Did The USA (Pre-1950) Print Stamps For Collectors Only?

Hi,
Just finished reading another comment how a country produced a line of stamps specifically destined for the collector community. Obviously this is pretty common these days, but the stories I've read were from pre 1950s and the stamps never hit general in country circulation/use.

So my question is, did the USA print stamps for collector use exclusively?

mobileman44,

This was the twilight of beautifully engraved USA stamps. The UPS issued less than 17 stamps (average) per year. Nothing stands out to me as to issues solely for collectors except perhaps for Scott 1075. Not like today where the USPS issues over a hundred stamps per year gouging the collector. To make matters worse, some of the "stamps" come in souvenir sheets requiring the collector to purchase 20 or more of the same stamp. I would gladly love to return to the 1950's. Gladly.

Jack Kelley

Jack,

I don't think that today's USPS is doing what the OP asked about. The USPS certainly doesn't mind stamps bought and not used by collectors, and does market to that. But the OP asked about stamps "specifically destined for the collector community" and even where some formats might be marketed for collectors, the stamps themselves are very much expected to be purchased and used for mail. The larger variety of stamps we see today is more a reflection of multiculti political correctness pandering to every conceivable identity classification. For that reason, as a letter to Linn's recently noted, in their annual "favorite stamp" poll, there seems to be far more "worst stamps" than "best stamps" to choose from these days. Almost by definition, stamps marketed to a small identity class are likely to generate more questionable or adverse opinions than favorable ones. The criteria for choosing topics for stamps these days are considerably different than when the USPS was only issuing 17 stamps a year.

Basil

Q/ Were there not contemporary complaints that the $1-$2-$3-$4-$5 Columbian values served little/no postal purpose?

Really nothing above the 15 cent value served any real purpose in the Columbian issue. Of course it could be argued that all commemoratives are philatelic. The zeppelin stamps were also philatelic when they were issued.

Farley's Follies might fall in to the "for collectors" category...certainly one collector at least - FDR

ikeyPikey - According to an article I read a short time ago, people did indeed complain about the cost of the full set of Columbians ($16.34), which was almost a week's pay for a simple laborer at the time.

Mobilman - I believe that oldguy is correct, the only stamps issued specifically for collectors were the souvenir sheets from 1934-1956. But all of those stamps were valid for postage, unlike some foreign "souvenir sheets" that are for philatelists only and cannot be used for postage.

New changes in U.S. stamps started occurring in the 1950's such as going from wet to dry printing and also going from mostly one colour to two colour printing, etc.

The stamp exhibition issues that started appearing in the 1920s were perhaps the first limited edition-type material (although the Austrians were making special perforations as a favour to wealthy philatelists in the nineteenth century). But, as revcollector says, commemoratives are almost always philatelic. As are air-mail stamps. The rash of airship and first flight to Never-Never Land stuff that appeared between the wars betrays thinking every bit as cynical as that behind the deserts-full of "dunes" issues.

Sorry blcjr. I misread what the OP was saying. Notice I didn't even refer to the proper decade! Its terrible getting old. Sometimes I think I'm running out of steam.

Jack Kelley

We're looking at the past thru the dunes (to coin a phrase).

I think that commemoratives began as a way for a government agency to entertain its voter-citizen-taxpayer customers, and to project national values, and to complement compulsory public education, with the collectors' cash as the convenient source of funds to cover the cost of a self-interested government effort.

"This message brought to you at no cost to you."

Yes, the tail came to wag the dog ...

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

The first issue to come to mind for me would be the White Plains sheet of 1926.

The Columbians were issued after much pressure from the philatelic community of the time. There were a number of articles being written 2 or 3 years before stating the "need" for a commemorative set. So there was a definite philatelic component to their being issued. I'm sure that "projecting national values" and "educating the public" were ideas that showed up eventually during the discussions, but collector dollars had a LOT to do with them being issued. And complaints about the cost meant that it was 5 years before there was another commemorative set issued. And then 3 years after that. And so on. In fact the "projecting national values" and "educating the public" idea did not really catch on until the collector boom of the 20's and neither did the steady issuing of commemoratives. When there was suddenly a lot of people collecting and spending money on stamps that would never be used, all of a sudden here comes the commemorative express ready to leave the Bureau of Engraving and Printing Central Station. What a surprise.

The USPS is delighted when collectors buy its issues without ever using them to frank mail--it's almost pure profit. But that's not the same as saying the stamps are exclusively or even primarily targeted for collectors. They are primarily meant to frank mail, and the great majority do. What does drive the topics address by commemorative stamps is politics, very broadly understood. Stamps celebrate patriots and patriotism in a manner parallel to the U.S. history courses that most or all secondary education institutions require of students, in which "pride" receives much more emphasis than "critical understanding." Members of Congress, sensitive to their constituents' encouragement, will lobby for certain principles and even organizations to be honored with a stamp. The best-known instance, or at least the most obvious one, of such political involvement in the determination of new stamp issues occurred in 1948, when a four-way race for the presidency made that year's election intensely contested, with the Republican Dewey, the incumbent Democrat Truman, the former vice-president Henry Wallace the Progressive Party's candidate, and Strom Thurmond the Dixiecrat candidate, with equally fierce competition in congressional and local races. In that year the Post Office released 28 new issues, as contrasted with 8 in 1947 and and 6 in 1949. With the possible exception of the stamp honoring the poultry industry none of these stamps explicitly developed out of that year's elections, but they nonetheless reflected the atmosphere in which Congress and the Truman Administration (the Postmaster General was still a political appointment) made every effort possible to please constituents. One way to do that was to issue a stamp constituents would warmly greet.

Compelling, revcollector, compelling.

Q/ Where did the idea (for the Columbian commemoratives) come from?

Since so many things flowed from the British Empire in those days, I took a quick run thru GB, and it seems that their first other-than-royal-head postage stamp was the 1924 British Empire Exhibition.

Germany (where is Artful, now that I need him?) seems to have made their first move beyond numbers-crests-and-heads in 1900, with two of the four stamps in that set looking to be inspired by the Columbians.

I understand that the 1893 Columbian Exposition was the proximate inpsiration, but the idea of co-issued postage stamps had to come from somewhere.

Q/ Do you suppose that the urge for commemorative stamps came from the postal cards over-printed for earlier events?

Q/ How do we feel about changing the spelling of "commemoratives" to the more elegant "commemoratifs"?

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

I am not a collector of U.S. Stamps, but aren't the "re-issues" of 1875 purely philatelic items?