1851 3¢ Issue

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Primers on the 3¢ Stamp of 1851-1860, by Charles J. DiComo, PhD
Introduction Overview to Plating
The 3¢ Plates Basic Plate Identification Guide
Plating the 3¢ Stamp Plating Guide to Recut Varieties
3¢ Stamp Statistics A Review of Imperforate Plate Impressions
3¢ Colors Color Varieties of the Imperforate Plate Printings
Identifying #10s Tips based on Impression, Color, Cancels, Plating, Proofs & Design
Philadelphia Cancellations A Study to Aid in 3¢ Identification and Color
Plate 5L Rust A Review of the Late State of Plate 5 – Surface Pitting & Corrosion
The Chase Plate Errors Dr. Carroll Chases Plating updated
Remembering Dr. Carroll Chase The Summer of ’59 with Dr. Carroll Chase
The 3¢ 1857-60 Perforated Issue EDUs Earliest Documented Uses of the 3¢ 1857 Perforated Issue

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The U.S. 3¢ Stamp of 1851-61, a Postal History and Use Retrospective
What follows are representative panels illustrating a sampling of items from my personal collections. These panels cover everything from Essays & Proofs, “SHIP”, “STEAM”, “WAY”, and “PAID” cancels, mis-struck Foreign Markings (e.g., “AACHEN”), Railroad, Route Agent, Name-of-Boat, and Educational Uses, as well as Postal History. I will continue to add more panels in the near future, so check back often.

I also illustrate examples of well-known platers handwriting throughout the past decades often found on the reverse of 3 Cent stamps as well as covers. Additionally, I show a very neat sterling silver box presented to Dr. Carroll Chase by the France & Colonies Group in the 1940’s that I obtained several years ago.

Every stamp and cover tells its own story, and a detailed description accompanies each. So take your time to examine and I hope you enjoy. As always, if you have any questions or comments, please drop an E-mail to Dr. Charles J. DiComo.

• Essays, Proofs, Bank Notes, Reliefs and Fancy Cancels
• 3¢ Plate Characteristics – #11/#11A on Card
• 3¢ Platers Markings and Sterling Silver Presentation Box
• 3¢ True Orange Browns – #10/#10A
• Plate 1L Experimental Orange Browns
• Railroad, N. York & Boston Express and Agent Markings
• Route Agent (e.g., Vickburg) and Name-of-Boat (e.g., “Natchez”) Markings
• Educational Institution Markings
• Mis-Struck Markings: Transatlantic, Transit, Entry, Packet and Thimble
• Mystery Cancels: Manuscript numerals, an in-office accounting?

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The Act of 1851 created sharply reduced postal rates that required a new issue of stamps to replace the 5¢ and 10¢ stamps of the 1847 issue. The 3¢ stamp was designed to pay the single letter rate (a letter weighing less than 1/2 ounce) for distances under 3,000 miles.

In contrast to the 1847 stamps, that saw only 4,400,000 of both values produced, it is estimated that over one billion 3¢ 1851 stamps were printed during its 10 year life. Large numbers of these have survived, to delight and sometimes confound both stamp specialists and postal historians.

Before the rate changes went into effect on July 1, 1851, the Postmaster General invited six Bank Note Engraving Companies to bid on the production of the new stamps. This notice specified that bids were to be accompanied by proposed designs for the 3¢ stamp only, although the contract was to initially cover three denominations—1¢, 3¢ and 12¢. The successful bidder was Toppan, Carpenter, Casilear & Co., headquartered in Philadelphia.

Essays & Proofs
Figure 1. The Toppan, Carpenter, Casilear & Co. dual essay. The left-hand design served as the base from which the 3¢ stamp was built.   Shown here is the nearly square dual essay of the design, with different shaped tablets for the lettering at the top and bottom, but with none of the ornaments that were eventually used along the edges, including the vertical inner lines. The general style shown on the left was adopted and the rectangular die proof (still bearing the layout lines, with the added inner lines, rosettes, diamond blocks and triangles along the edges, represents the final design of the stamp. [see Figures 1 & 2]

Figure 2. The die proof of the 3¢ stamp. It has not yet been “cleaned up” to remove stray bits of the tessellated work in white areas or the layout lines at left, top and bottom. The finished die was used to produce the transfer roll used to lay out the plates.

 

Plate Layout & Types
Toppan, Carpenter used a three image transfer roll made from the die to produce the imperforate stamps and a six image transfer roll for the stamps designed to carry perforations. The plates were similar to those that produced the 1847 stamps in that each consisted of two side by side panes consisting of 100 stamps each, separated by a gutter wider than the widest distance between the stamps. In contrast to the 1847 plates, they usually bore a vertical centerline that sometimes extended above the top row of stamps and below the bottom row of stamps.

