# 1930 - 1981 18c American Architecture: Palace of Arts
1981 18¢ Palace of the Arts
American Architecture
City: New York, NY
Quantity: 41,827,000
Panama-Pacific Exposition
As early as 1891, businessmen from San Francisco had wanted to host a world’s fair in their city. They wanted to show the rest of the nation the progress they had made in transforming the small frontier town into a growing city complete with the world’s most active mint.
The fair ran until December 4, 1915. During that time, over 18 million visitors attended the fair.
As early as 1904, the Post Office Department began planning a set of commemoratives to advertise the exposition to celebrate both the discovery of the Pacific Ocean and the completion of the Panama Canal. By 1912, the designs for the 1¢, 2¢, and 5¢ stamps had been prepared and approved. However, the design for the 10c issue posed a problem. Originally, the stamp was to depict Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, who discovered the California mainland in 1542. But efforts to find a portrait of him proved unsuccessful. Eventually, a painting of the discovery of San Francisco Bay was unearthed. Found to be an acceptable design, it was adopted by the Post Office Department, and work on the stamp progressed rapidly. Six short months later, the Panama-Pacific Commemoratives were placed on sale.
Due to the fact that the exposition didn’t open until February 1915, the series remained current for nearly three years – longer than any other commemorative! However, the Post Office began to receive complaints that regular issue stamps were too brittle, so they started issuing stamps with 10 perforations per two centimeters, instead of the previous 12. The Panama-Pacific set was reissued with the new perforation size. However, since collectors had already purchased the perf. 12 stamps, the newer issues were mostly ignored. This makes them scarcer today.
This stamp is part of a block of four paying tribute to American architecture, and illustrating the beauty and diversity of four architects' work. The stamps show the New York University Library by Stanford White, the Biltmore House by Richard Morris Hunt, the Palace of the Arts by Bernard Maybeck and the National Farmer's Bank by Louis Sullivan.
1981 18¢ Palace of the Arts
American Architecture
City: New York, NY
Quantity: 41,827,000
Panama-Pacific Exposition
As early as 1891, businessmen from San Francisco had wanted to host a world’s fair in their city. They wanted to show the rest of the nation the progress they had made in transforming the small frontier town into a growing city complete with the world’s most active mint.
The fair ran until December 4, 1915. During that time, over 18 million visitors attended the fair.
As early as 1904, the Post Office Department began planning a set of commemoratives to advertise the exposition to celebrate both the discovery of the Pacific Ocean and the completion of the Panama Canal. By 1912, the designs for the 1¢, 2¢, and 5¢ stamps had been prepared and approved. However, the design for the 10c issue posed a problem. Originally, the stamp was to depict Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, who discovered the California mainland in 1542. But efforts to find a portrait of him proved unsuccessful. Eventually, a painting of the discovery of San Francisco Bay was unearthed. Found to be an acceptable design, it was adopted by the Post Office Department, and work on the stamp progressed rapidly. Six short months later, the Panama-Pacific Commemoratives were placed on sale.
Due to the fact that the exposition didn’t open until February 1915, the series remained current for nearly three years – longer than any other commemorative! However, the Post Office began to receive complaints that regular issue stamps were too brittle, so they started issuing stamps with 10 perforations per two centimeters, instead of the previous 12. The Panama-Pacific set was reissued with the new perforation size. However, since collectors had already purchased the perf. 12 stamps, the newer issues were mostly ignored. This makes them scarcer today.
This stamp is part of a block of four paying tribute to American architecture, and illustrating the beauty and diversity of four architects' work. The stamps show the New York University Library by Stanford White, the Biltmore House by Richard Morris Hunt, the Palace of the Arts by Bernard Maybeck and the National Farmer's Bank by Louis Sullivan.