1986 25c Great Americans: Jack London
# 2182 FDC - 1986 25c Great Americans: Jack London
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U.S. #2182
1986 25¢ Jack London
Great Americans
- 27th stamp in Great Americans Series
- First engraved definitive printed on A Press without floating plate numbers
- London is considered an innovator of what eventually became known as science fiction.
Stamp Category: Definitive
Series: Great Americans
Value: 25¢, provided make-up postage on heavy items such as parcel post
First Day of Issue: January 11, 1986
First Day City: Glen Ellen, California
Quantity Issued: 59,850,000
Printed by: Bureau of Engraving and Printing
Printing Method: Engraved
Format: Panes of 100 in sheets of 800
Perforations: 11
Color: Blue
Why the stamp was issued: This stamp didn’t meet any particular postal rate but was meant to be used for make-up postage on heavy items such as parcel post.
About the stamp design: The portrait on this stamp was created by Richard Sparks. It was based on a 1914 photograph of London. Sparks had previously designed five other stamps in the Great Americans Series.
About the printing process: Since the 1970s, the BEP’s Huck and Andreotti presses made plate block collecting a challenge. The “floating” plate numbers could appear up and down the selvage, requiring collectors to find strips of 10 or 20 stamps to get them all. Eventually, the Huck press was removed from use and Andreotti-printed stamps replaced the five-digit BEP numbers with one- or two-digit codes. This became the practice on all the BEP’s presses by 1981.
However, the A Press still posed a problem. Its cylinders were designed to print 460 commemoratives of 920 definitives per revolution. There was no way to place the plate numbers in the same spot on panes of 50 commemoratives or 100 definitives. As a result, the plate numbers floated around the panes, appearing anywhere in the selvage, and sometimes twice on one pane.
In 1985, the Eureka high-speed, off-press perforators solved the problem. These machines could perforate and cut 300 feet of stamps per minute. This saved considerable time over the old system that required the large rolls of stamps to be sliced into sheets and then hand-fed into the L perforators. However, the Eureka needed gutters between the stamp panes. The BEP was now able to solve two problems with one solution. The new A Press cylinders would contain 800 definitives (rather than 920) and 400 commemoratives (rather than 460), creating the needed space for gutters in between the panes. This small amount of paper waste was more than made up for by the valuable time saved. The 1985 22¢ Madonna and Child (US #2165) was the first commemorative printed by this new method, while the Jack London stamp was the first engraved definitive.
First Day City: The First Day ceremony for this stamp was held at the Dunbar Elementary School, in Glen Ellen, California, where London spent his later years. It’s also home to the Jack London State Historical Park.
Unusual fact about this stamp: Error varieties of this stamp include tagging omitted, imperforate between, and all color omitted.
About the Great Americans Series: The Great Americans Series was created to replace the Americana Series. The new series would be characterized by a standard definitive size, simple design, and monochromatic colors.
This simple design included a portrait, “USA,” the denomination, the person’s name, and in some cases, their occupation or reason for recognition. The first stamp in the new series was issued on December 27, 1980. It honored Sequoyah and fulfilled the new international postcard rate that would go into effect in January 1981.
The Great Americans Series would honor a wider range of people than the previous Prominent Americans and Liberty Series. While those series mainly honored presidents and politicians, the Great Americans Series featured people from many fields and ethnicities. They were individuals who were leaders in education, the military, literature, the arts, and human and civil rights. Plus, while the previous series only honored a few women, the Great Americans featured 15 women. This was also the first definitive series to honor Native Americans, with five stamps.
The Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) produced most of the stamps, but private firms printed some. Several stamps saw multiple printings. The result was many different varieties, with tagging being the key to understanding them. Though there were also differences in perforations, gum, paper, and ink color.
The final stamp in the series was issued on July 17, 1999, honoring Justin S. Morrill. Spanning 20 years, the Great Americans was the longest-running US definitive series. It was also the largest series of face-different stamps, with a total of 63.
Click here for all the individual stamps and click here for the complete series.
History the stamp represents: Acclaimed writer Jack London was born on January 12, 1876, in San Francisco, California. Born John Griffith Chaney, the future author adopted the name “Jack” at an early age. And he took the surname London from his step-father John London, a Civil War veteran.
The young London credited his rise to literary success to his reading of the Victorian novel Signa in 1885. He spent many of his childhood hours in the Oakland Public Library with librarian and future poet laureate, Ina Coolbrith.
To help support his struggling family, London began working in a cannery in 1889. Desperate for a more exciting life, he borrowed money to buy a ship and became an oyster pirate. When that ship became damaged beyond repair, he took a job with the California Fish Patrol. London then joined a sealing schooner off the coast of Japan. During that voyage, his ship was caught in a typhoon that nearly killed everyone on board.
