Oliver Wendell Holmes 15 Cent

Can someone please tell me just how popular/widely used was the
Oliver Wendell Holmes 15 cent stamp.Was 15 cent the postage rate when it was issued?
Thanks
Paul

Paul:

The original issue was part of the Prominent Americans issue of 1965.

When the USPS tried and failed to get an increase to the domestic letter rate of 16-cents, and only got an increase to 15-cents, in 1978, they did not have a 15-cent stamp ready. They did have a ton of Americana Series 16-cent Statue of Liberty stamps ready to go.. but the wrong denomination. So...

As an emergency measure to fill in until the 15-cent Fort McHenry Flag was issued, thet Oliver Wendell Holmes stamp was re-issued.

Check your U.S. Scott Specialised for details to identify the two printings.

Hope this helps!

David

Thanks again David
I recently bought 4 lbs of USA kilo ware and ended up with over 1000 of the Holmes stamp!
When I checked the Scott Cat it didn't look like 15 cent was the correct postage rate but after some more searching I see 15 cent was the rate for the late 70's.
Paul

Wow! I hope, for the sake of your own sanity, that you sorted before soaking. Maybe this sort of thing is common; I've never had more than relatively small batches to go through at once.

Collin

Check out this link Paul. It's as good an explanation for how to ID the varieties as I've seen.

http://www.jamesdire.net/ID/holmes.html

Now that football season is almost over, I guess you'll have plenty of time to type all 1000! As they say, "Better you than me!"

laswabbie
I don't know if I'll ever get around to type these stamps, with well over 3 lbs of kiloware left to sort through!
Also my Scott cat has the same value for all of these types, unless I misread it, so no motivated there.
Thanks for the link, that's a great reference tool.
Paul

There's always a football season going, just different codes!

Balf