1976 John Adams Stamp, Sold Single?

I've see. This stamp as part of. 4 stamp spread (forgive me that's not the appropriate word for stamps) but I was unable to find anything about these coming as singles. Clearly the one I have was not part of a spread. Please see picture. Thanks for any help!!

Where a strip of stamps of different designs is issued, they automatically becomes singles when the stamps within the strip are separated. Some people prefer to collect the strips, others the singles, others, both.

Yes, it was part of a set, but the person who bought these used only one at the time


Peter

These stamps were printed in sheets of 200, divided into panes of 50 for retail sale. There is a vertical gutter between left and right panes in the press sheet. Each pane of 50 has 10 stamps across by 5 down. Each horizontal row contains 2 sets of all 4 designs plus 2 additional stamps. Depending on which side of the press sheet a given pane is from, the 2 additional stamps can be either the left or right 2 from the 4 stamp design. A left side pane will have groups of 4, 4, and 2 stamps while a right side pane will be 2, 4, 4.

The illustrated stamp is from the rightmost column of a left side pane.

You can find images of several panes on eBay.

instead of spread, collectors use the term se-tenant

Similar to the Bicentennials.

I wonder the worlds longest se-tenant strip ? (Not a block) 7 ?
(No illegals Ajman Turkistan etc)

There are several strips of 10 that the US issued. One that comes to mind is Scott 1498a, the Postal Service Employees Issue of 1973.

And the Spirit of 76 stamp has the same anomaly as the Declaration of Independence stamp from the OP. It was issued in strips of 3, in panes of 10 stamps wide. 3 strips of 3 makes 9 stamps, plus one leftover. The leftover one has extra selvedge on the edge that cuts off part of the image. I think that is what the original poster meant by it appearing the particular stamp was issued as a sheet of singles rather than in strips because the image was not complete and was cut off in the piece of selvedge.

Commonly the USA issued stamps in panes of 50, 5x10 or 10x5. Now when designs are made from three or four stamps the full design does not fit in the "left over" areas. For the 4 stamp design, two additional stamps, one half of the design and for the 3 stamp design, one additional stamp, one third of the design is needed.

The panes shown below all come from press sheets which contain the image of four panes and which is cut into panes for sale at the post office. Your example comes from one pane of the four with part of the four stamp design ending at the edge of the pane. The stamp you show in your OP is the right most of a partial design pair with the right selvage attached. It is normal.





Edit: When I started this post ZebraMan's post above had not yet appeared.

Just so that there's no confusion, the July 4 pane pictured above is a "right side" pane, which shows the concept we're talking about, on its left edge.

(As mentioned above by philatomic, the OP stamp is from the right edge of a "left side" pane, so the exact position isn't shown, but the pane shows what is going on.)

That was a surprise, not seen the layout prior.
Nicely solved.

Se-tenant new record 11 stamps

from the internet
This one from India in 2009 on the 12th century poet Jayadeva & his poem Gita Govinda, the 11 stamps issued in a strip show the 10 incarnations of Vishnu. The strip is around 25 cms in length.