When he returned home, London took a job in a jute mill earning 10¢ an hour. One day he told his mother the dramatic story of the typhoon, and she convinced him to enter it in a local writing contest. With just an eighth-grade education, London won the $25 first prize, beating college students. London believed he had found his calling.
But making a living as a writer wasn’t as easy as London had hoped. Unable to find a publisher, he briefly attended the University of California at Berkeley. After hearing stories of the gold strikes in the Alaska Klondike, London loaded a steamship with supplies and headed north through the Inside Passage of Alaska. Arriving in Alaska in the fall of 1897, London and his men used handmade boats to travel the dangerous One Mile and Whitehorse Rapids.
Once in Dawson City, London found that most of the gold was already claimed. One of the fortunate few, he and his men found gold in the Stewart River. Occupying a cabin near a popular crossroads, London hosted many miners as they passed through the area. Many of them shared their stories with him. These stories formed the basis of some of his greatest works, including White Fang and The Call of the Wild.
Returning to California in 1898, London recommitted himself to getting published. The Overland Monthly paid him $5 to publish his first story in years – “To the Man on Trail.” He was disappointed, but continued writing. London was relieved when The Black Cat bought his story, “A Thousand Deaths” for $40. In the coming years, new printing technology led to a boom in magazines for a wide variety of interests. London benefited, selling story after story. One of London’s most famous works, The Call of the Wild, was first published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1903. It was then released as a short novel, earning London significant fame.
In 1904, London took a job with the San Francisco Examiner covering the Russo-Japanese War. Over the course of six months there, he was arrested four times and eventually returned to America.
Hoping to find more financial success, London bought a ranch in Glen Ellen, California, in 1905 and frequently added to it. He once claimed that “Next to my wife, the ranch is the dearest thing in the world to me.” Soon, his writing became a means to expand his beloved ranch. However, the ranch was never economically successful for London.
London also used the earnings from his writing to buy a yacht, which he and his second wife used to visit Hawaii and Australia. During their 1907 visit to Hawaii, London witnessed surfing for the first time. He tried it himself and then wrote a long essay about it, titled, “A Royal Sport.” It was published in Women’s Home Companion that October, and is often credited with giving surfing national attention in America.
London’s adventurous life and alcoholism took a toll on his health, leading to his death at just 40 years old on November 22, 1916.
U.S. #2182
1986 25¢ Jack London
Great Americans
- 27th stamp in Great Americans Series
- First engraved definitive printed on A Press without floating plate numbers
- London is considered an innovator of what eventually became known as science fiction.
Stamp Category: Definitive
Series: Great Americans
Value: 25¢, provided make-up postage on heavy items such as parcel post
First Day of Issue: January 11, 1986
First Day City: Glen Ellen, California
Quantity Issued: 59,850,000
Printed by: Bureau of Engraving and Printing
Printing Method: Engraved
Format: Panes of 100 in sheets of 800
Perforations: 11
Color: Blue
Why the stamp was issued: This stamp didn’t meet any particular postal rate but was meant to be used for make-up postage on heavy items such as parcel post.
About the stamp design: The portrait on this stamp was created by Richard Sparks. It was based on a 1914 photograph of London. Sparks had previously designed five other stamps in the Great Americans Series.
About the printing process: Since the 1970s, the BEP’s Huck and Andreotti presses made plate block collecting a challenge. The “floating” plate numbers could appear up and down the selvage, requiring collectors to find strips of 10 or 20 stamps to get them all. Eventually, the Huck press was removed from use and Andreotti-printed stamps replaced the five-digit BEP numbers with one- or two-digit codes. This became the practice on all the BEP’s presses by 1981.
However, the A Press still posed a problem. Its cylinders were designed to print 460 commemoratives of 920 definitives per revolution. There was no way to place the plate numbers in the same spot on panes of 50 commemoratives or 100 definitives. As a result, the plate numbers floated around the panes, appearing anywhere in the selvage, and sometimes twice on one pane.
In 1985, the Eureka high-speed, off-press perforators solved the problem. These machines could perforate and cut 300 feet of stamps per minute. This saved considerable time over the old system that required the large rolls of stamps to be sliced into sheets and then hand-fed into the L perforators. However, the Eureka needed gutters between the stamp panes. The BEP was now able to solve two problems with one solution. The new A Press cylinders would contain 800 definitives (rather than 920) and 400 commemoratives (rather than 460), creating the needed space for gutters in between the panes. This small amount of paper waste was more than made up for by the valuable time saved. The 1985 22¢ Madonna and Child (US #2165) was the first commemorative printed by this new method, while the Jack London stamp was the first engraved definitive.
