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If this book were being written seventy years ago, we would speak of two 1861 issues, the Premier or August issue (for the month they supposedly came out, one month before the regular issue), and the Regular issue, which was issued in September of 1861. the Augusts, as they most usually were called, have very […]

Stamps monitor history; they are not issued in a vacuum. In its broadest sense, postal history is history. Throughout the early part of the nineteenth century great tensions between the North and the South, over economic matters and over slavery, culminated in the secession from the United States of the state of South Carolina on

The Five- and Ten-Cent Stamps of 1857 The five cent 1857 is a very tricky stamp because its proper determination rests on both color and type factors. The types are relatively easy to distinguish, and they, too, were caused by the exigencies of the perforating machinery. In 1860, an engraver went back over the plate

This stamp, picturing George Washington, was issued to pay the first-class postage rate between the East and West coasts. The ten cent is a stamp much like the one cent; it has four types in its imperforate printing. — Type I (#13) has a full plume at right and bottom, and a partial plume at

The Three Cent 1851 (#10 and #11)   This stamp paid the common letter rate that was reduced from 5 cents to 3 cents on July 1, 1851. There are two main varieties of this stamp. The #10, known from 1851 printings of the stamp, is a shade variety. The color is described in the

The Three Cent 1851 (#10 and #11) This stamp paid the common letter rate that was reduced from 5 cents to 3 cents on July  This is one of American philately’s most difficult and most interesting stamps. All the one-cent 1851 stamps look alike to the casual collector. However, there are several types that philatelists

In 1851, another general postage rate reduction was deemed in order. The price of sending a drop letter (a letter dropped off at a post office for someone else to pick up) was reduced from 2 cents to 1 cent. Furthermore, the first-class rate was lowered from 5 cents to 3 cents, and a five-cent

The lessons learned by Great Britain were not lost on America. This was a huge country, sprawling out by 1847 as far as California. The population density in the West was exceedingly low, although because of rich natural resources there were a good umber of small and medium-sized urban centers. The post office was required

There should be some anxiety on the part of a new collector that he or she is getting tamps of sufficient quality for the price that is paid. This is not to say that collectors should buy only stamps in exceptional quality; rather, a stamp in nearly any quality s desirable, providing it is accurately