Scott 651 commemorates the 150th anniversary of the surrender of Fort Sackville near British controlled Vincennes (Indiana) to George Rogers Clark. His 1729 victory was the key to American forces gaining control of the Northwest Territory. He had also captured the British outposts at Kaskaskis and Cahoki the year before.
Frederick C. Yohn's painting "Surrender at Fort Sackville" inspired the central design of the stamp. He is best known for his painting of George Washington at Valley Forge.
It was felt that a larger stamp format was needed to preserve the details of the design so the format was increased to 1 1/4 in. x 1 5/8 in., much like that of the Beacon Air Mail stamp of 1928 (Scott C11). That also gave rise to the concept of a bicolor stamp since the air mail stamp is bicolored. The planned frame would be carmine colored while the central design (vignette) of the new stamp would be colored black.
Since the flat plate printing press could only handle one color at a time, two stamp dies, one for the frame and one for the vignette were made. The engravings on the frame and vignette dies above hold mirror images of the planned design. The following bicolor die proof was made from the two dies.
Postmaster General (PMG) Harry S. New, whose home state was Indiana, approved the final prepared image of the new stamp on January 14, 1929 by signing a die proof card that he received from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP). The return of the signed card to the BEP gave them the signal to prepare printing plates from the frame and vignette dies and start production of the new stamp.
Two sets of printing plates would be required, one for printing the carmine frame and one for printing the black vignette. The plates would have only 100 stamp images because of the larger stamp dimensions. Plate number identifications would be engraved into plate top margins. The word "Top" was also added to the top margin of both sets of plates. That safeguard was to help press operators catch any final output where the frame Top and the vignette Top printed from each of the two press runs did not appear together. No more "Inverted Jennys". Illustrations of frame plate 19720 and vignette plate 19729 are shown below. Like the die proofs, the plate stamp images are mirror images of the stamp.
The printed press sheet after the frame and vignette press runs would then look like the following (17 in. x 13 1/2 in.). It would later be slit into left side and right side panes of 50 stamps each (8 1/2 in. x 13 1/2 in.) that would be sent to post offices.
If we remove the plate blocks from the left side and right side post office panes, we would see the following collectable matched left side and right side blocks.
12 different frame plates and 12 different vignette plates were used to produce 23.4 million stamps in early 1929. Every frame plate number exists in a plate number block combination with every vignette plate number. Thus, a complete collection of left and right pane combinations means 288 collectible plate blocks (see chart below). Although there are no rare combinations, completion of a full set is difficult and mixed centering is to be expected. I have a full set.
Posted 12/26/2025 12:42 pm
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