19th Amendment Stamp

i was sorting stamps and came accross this 19th amendment stamp...i have never seen one mint or used..am I alone or are there others unfamiliar with it ??

PhilB,

I was aware of it.

Pretty ugly. Looks like someone just got a new version of Photoshop and went crazy.
Remember designers, Less is More!

jamessw, correct as my mom used to say, "It's to busy.".

God that stamp is awful. Is that really a stamp issued by USPS?

Women should have been outraged after looking at that.

I have a couple of used copies of that stamp, too. I agree it is one of worst designs they came out with that year. Believe it or not, Ashton Potter was the printer and 105,000,000 stamps were printed in panes of 40 stamps each (2,625,000 panes in total).

For those who don't have a catalog handy, it's Scott #2980 issued August 26, 1995 and there are a couple of known printing errors that really boost the stamp's value: 2980a is a "black (engr.) missing" error; and 2980b is an imperf pair; and 2980c is a vertical pair (imperf between and at bottom).

To better understand the reason behind the "busy" and "computer generated design" look, one has to consider who the designer of the stamp was: April Greiman. Here's a link to her web page that includes a number of rather radical design elements common in her artistic endeavors, although the art and educational communities have bestowed on her numerous awards for her achievements:

http://aprilgreiman.com/aprilgreiman.pdf

To quote from her background posted when she received the 1998 AIGA Medal Award:

My U.S. pages end with the 29 centers....its mind boggling (to me) how many stamps have been issued since then...i try to put some of the newer used stamps away as someone may be looking for one..one day !

I know what you mean. I keep an updated spreadsheet to identify all of the face different stamps for the current year and for 2012 we're up to 189 face different stamps, and another 19 postal stationery items, with a face value of almost $160 (not including those coils and panes and booklets of stamps one must buy to obtain all of the varieties.

Further, the Scott Catalog numbers have already extended to #4709 and they haven't even assigned numbers yet to the last few issues of 2012!

I have to agree with the general consensus that this is one of the ugliest, if not THE ugliest US stamp. When I put my copy of Cattle in the Storm next to 19th Amendment, I really wonder who is in charge of things.

I was lucky (?) enough to buy a whole sheet of these beauties. Note the "limited edition print" note on the right.

I also wondered who decided that the "20" should be a little larger, and the "95" should be MUCH larger.



I also notice that the "32" is shown as solid and hollow all throughout the sheet.

I wonder; what's the difference between the "limited edition" print and the normal print?

Good evening everyone. I live in the UK and was a serious collector of US stamps, among other countries, until I took a break from collecting in 2000. I have now restarted collecting and am trying to bring my collection up to date.

I have therefore being looking at the various on-line forums with interest.

Whilst reading this forum I found this thread regarding the USA 1995 19th Amendment issue.

Recently I was sorting my USA loose stamps and came across two copies of this stamp, which I must admit could not be classed as being inspiring, but I noticed that the two printings were not identical, they can be seen in the image below.



What interested me was the fact that the black text in the stamp was positioned in different places.

The bottom pair of stamps have the text about 1.5 mm away from the margin and USA is on a band of green in the design. The single top stamp has the text touching the left frame line and the USA is 3.5 mm lower.

I have looked at various online sites, including eBay and found that there can be some variation in the position of the text.

Can anyone advise if this is a deliberate difference or a result of different printers being involved.

Thank you for any advice provided.

Ashton Potter was the only printer for this issue. The positioning of the black print is correct for the bottom pair. The black print on the top stamp appears to be misregistered ... note that it is only the black print that is "misplaced". This would likely be classified as a freak.

That is a seriously atrocious design!

GeoffHa, understatement of the century!

Peter

The design looks like the printing was incorrect.
I had never seen this stamp before.
From the comments it would seem that this was a very unpopular stamp design.

Steve - the black used to apply the 32 and the small black text was printed by intaglio (engraved) at a different printing station the printed the bottom black panel (which was printed by offset as were the rest of the colors). The intaglio black is known to wander around on this issue due to musregistration.