There are three basic types of the finished stamps, each of which is defined by the nature of the frame lines that adjoin the design:

• Type I has four frame lines; top and bottom, right and left. Frame lines on the die generally transferred rather faintly to the transfer roll and sometimes not at all to the plate. Many of them were redrawn by hand directly on the plate by the engraver;

• Type IIa has two vertical frame lines, one at the right and one at the left of the design. The tops and bottoms of these lines are approximately at the same level as the top and bottom of the adjoining stamp design. Each was drawn directly on the plate by the engraver, and many of them are rather crooked, which makes their identification easy when the top and bottom of the frames are cut away or obscured by postal markings. The top and bottom frame lines have been removed;

• Type II also has two vertical frame lines, but in this case those lines are not “discontinuous” between vertical stamps. Here, the engraver adopted the time saving method of drawing each frame line on the plate from the top of the top stamps to the bottom of the bottom stamps, producing “continuous” vertical frames from the top to the bottom of the plate. This type also has the top and bottom frame lines removed.

Type I was designed for the “imperforate” plates, although stamps from some of the plates that were in use when the perforation machines were acquired were perforated.

Both Types IIa and II were designed for use with the perforators. The removal of the top and bottom frame lines were designed to provide more horizontal space so that perforation holes would be less likely to cut into the stamp design. The two plates of three states each that produced Type IIa stamps were laid down first, followed by all of the Type II plates.

The Scott Catalog lists more major numbers than there are types:
# 10. This is Type I, but includes only imperforate stamps printed in one of the orange brown shades that were used throughout 1851.

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#11. Also Type I on imperforate stamps in all the other known colors, printed from 1852 to 1857.

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#25. Type I stamps from the “imperforate” plates that were perforated before the “perforated” plates were put to press. [see Figure 5]

 

 Figure 5. Scott # 25, mint block of four from Plate 5 Late showing recut inner lines.

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#26. Type II stamps, printed from plates with continuous vertical frame lines. [see Figure 6]

 

Figure 6. Scott #26, mint block of 12 with continuous vertical frame lines.
click the image to enlarge

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#26a. Type IIa stamps printed from plates with discontinuous vertical frame lines.[see figure 7]

 

Figure 7. Scott #26a, mint block from Plate 10 (4-5/14-15R10, early state) with discontinuous vertical frame lines.

Note: This block was sold as part of Tom Alexander’s collection in Siegel Auction 839 (lot 301), where the positions were incorrectly stated to be 3-4, 13-14R10, early state. Plate positions corrected April 8, 2012.

 

Imprints & Recutting
Plate 1 Early was the only plate put to press before imprints were added in the margins of the plate. Imprints appear to the left of the left pane and to the right of the right pane on each plate, approximately centered between its top and bottom. The imprint was applied with a separate transfer roll. It originally read: “Toppan, Carpenter, Casilear & Co. BANK NOTE ENGRAVERS, Phila., New York, Boston & Cincinnati.” In 1854 John W. Casilear retired from the firm. Beginning in 1857 attempts were made to delete his name from the imprint by lifting the transfer roll after the work “Carpenter,” and dropping it down to the plate again beginning with “& Co.” These were never entirely successful and traces of “Casilear” usually remained on the plate. In 1860 a new transfer roll was adopted that omitted the name, but this was never used on a 3¢ plate. [see Figures 8 & 9]

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Plate 0 is the only 3¢ plate that was taken out of service before plate numbers were first used, hence its designation as “0.” The first plate used to print the 3¢ stamps did not receive its number until October, 1851, when it was reentered with the transfer roll and heavily recut, creating Plate 1 Late. Several early and intermediate states of some plates were also taken out of use before numbers were used: Plates 1 Early, 1 Intermediate, 2 Early and 5 Early. The Late states of each of these plates bore their appropriate numbers. While imprints were impressed on the plate with a special transfer roll, the plate numbers were all hand engraved directly onto the plate.

Figure 9. Earliest known use of any United States 3¢ stamp bearing plate number 1.It was used on December 31, 1851 at Philadelphia. The detail shows the “o” of “No” and ‘1.”

