One of the most popular stamps of the Nineteenth Century is the black stamp honoring President Andrew Jackson that was issued first in 1863 and then again in several grilled forms over the next few years. The black Jackson, called the Blackjack by collectors has been popular for several reasons. First it has never been either rare nor common, occupying that middle ground that collectors like, making ownership a source of pride but not a hardship. Second, the stamp has always had many printing varieties and grills, including reissues and re-entries and because of this has always attracted specialists. Blackjack collecting as a specialty has fallen off quite a bit from when I was a young stamp dealer and some of this is probably because collectors often find specialties that operate for them as a kind of psychological code. In the early and middle of the last century, many American collectors took their specialties, whether consciously or not, as a way of re-fighting the Civil War. Southerners often collected Confederate States stamps or state postal histories and Northerners were big on Civil War Patriotics. These specialties still exist and are popular today but have lost the heat of the subliminal battle they represented in collectors only a generation or two removed from the Civil War. Andrew Jackson was a states rights (which was code for slave holders’ rights) president, a slave owner and brutal Indian slayer. In the years after the Civil War, collecting Blackjacks was a popular way to specialize in US general issues but still maintain allegiance to a world view that had largely been destroyed in 1865.