Please click a value for in-depth detail.
The Columbian issue of 1893 was an ambitious project that was scaled back at the last moment. The series was intended to be issued as bi-colors and some essays were created using two colors. It was soon realized that the expense of this printing method would be a hard sell to congress so late in the design process the idea of bi-color stamps was dropped.
When the designs were made public the press had a field day, much fun was made of the font used on the one cent, whereby “Columbus in sight of land” was read as “Columrus in sight of land.”
Created to celebrate the great Columbian Exposition of 1893 held in Chicago each value depicted a scene related to the life of Christopher Columbus, with the highest value, the $5, featuring a medallion of Columbus. There had never been a stamp greater than 90¢ issued in the US and here was the Post Office Department issuing a $1, $2, $3, $4 and $5 value. There was no practical use for the last four values, the suspicion being that they were created to milk money from stamp collectors. Indeed there was much complaining by the hobbyists that these were too expensive for the average collector to purchase all sixteen values. The complaints were echoed by Senator Walcott at the time:
“I have been at a total loss to understand why the Columbian stamps were ever manufactured. I find upon referring to the report of the Postmaster General, in which he asks, and very properly, for increased appropriations, appropriations aggregating some eighty million dollars, that he expects to receive one and half million dollars extra profit out of these stamps by selling them to stamp collectors. This is a trick practiced by the Central American States when they are short of funds. They get up a new stamp and sell to stamp collectors all over the world, and get money for it. It seems to me that this is too great a country to subject sixty million people to the inconvenience of using this big concern in order that we may unload cruel and unusual stamps upon stamp collectors to fill their albums.”
The critics were to be proved wrong, within a few days the new stamps were a sensation. Two billion commemorative Columbian stamps were sold for forty million dollars and were credited to a factor in the Expositions success. Most collectors confined themselves to $1 and under values, however there was a buying spree on the top $5 value due to an article in Meekel’s Stamp Monthly, that appeared at the time. The article noted that the $5 was the least popular and predicted that it would become the most valuable of the issue, as a result. So many collectors purchased the $5 that the market was flooded and soon folks were looking to sell them, for almost a decade the $5 was sold at less than $5, it proving to be useless than any other purpose than for collecting.
This was the swan song for the American Bank Note Company, the printing of stamps being taken over in 1894 by the governments Bureau of Printing and Engraving. The stamps of the Columbian issue were printed from plates of 200 subjects bearing a horizontal arrow midway on each side and these printed sheets were divided into panes of 100 stamps by cutting horizontally thru the arrows yielding four varieties, Nos. 6, 7, 10 and 11, all found on the unperforated selvedge at the top or bottom of the sheet.
As mentioned, the stamps depicted the life of Columbus, the historical order of the stamps is as follows; $5, 30¢, 5¢, 50¢, $1, 3¢, 4¢, 1¢, 2¢, 6¢, 15¢, 10¢, $2, $3, $4. The $1 design was not included in the historical order as it is an event of rather doubtful authenticity.
The stamps were reissued as souvenir sheets in 1992.
Siegel Encyclopedia – 1893 Columbian Issue
Please click a value for in-depth detail.
