold by sets, and application must not be made for less than one full set of any issue except the State Department official stamps and newspaper and periodical stamps of the issue of 1874. The regular set of the former will embrace all the denominations from 1 cent to 90 cents inclusive, valued at $2; and any or all of the other denominations ($2, $5, $10 and $20) will be added or sold separately from the regular set as desired.

The newspaper and periodical stamps will be sold in quant.i.ties of not less than two dollars worth in each case, of any denomination or denominations that may be ordered.

Under no circ.u.mstances will stamps be sold for less than their face value.

Payment must invariably be made in advance in current funds of the United States. Mutilated currency, internal revenue and postage stamps, bank checks and drafts, will not be accepted, but will in all cases be returned to the sender.

To insure greater certainty in the transmission, it is strongly urged that remittances be made either by money order or registered letter. Applicants will also include a sufficient amount for return postage and registry fee, it being desirable to send stamps by registered letter. Losses in the mails or by any mode of transmission must be at the risk of the purchaser.

[Symbol: Right Index] Applications must be addressed to "The Third a.s.sistant Postmaster General, Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C."

Specimens of stamped envelopes will not be furnished in any case.

E. W. BARBER, Third a.s.sistant Postmaster General.

Here is truly a pretty kettle of fish. The proceedings do not seem to have been reported by the Department, and there seems to have been no account rendered of this peculiar transaction of the Stamp Office.

Doubtless the amounts received for these specimens and the number of them sold are blended in the accounts of the number of stamps sold and no loss accrued to the service. The public are not, however, informed of the extent of the transactions, and judging from the difficulty of finding these specimens in collections, the business was not large.

There was no law preventing any one from purchasing either the newspaper or periodical stamps from the Post office, and at the time there was probably no regulation of the Department which prevented postmasters from selling them to all desirous of purchasing. Certainly some were sold to dealers and collectors. Hence the privilege of purchasing the current newspaper and periodical stamps _without gum_ for the same price that actual and complete copies could be obtained, particularly in view of the fact that the purchaser, unless a publisher or agent, could not use them when so purchased, even if he were willing to gum them himself, was probably not largely taken advantage of. The specimens when found can hardly be called reprints and cannot be distinguished from the ordinary stamps that have by some accident lost their gum. There is reason to believe that some of them have been adorned with this appendage by private parties, so that the presence of gum is no guarantee of genuineness. As, however, they are only partly finished stamps of the regular issue, no great harm is done if a specimen is treasured in a collection.

With the newspaper stamps of the 1865 issue the facts are different.

While they are from the same plates apparently, they can generally be detected by the color. As the five cents with white border does not appear in the list of reprints or "specimens" the series was not, after all, complete, and the possessor of this stamp may feel confident of possessing an original. The companion five cents with colored border is exactly of the same color, varying only in different specimens of either variety in depths of color. The blue of the reprints is of a different shade, more intense and perhaps the difference can best be expressed by saying there is a _bloom_ about it that there is not about the originals. When the two are placed side by side the homely expression that the "new is worn off" of the originals will serve to express the difference, though in point of fact they never had the brightness of the reprints. The same remarks apply to the old and new ten cent values. The color of the 25 cents, is, however, very badly imitated, the originals have a yellowish-red cast, the reprint is a dull common red. A very good idea of it might be had by comparing what are called salmon brick and pressed brick together. Unfortunately some unscrupulous parties have "experimented" with the reprints and thus rendered some specimens rather harder to distinguish, but so far as the observation of the writer goes, comparison with originals will always satisfactorily expose the difference.

The extreme anxiety of the Department that the revenue of the service should not suffer by the use of a private party of an official stamp for which he had paid the department full value, led as the advertis.e.m.e.nt states to the placing of the word "specimen" in small type across the face, and thereby saved the collector any trouble in identifying "specimens" from originals, though as the stamps were current the omission of the gum only reduced them to partly finished stamps, and not to the category of reprints or counterfeits.

Of the "ordinary stamps for the use of the public," the 5th or 1870 issue was then current, and why ungummed stamps which the circular says were never the less available for postage, should have been sold when the Department had a large supply of finished originals at command, is a mystery to all but official minds.

The 4th or 1869 series presents greater difficulties to the collector who desires to have only genuine originals. Made by the same company that produced the originals, and only a short time afterwards, the processes of printing, ink and paper making had not materially changed, but the reprints show signs of more careful workmans.h.i.+p. Notwithstanding the circular some of them at least were sent out by the department gummed. But strange to say as noticed by Mr. Coster (A. J. P. 1875 page 6) the gum of the originals "varied from decidedly brownish to almost white" and "on the 1861-69 issues of the reprints (as also on the eagles) simple gum arabic seems to have been used, the color being perfectly white. Furthermore, if the stamps are bent at all, the gum cracks, which is in no case true of the originals." Mr. Coster further says, "the originals all had the grille and the reprints have not."

Unfortunately, Mr. Coster was not aware that the four higher values at least, with the brownish gum and without the grille, and undoubtedly original, existed in collections before the reprints were made, and have since been officially stated to have been so issued, and other values also in that condition are known, which have every appearance of being originals. Unfortunately also, it is not very difficult to remove the gum, imitate the grille or not and regum the stamp with brownish gum.

