Curiosities From The B E P Certified Proof Collection

The 1/3 barrel existed because the miners out west wanted their beer, and that was the largest quantity a mule could carry up into the mountains. So the 1/6th barrel and 1/3rd barrel stamps were created to serve that purpose.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who is exploring these proofs! There are some great things to be found in this collection. Like these...



https://americanhistory.si.edu/coll...nmah_1624788



https://americanhistory.si.edu/coll...nmah_1624787

It's been a while since anything new was posted here so I thought I would take it upon myself to show a couple more proofs just to keep the conversation going.

An unissued Fermented Fruit Juice stamp. 4 plates were certified around the middle of September 1933 and since their use was no longer required after December 4, 1933 I suspect that they were never printed because they were not going to be needed.

https://americanhistory.si.edu/coll...7219.242092&

A Special Tax Stamp for Retail Dealer in Filled Cheese

https://americanhistory.si.edu/coll...7219.161190&

A Special Tax Stamp for a Manufacturer of Mixed Flour

https://americanhistory.si.edu/coll...7219.161125&

A Special Tax Stamp for a Wholesale Dealer in Filled Cheese

https://americanhistory.si.edu/coll...7219.161185&

Thanks for giving this topic a bump. I should get back into the philatelic proofs a bit more; I haven't done a lot of digging into them.

Back in August, I had the pleasure of viewing some of the certified proofs in person. Although there are more than 250,000 images viewable online, there are still a great many that did *not* get scanned during the digitization project. There were a number of boxes I was curious about, so I asked if I could come visit the National Museum of American History, where they are housed. I was only in DC for a few hours, but what an interesting visit!

Most of what I saw was lithographed material, which was apparently given lower priority. And most was either currency or treasury bond proofs. But there was one box I knew of that was simply titled "Misc Postage" -- this surprised me, knowing that all the USPO material was supposed to have been transferred to the National Postal Museum.

Turns out this box contained proofs of coil wrappers! Big ones, too -- rolls of up to 3000! Because of their size these were all folded. Not the most attractive items in the collection, but certainly intriguing.

There were also cigar strips and tobacco revenues, but I had to whip through those and didn't get many pictures. A massive storm blew in and all government buildings were required to close early. I had to clear out at 3 p.m. along with all the other museum visitors. We ended up standing on the street getting drenched!

While combing through an obscure group of "Misc. Composites" today, I came across this interesting oddball proof sheet. It looks like the BEP was experimenting with positioning. The full sheet also has blocks of Puerto Rican revenues. This has an approval date of Aug. 4, 1964.



https://americanhistory.si.edu/coll...nmah_1716859

I also came across a plate for testing electric eye markings from 1962. Pretty unassuming proof sheet, but with some postal history significance.



https://americanhistory.si.edu/coll...nmah_1716873

While the certified proofs held by the Nat. Museum of American History are fairly accessible online (at least those that were scanned), the proofs held by the Nat. Postal Museum are much less so. Only 2,000 of the 35,000 proof sheets at the NPM were scanned. However, there are some very interesting proofs that can be viewed on the NPM website. One in particular is this very unusual collage of stamps, used to test the Huck Press:



https://postalmuseum.si.edu/exhibit...-plate-proof

The other scans can be viewed here:
https://postalmuseum.si.edu/exhibit...plate-proofs

Really interesting item.

The 6¢ Garfield (Scott 224) is accepted as the first issued postage stamp printed by the BEP, with a release date of July 18, 1894. However, it was not the BEP's first approved stamp -- that honor goes to the 1¢ ultramarine Franklin, Scott 246. This design was approved in early June 1894.

Here is the earliest BEP proof sheet I've been able to locate in the NPM collection -- plate #6, approved June 7, 1894.



https://postalmuseum.si.edu/object/npm_0.242263.6

I had assumed that Plate #1 would also be a Franklin but, in fact, it was the 2¢ Washington. And here it is. However, this proof sheet was not approved until June 19, 1894.



https://postalmuseum.si.edu/object/npm_0.242263.1

Greg - I think your Scott Catalogue reference to number 224 (6¢) as the first BEP issued postage stamp is incorrect. Scott 224 was not printed by the BEP! Perhaps you meant Scott 256. If you had consulted the Durland Catalog, you would have known that Scott 256 was printed from plate number 28. Plate numbers 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7 through 13 were used to print Scott 248, 249, and 250; plate numbers 2 and 6 were used to print Scott 246 (1¢ Franklin), as you have pictured. The only thing you have added is one or two approval dates.

You are correct -- I meant Scott 256 not 224. I thought I fixed that but obviously didn't.

The approval date for Plate 28, the 6¢ Garfield, was July 9. Why would the 1¢ Franklin, approved more than a month earlier, not have been the first in the series to be released?

Edit: I see what happened -- I started a similar thread over here:
http://goscf.com/t/86175
I did make the correction on that thread.

The approval date for Plate 28, the 6¢ Garfield, was July 9. Why would the 1¢ Franklin, approved more than a month earlier, not have been the first in the series to be released?
If you go through the BEP's plate printing data, that happened a lot through the decades.

The usual steps were 1. Plate assignment 2. Plate certification 3. Plate to press 4. Finished sheets go out to POs 5. Plate cancellation.

Usually several plates (with different stamp values) were "active" during the same periods. What goes to the printer and what stays in the vault usually was a question of "what do we need the most now?", so there usually never was a 1:1 correlation between plate numbers made and plate numbers in the wild.

Greg,

I do not actively collect U.S. postage stamps. But similar anomalies are also found among the revenues. For example, the cigarette stamps in the 1932-55 period were released each year in January. But in my cancellation collection of the same, the cigarette manufacturers without exception were still using the previous year's issue in January. Why? Probably because they had enough stock on hand and wished to exhaust their supply before jumping to the new year's issue.

So, we will probably never get a definitive answer to your question as to why the 6¢ Garfield was the first "issued." A reasonable hypothesis is that some post office had run out of the 6¢ denomination, while all post offices were still well stocked on the 1¢ denomination. It would appear from the Scott U.S. Specialized Catalogue that the denominations (other than the 6¢) were all "issued" in the September through November period. No doubt these other denominations were printed contemporaneously with the 6¢ denomination.

Here are the Bureau of Engraving and Printing records for plates 1 - 24.

From the other topic, it appears that the first two shipments of those 6¢ stamps went to NYC post offices. So it makes sense that they might have run low and made the initial request. NYC was also where the first use cancellation was documented on 8/11/94.

P.D. Guy -- that BEP data is very interesting. Thanks for posting. Do you have the data for plate 28?

Agreed and I would add that there could also be other manufacturing process issues at play. For example, someone got sick, had a vacation, or some other personal reason to take time off. Or there may have been weather issues in getting signed approval documents sent back and forth. Or there may have been other supply chain issues creating delays during the approval, engraving, proof/machining processes.
Don