Americana Great American Series

Great site for help with Americana Great American Series:

http://www.1847usa.com/1980identifier.htm

I put together this series with what I had in stock and was missing nine that I bought at mystic stamp company- very cheaply- 15 to 30cents on those stamps for used. On 5/1/2014 it was complete and I framed it and put it on my wall. I matted it somewhat with red and black construction paper and used a $2.00 frame from the thrift shop. I like to do sets like these to see instead of hiding in my usa stamp album where another set of these resides. I am working on the transportation series-i am missing 12 stamps and will hit mystic stamps up soon.- I see some have posted their complete (transportation) sets- they all look nice folks.

Looks nice - a great series .. well done!

It does look great but they will almost surely fade over time. Try to keep them out of direct sunlight. Great idea though!

Nice collection of covers next to Americana set. As ILS mentioned, they will fade, especially red ones. I am going to search for protecting stamps from fading to see what I can find.

That wall gets no sunlight. I used to work graveyard shift and am a bit of a nightowl in retirement and that hallway is at the back of the house never gets the sun.

Funny I thought about one of those covers was the son of the buggy business owner. He wrote this gal and hinted that he would be near her town on his father's business and that if she were to go shopping there he might see her, all the proprieties of 1875 of course. lol he was really dancing around wanting to see her but couldn't come out and say it for fear of offending.

I congratulate you on your taste in fine philatelic art.

Nice pieces of art. My story took a different turn. In 1987, I received the supplement page for the next lot of Great Americans. It had just empty dashed boxes with no image or even a Scott number to go by. This was in retrospect the last nail in the coffin that made me want to stop keeping up, and concentrating on other things. I just put the stamps in wherever.

20 years later it started bugging me that this was never completely organized. I checked it out and I actually didn't have all those Great Americans (and transportation issues), I needed 3 or 4 for it to be actually complete. I was then able to write in the Scott numbers and have an actual space for each stamp.






-IBFS

Bruce, here is a forum discussing several apparently intelligent options regarding the fading of framed things.

http://photo.stackexchange.com/ques...-from-fading


-IBFS

This series is even more interesting (i.e., fun) if you include all of the color, perf & tagging varieties. Although I think the Scott group may not have been entirely sober when they identified some of those color varieties.

My recently completed Great American series:

Hi stampfan9,

How come you have 3 entries for the 28c Sitting Bull? Are they just duplicates? Or varieties?

Dave N.

I can't answer for stampfan, of course, but I do know that they say this about the Great American series:

"The series is characterized by a standard definitive size, simple design and monochromatic colors. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing produced most of the stamps, but some were printed by private firms. Several stamps saw multiple printings. The result is many different varieties, with tagging being the key to understanding them."

I consider the Great Americans to be the last good classic style definitive series.

The Flora and Fauna, Distinguished Americans, and the dull ugly American Attic Junk quite unappealing.

Al

Back in the 80's I sold my John Lennon autograph...a few years later I contacted the buyer to see if he could send me a photo or photocopy of it...he had it framed and sadly it faded!...now worthless!
I frame a lot of my favorite paper ephemera...nothing of any great value is exposed to direct sunlight...and anything I don't want to take a chance on exposing to daylight etc..i scan and make a photo print....which looks just as good or even better than the original.

It's been a while since I looked at my collection, but I think at the time back then I assembled all of these in plate block or plate strip of 20 formats, with the possible exception of the many varieties. I always liked the designs.