First Day City: The First Day ceremony for this stamp was held at the Dunbar Elementary School, in Glen Ellen, California, where London spent his later years. It’s also home to the Jack London State Historical Park.
Unusual fact about this stamp: Error varieties of this stamp include tagging omitted, imperforate between, and all color omitted.
About the Great Americans Series: The Great Americans Series was created to replace the Americana Series. The new series would be characterized by a standard definitive size, simple design, and monochromatic colors.
This simple design included a portrait, “USA,” the denomination, the person’s name, and in some cases, their occupation or reason for recognition. The first stamp in the new series was issued on December 27, 1980. It honored Sequoyah and fulfilled the new international postcard rate that would go into effect in January 1981.
The Great Americans Series would honor a wider range of people than the previous Prominent Americans and Liberty Series. While those series mainly honored presidents and politicians, the Great Americans Series featured people from many fields and ethnicities. They were individuals who were leaders in education, the military, literature, the arts, and human and civil rights. Plus, while the previous series only honored a few women, the Great Americans featured 15 women. This was also the first definitive series to honor Native Americans, with five stamps.
The Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) produced most of the stamps, but private firms printed some. Several stamps saw multiple printings. The result was many different varieties, with tagging being the key to understanding them. Though there were also differences in perforations, gum, paper, and ink color.
The final stamp in the series was issued on July 17, 1999, honoring Justin S. Morrill. Spanning 20 years, the Great Americans was the longest-running US definitive series. It was also the largest series of face-different stamps, with a total of 63.
Click here for all the individual stamps and click here for the complete series.
History the stamp represents: Acclaimed writer Jack London was born on January 12, 1876, in San Francisco, California. Born John Griffith Chaney, the future author adopted the name “Jack” at an early age. And he took the surname London from his step-father John London, a Civil War veteran.
The young London credited his rise to literary success to his reading of the Victorian novel Signa in 1885. He spent many of his childhood hours in the Oakland Public Library with librarian and future poet laureate, Ina Coolbrith.
To help support his struggling family, London began working in a cannery in 1889. Desperate for a more exciting life, he borrowed money to buy a ship and became an oyster pirate. When that ship became damaged beyond repair, he took a job with the California Fish Patrol. London then joined a sealing schooner off the coast of Japan. During that voyage, his ship was caught in a typhoon that nearly killed everyone on board.
When he returned home, London took a job in a jute mill earning 10¢ an hour. One day he told his mother the dramatic story of the typhoon, and she convinced him to enter it in a local writing contest. With just an eighth-grade education, London won the $25 first prize, beating college students. London believed he had found his calling.
But making a living as a writer wasn’t as easy as London had hoped. Unable to find a publisher, he briefly attended the University of California at Berkeley. After hearing stories of the gold strikes in the Alaska Klondike, London loaded a steamship with supplies and headed north through the Inside Passage of Alaska. Arriving in Alaska in the fall of 1897, London and his men used handmade boats to travel the dangerous One Mile and Whitehorse Rapids.
Once in Dawson City, London found that most of the gold was already claimed. One of the fortunate few, he and his men found gold in the Stewart River. Occupying a cabin near a popular crossroads, London hosted many miners as they passed through the area. Many of them shared their stories with him. These stories formed the basis of some of his greatest works, including White Fang and The Call of the Wild.
Returning to California in 1898, London recommitted himself to getting published. The Overland Monthly paid him $5 to publish his first story in years – “To the Man on Trail.” He was disappointed, but continued writing. London was relieved when The Black Cat bought his story, “A Thousand Deaths” for $40. In the coming years, new printing technology led to a boom in magazines for a wide variety of interests. London benefited, selling story after story. One of London’s most famous works, The Call of the Wild, was first published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1903. It was then released as a short novel, earning London significant fame.
In 1904, London took a job with the San Francisco Examiner covering the Russo-Japanese War. Over the course of six months there, he was arrested four times and eventually returned to America.
Hoping to find more financial success, London bought a ranch in Glen Ellen, California, in 1905 and frequently added to it. He once claimed that “Next to my wife, the ranch is the dearest thing in the world to me.” Soon, his writing became a means to expand his beloved ranch. However, the ranch was never economically successful for London.
London also used the earnings from his writing to buy a yacht, which he and his second wife used to visit Hawaii and Australia. During their 1907 visit to Hawaii, London witnessed surfing for the first time. He tried it himself and then wrote a long essay about it, titled, “A Royal Sport.” It was published in Women’s Home Companion that October, and is often credited with giving surfing national attention in America.
London’s adventurous life and alcoholism took a toll on his health, leading to his death at just 40 years old on November 22, 1916.