Such experiments have been made with fair success by members of that fraternity who exist by the trade in bogus antiquities and counterfeit evidences of value, who sometimes do these little things merely to experience the delight they feel in deceiving the so-called experts, especially when as in this case a known reprint is almost unsalable, but if it can be made to pa.s.s as an original its value is increased several hundred fold and its salable qualities many times more.

Fortunately there are not a large number of the reprints to encounter and grilled specimens are in all probability original. The 3d or 1861 issue was also made by the same company that did the reprinting. The originals were issued first without the grille and afterwards with it, both had the brownish gum. The reprints have the same perforation and, notwithstanding the circular, were issued both without the gum and with the white stiff gum noticed above. Originals without the grille are rarely on tinted or surfaced paper, though sometimes smurched in parts from careless wiping of the plates. Originals with the grille are generally on lightly tinted or surfaced paper and the colors are usually stronger than the earlier ones. The reprints were without the grille, but the colors are rather those of the grilled originals, the paper is however whiter, the printing more carefully worked, and there is the new look about them noticed when speaking of the reprints of the newspaper series of 1865. Sheets of the one cent reprinted show the printer's imprint on the sides and of the pattern of that on the 1869 issue. All the originals of this value probably had the imprint of the other pattern, and at the top or bottom. The reprints are therefore, probably from new plates.

A few reprints with a forged grille have come under the observation of the writer, but as the grille was the small grille imitated from that on the 1869 issue it was easily detected.

The 2nd or 1851 issue, as it is called in the circular, actually consisted of two series, the imperforate and perforate. Imperforate reprints were not furnished. The originals were perforated 15 to the mm.

or 17 to the 7/8 of an inch. The reprints were perforated 12 to the mm.

or 13 to the 7/8 of an inch. This is the perforation of the 1870 series and of most of the U. S. stamps.

This is an absolute test then for perforated specimens. Attempts are, however, made to palm off trimmed reprints as imperforate specimens. The originals are on a yellowish paper and with brown gum. The reprints on a very white paper originally but easily manipulated to yellowish. The reprint of the one cent is from a new plate, the stamps have the outside fine labels of the original imperforate series, but are set farther apart on the plate so that even the larger perforation used does not cut into the stamp. The blue is too bright. The reprinted three cents has the outer top and bottom lines of the original imperforate stamp. The stamps do not seem to have been set quite far enough apart on the plate, as most specimens are somewhat marred by the large perforation. The color is however a vermilion and not the brick-red, pink or carmine of the originals. The reprinted five cents is from plate No. 2 without the top and bottom projection, and the stamps being too near together are marred by the large perforation. The color is a decided yellow brown, unlike any of the shades of the original. It would probably be impossible to remove the perforation so as to make this stamp pa.s.s for an imperforate specimen and then it would lack the projection of the original.

The ten and twelve cents are harder to distinguish, the green is too green, the black too black. The twenty-four, thirty and ninety cents were not issued imperforate (except the very rare instances of the 24 cents) and are not likely to deceive any one, their colors, however, are the more brilliant new colors and not the old dull colors of the originals.

The reprinted "Eagle" Carrier's stamp was first sent out perforated 12, the original was, of course, imperforate, and the stamps upon the sheet were separated by colored lines. The perforations of the reprints made sad havoc with these. Later the reprints were sent out imperforate. Such originals as the present writer has seen are on a yellowish tinted paper arising probably from the gum or age, the reprints are on a paper blued on the printed side by the ink of the stamp and with a blue cast at the back.

The reprinted "Franklin" Carrier's stamp is on too deep a pink paper and the dark blue ink is not deep and dull enough.

Finally the only safe test of any of these stamps is comparison with undoubted originals, in every case of doubt.

The first or 1847 reprints are not from the original plates nor even from the original dies, but from newly engraved dies, and hence are absolutely worthless as representing the originals. They are not reprints, but official imitations. In speaking of this issue it was stated that the Department had ordered all remainders to be burnt and the plates and dies destroyed. Supposing this to have been done reprinting was impossible. To take the place of the originals, new dies were made.

The imitations are both wider and shorter than the originals. The foliated ornaments are too conspicuous in both. The small letters, R. W.

H. and E. in the margins, though clear in the originals are too small, and particularly in the five cents almost illegible, being too light, and apparently the engraver did not know whether to make an R or an H, an M or a W, an H or an N, an E or an F. These are the general and common differences.

The Five Cents. The hair on the right of the head (left of the stamp) is in heavy dark ma.s.ses in the original, but is too light, open and airy in the imitation. The mouth prolonged in the original beyond the dot on the right, ends with it in the imitation, in which there is a second dot to the right of the first. The eyes are clear and distinct in the original, with perhaps too much white in the right one, they are weak undecided eyes in the imitation. The s.h.i.+rt front in the original is terminated by a diagonal line which reaches the oval above the top of the F of "Five"

in the original, but is more nearly horizontal in the imitation, reaching the oval nearly on a line with the top of the 5.

The Ten Cents. In the hair on the right of the stamp there is a small, white circle with a dark center in the imitation which does not appear in the original. The lips are larger and the mouth longer in the original than the imitation, but in the latter the lower lip is indicated throughout by vertical lines, in the original there are three vertical lines, the rest indicated by points. In the original the white cravat is separated from the inner colored line marking the oval by a fine white line with a colored line above it; in the imitation the line of the oval terminates the cravat. The lines of the face are all too stiff and ridged and the execution does not compare in delicacy and boldness of touch with the original.