# 2782 FDC - 1993 29c National Postal Museum: Stamp and Bar code

U.S. #2782
1993 Stamp and Barcode – National Postal Museum

• Pictures four of the most well-known and prized US stamps ever issued, a nod to the National Postal Museum’s impressive collection
• One of four stamps honoring the opening of the Smithsonian National Postal Museum with historic items, images, and themes from US stamp and mail history

Stamp Category:  Commemorative
Set:  National Postal Museum
Value:  29¢, First Class Mail Rate
First Day of Issue:  July 30, 1993
First Day City:  Washington, DC
Quantity Issued:  150,000,000
Printed by:  American Bank Note Company
Printing Method:  Offset, Intaglio
Format:  Pane of 20 (Horizontal 4 across, 5 down)
Perforations:  11 x 10.9 (Bickel reciprocating stroke perforator)
Tagging:  Prephosphored paper (taggant added to tan offset ink)

Why the stamp was issued:  To commemorate the opening of the Smithsonian National Postal Museum with images of some of the most famous and beloved US stamps of all time.

About the stamp design:  The main subject of this design are the four stamps:  1860 90¢ Blue George Washington (US #39); 1901 2¢ Pan-American Exposition commemorative (US #295); 1918 24¢ Inverted Jenny Red and Blue Airmail error stamp (US #C3a); and 1930 65¢ Graf Zeppelin Airmail stamp.  The Inverted Jenny was chosen to represent the one in the National Postal Museum’s collection (straight edge on the right side).  All four stamps are tied to the background of the stamp design by a postmark:  Milledgeville, Georgia, May 3, with no year.  The postmark is engraved, along with the handwritten lines reproduced at the bottom of the stamp: 

“My Dear Cousin Mary,

Write often as your packages are more precious than gold dust.”

A bar code was included in the stamp design to represent “technological progress.”

Special design details:  The handwritten message at the bottom of the stamp originated from a letter written March 24, 1850, in San Francisco, California.  It was written by Charles W. Mulford to his cousin Mary Niles in Albany County, New York.  The letter was brought to the Smithsonian by David Comstock, a writer and historian from the old gold mining town of Red Dog, Nevada County, California.  It was part of a big collection of letters Comstock acquired, all relating to the family of Niles Searls, a New York lawyer who settled in Nevada City and later became a well-known judge and newspaper editor.  The letter was included in Comstock’s three-volume series, The Nevada County Chronicles which recounted the history of the county from pre-Gold Rush to the mid-1870s.

First Day City:  This stamp, along with the rest of the National Postal Museum set, was issued in Washington, DC, at the opening of the museum.  Four First Day of Issue cancellations were available:  two standard handstamps, one pictorial cancellation labeled “National Postal Museum Station” picturing a boy dropping a letter in a mailbox, and the fourth labeled “Ice Cream Station” picturing a bitten ice cream bar surrounded by ice and the words “Good Humor Ice Cream.”  While the ice cream cancellation may seem strange, Good Humor Ice Cream was at the National Postal Museum opening and has been an avid supporter of the Smithsonian Institution, including donating to its archives in 1992.

About the National Postal Museum set:  Due to its subject matter, this set of stamps went through an extensive design process before the final versions were chosen.  They also went through two different designers, beginning with Lou Nolan and ending with Richard Schlecht.  After many rounds of back and forth with the postal service, Nolan said “I had worked on it for a long time… I had submitted quite a few designs to them, and they would come back with more ideas, try this, try that, and I don’t know – I just didn’t think I was satisfying them… I’ve enjoyed doing what I’ve done; let somebody else have a try at it.”  When Schlecht was chosen as his successor, Nolan said, “There were no hard feelings at all.  I’ve known Dick (Schlect) for years.  He’s a wonderful artist, and I have all the respect in the world for him.  He has a different technique.  I was tickled to death at how the stamps turned out.”

Schlecht himself said of the designs, “It was the most complicated set of stamps I’ve done… Everybody was kind of out of breath by the time it was over.  The hard part was just nailing down all those concepts and making sure we covered everything, and then having to satisfy the Postal Service and the museum people and other folks involved.  It just took a while to work all that out and run it by everybody and let everybody have their input.”

History the stamp represents:  As early as 1896, the Post Office Department was considering using automobiles to replace horse-drawn vehicles.  Not only would they reduce the time needed to deliver mail, but it was also hoped they would reduce the number of postmen needed as well.  In 1899, experiments in Cleveland and Buffalo proved successful.  In fact the time to deliver mail was reduced considerably – by more than 50%!  Plus, automobiles could be used to equal advantage in both large metropolitan cities, as well as small towns and rural areas.

Shortly after the turn of the century the Post Office began earnestly testing the feasibility of using “motorized wagons.”  In 1906, Baltimore was selected as the site for the first city-wide testing of automobile service.  In time, automobiles dramatically changed the movement and organization of our mail service.

Eventually trucks replaced automobiles, which had a limited carrying capacity.  Ford Model A trucks were used by the Postal Service for nearly 25 years as the principal vehicle for city mail delivery.  So exhausted was the fleet of Model A’s by the end of its term that the vehicles were sold for a mere $8.00 per truck.