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The process of duplicating the design for the full plates of 200 stamps each was so imprecise that a very large number of recuttings and flaws, as well as double and triple transfers were produced. Recutting describes the attempt to deepen lines of the die that had transferred faintly if at all on many plates. This was done by hand rather than by re-entry with the transfer roll. Because they were done by hand each example is different from every other one. Twenty-nine plates were used to produce the 3¢ stamps. Several of these exist in more than one state, meaning that they were taken out of production at least once, were wholly or partially reentered with the transfer roll and sometimes recut (typically the frame lines or inner lines, but sometimes recutting occurs on other parts of the designs). Each of these reentries created a “new” plate for purposes of reconstructing the plates. The most extreme example is Plate 1, which has three states—Plate 1 Early, Plate 1 Intermediate and Plate 1 Late. The total number of stamp positions on all of these plates exceeded 6,000. Because of the recutting and the variations caused by the entry system, a great many of them can be assigned to their specific positions on a particular plate.

Attempting to reconstruct these plates has been an absorbing lifetime endeavor for generations of collectors, starting with Dr. Carroll Chase, whose pioneering work The 3¢ Stamp of the United States 1851-1857 Issue is still used by persons interested in “plating.” This effort was so widespread that in 1948 a society was formed, called “The Three Cent 1851-57 Unit of the American Philatelic Society.” The postal history of the 3¢ stamp was always a part of their research and eventually they turned their attention to both stampless covers and to all stamp issues prior to the time the Bureau of Engraving and Printing took over the production of United States stamps. In 1964 this group’s name was changed to the U.S. Philatelic Classics Society, Inc.

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Colors & PerforationsThe banknote companies that produced our early stamps experienced quality control problems with colors that contained red. This was particularly true of the 3¢ 1851-1861 stamps. Students have identified no fewer than 34 colors on imperforate stamps and 18 colors on perforated stamps. The orange brown colors used throughout 1851 were considered to be so distinctive by Dr. Chase that a separate Scott catalog number (#10) is assigned to them. All other catalog numbers are based on the nature of the frame lines that enclose the stamps and whether the stamps are imperforate or perforated.

Chicago Perfs were made on the Hadley Perforation Machine, by the businessman R.K. Swift who attempted to sell the perforating machine to Toppan Carpenter. At the time Toppan Carpenter had just purchased the Britiish Bemrose perforating machine. The Chicago perforation is sometimes known as the ‘sewing machine perf’

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By 1855 the British Post Office had begun to perforate their postage stamps, as a convenience in separating them. Prior to perforation stamps were cut from their sheets with scissors or some other method, including tearing them away, with or without the aid of a fold. But perforating machines required perfectly spaced and aligned stamps on a plate; otherwise, the perforations were bound to cut into at least some of the stamps. Perforated Type I stamps, made from the old “imperforate” plates (Scott 25) illustrate the problem—examples can rarely be obtained with all four margins intact. By 1856 the Postmaster General had determined to adopt perforations for United States stamps and in early 1857 they began to appear. A machine purchased from a British firm, Bemrose & Co., was used. This was a rouletter but was modified by Toppan, Carpenter & Co. in Philadelphia to produce perforations rather than slitting.

Figure 12. Earliest known use of an officially perforated United States stamp. It entered the mail at Philadelphia on February 28, 1857.
Postal HistoryPostal history associated with some 3¢ covers exemplifies the exciting history of the period or explosive changes in the way the mails were carried. The categories of postal history collecting during this decade are almost as voluminous and complex as the stamps themselves. A few of those are shown here, from the ominous approach of the Civil War to the freaky madness of a lad attempting to gain the attention of his girl friend by decorating the entire face of his envelope with the stamp.

 

 

Demonetization

The contract with Toppan, Carpenter & Co. was due to expire on June 30, 1861 and advertisements had invited bids for the new contract. The National Bank Note Company was the successful bidder but was unable to begin distributing the new stamps until late August. In the meantime, Toppan, Carpenter & Co. continued to supply stamps to the government, without a contract.

The Postmaster General was concerned about large quantities of stamps that remained in the hands of southern postmasters and decided to render them useless by “demonetization.” Because the new 1861 stamps were supplied to selected cities as supplies became available, a rolling type of exchange of the old stamps for the new was adopted. When the new stamps were received at a post office the postmaster advertised in a local paper, giving the public five days in which to make the exchange. After that time, the old stamps would no longer be accepted for postage. Attempted uses after local demonetization gave rise to a number of explanatory markings, the most famous of which is the OLD STAMPS/NOT RECOGNIZED used at Philadelphia.

Figure 24. The SOUTHN LETTER/UNPAID handstamp was struck over the North Carolina PAID on June 27, 1861, just 27 days after the U.S. Post Office Department had suspended mail service to the seceded states. The 3¢ stamp was ignored and the addressee paid 3¢ in cash to receive it.

Helpful Links
The Swedish Tiger’s US Stamp Site An illustrated Guide
Siegel Encyclopedia (1857-60 Issue)
Civil War Timeline, at Siegel Encyclopedia

 

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