The Local Stamps

Overview by Gordon Stimmell

The golden age of local stamps, the privately printed adhesives used by enterprising individuals to deliver mail within many U.S. cities, ran from 1842 to 1860. The largest companies with the most extensive emissions, were Bloods in Philadelphia and Husseys and Boyds in New York City. In the Scott catalogue, several categories are combined in one comprehensive listing under Local Stamps, including some express companies, the Independent Mails, school and institutional stamps and the classic local posts. Most firms did strictly private business not involving the Post Office, but others acted in a supplemental capacity, delivering mail to and from the Post Office, especially where such service did not exist, or was lacking in efficiency or manpower. The majority of local posts had a very short shelf life, with some Valentine posts lasting mere days. Local posts operated out of stationery stores, tobacconist shops, book stores and other merchants venues, as well as in express company buildings.

The first local post stamp – and the first adhesive stamp in the U.S. – was issued by the City Despatch Post in February, 1842 (Scott 40L1), a successor to the New York Penny Post. The government within six months bought out and took over this pioneer City Despatch, but it was to little avail, as the seed had been planted. In Philadelphia, Robertson’s City Despatch issued crude stamps in 1842 and then the superb “mail strider” stamps (Scott 15L3) in 1843. By 1844, Boyd’s and Hussey’s began issuing stamps, along with the various Independent Mail companies. The explosion had begun. Dozens of companies sprang up by the late 1840s, in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, New Orleans and Buffalo, spreading in the 1850s to Baltimore and Washington, D.C., St. Louis, Cincinnati, Chicago, Camden, Newark, Pittsburgh and smaller towns.As the U.S. Post Office expanded services as a growing monopoly, scores of private posts were forced out of business. A last surge of local posts in the late 1870s and early 1880s was met with instant governmental suppression by postal authorities. Those private posts not suppressed by the government survived by reinventing themselves – Boyd’s and Hussey’s lasted into the 1880s and beyond by going into the circular business and serving institutions, such as banks and commercial companies on a contract basis.