Stamp Collection
larsdog

Highlights

The major issue here is what kind of stamps should be included? By excluding stamps issued for use outside the U.S. (even if it was occupied territory) and stamps primarily issued for non-postage usage (e.g. Revenues), I settled on these categories that need to be in a comprehensive collection of U.S. Postage Stamps:

• Postage Due
• Parcel Post
• Parcel Post Postage Due
• Special Handling
• Special Delivery
• Registered Mail
• Certified Mail
• Express Mail & Priority Mail
• Semi-Postal Issues
• Department Officials
• Postal Savings Officials
• Modern Officials
• Newspapers and Periodicals
• Postal Insurance

I chose to move all Priority and Express issues to BOB since they seemed to belong with issues such as Special Delivery.

A good argument can be made that Postage Due isn't really postage at all. A similar argument can be made for Registered, Certified, and Insured stamps. I disagree, however, and choose to include those stamps in the main BOB album because they have a monetary value and are directly tied to the delivery services provided by the Post Office and are now often paid with regular postage stamps.

The hardest decision was regarding Computer Vended Postage. I included Postal Insurance, which was also vended (as were many bookets), but the difference is that Computer Vended Postage has the denomination printed on the spot. I decided to not include Computer Vended Postage. Instead, I consider it related to Personal Computer Postage and Personalized Postage and put a few illustrative examples in the Beyond BOB album.

Missing

• O69 - $5 State Department Official (have a proof as a placeholder).

Weeds

• page 1: The second series of Postage Dues could be considered weeds. The color difference is borderline to warrant inclusion. I opted to include them, but could have just as easily excluded them.

Postage Due catalog numbers:

The issues of 1879 - 1889 were light brown. J1-J7 were brown while J15-J21 were red brown. (J8-14 is a special printing with a CV of $90,000 so we can ignore that). The cheapest version of each has a used CV of only $259, but I opted to get J1-7 with a used CV of $340. J15-21 has a used CV of $768.

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The issue of 1891 - 1893 is J22-28. They are bright claret with a used CV of $516.

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The issues of 1894 - 1925 have various shades of red with various perforations and watermarks and range from J29 to J68. I opted to get J61-68 with a mint CV of $274. Below is a chart of the various catalog numbers for this series:

	perf 12				perf 10		perf 11
	unwatermarked		wmk 191	wmk 190		unwatermarked
	vermillion	deep claret			carmine lake	rose	carmine rose
½¢							J68
1¢	J29	J31	J38	J45	J52	J59	J61
2¢	J30	J32	J39	J46	J53	J60	J62
3¢		J33	J40	J47	J54		J63
5¢		J34	J41	J48	J55		J64
10¢		J35	J42	J49	J56		J65
30¢		J36	J43	J50	J57		J66
50¢		J37	J44	J51	J58		J67

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1930 brought a design change. The stamps were initially produced on a Flat Plate Press (J69-78 mint CV $419, plus the dry printing version J78a CV $33). In 1931 they were moved to the Rotary Press (J79-87 mint CV $50). The 1¢ through 10¢ denominations were also printed by the dry printing method (J80a-84a mint CV $2).

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The final design of Postage Due stamps arrived in 1959. It was a blank frame with the denomination added in black by rubber plates in a process similar to precanceling. J88-104 have a mint CV of $18.

Newspaper and Periodical catalog numbers:

PR1 is unique because of the blue border.
PR5-7 (CV $775) are just PR2-4 (mint CV $1400) issued without gum, so PR5-7 were used.

PR8 has an extra line of color at right, so it is included.

The series of 1875 (PR9-101) has several options. Below is a chart of the various catalog numbers for this series, with the lowest cost MNG option highlighted:

* The Special Printing and BEP catalog values are many times higher than the CBN/ABN prices so they are not shown.

Finally, the 1895 series just has two options:

• PR102-113 unwatermarked mint CV $20,610
• PR114-125 wmk 191 mint CV $385

The choice is rather obvious.

Click on any thumbnail image below to view the page full screen.

page J1	page J2	page J3	page J4	page J4a	page J4b
page J5	page E1	page E2	page E3	page Q1	page Q2
page Q3	page Q4	page O1	page O2	page O3	page O4
page O5	page O6	page O7	page O8	page O9
page P1	page P1a	page P2	page P3	page P4
page X01	page X02	page X03	page X04	page X05	page X06
page X07	page X08	page X09	page X10	page X11	page X12
page B1	page QI1	page QI2	page QI3	page QI4	page QI5

END OF COLLECTION (12-31-2014)

Beginning in 2015 I only collect modern U.S. in a limited way by purchasing the annual USPS Stamp Yearbook supplemented with the "Mail Use" and "High Value Mail" stamp packets. Prior to 2023 there we several issues with perforations trimmed off so I replaced those with intact examples. I also replaced several examples from USPS with ones I created making sure the stamps were in SNO (Scott Number Order). Finally, in 2023, I replaced the example provided by USPS for "Tulip Blossoms". USPS sent two coil strips of 5. I bought a booklet and used that instead.