30¢ Jefferson

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STATISTICS
Issued: Introduced on February 22nd, 1890. The earliest recorded example is 14th April, 1890.

Plate Size: Sheets of 200 subjects (2 panes of 100).

Printer: The American Bank Note Company.

Watermark: None.

Quantity Issued: 1,735,018.

Color: Full black, black or gray black.

Common use: The stamp was primarily used to pay for large domestic rates and in combination with other denominations, to fulfill foreign destination rates.


THE INSPIRATION FOR THE DESIGN
The 1890 30¢ design is essentially a reworked design of the Jefferson bust that appears on the 1870 10¢.
Shown below is a version, that very nearly made it as the default Jefferson bust to be used. Next to it is one of the many essays of the final 1870 version.Below is shown the 1870 10¢, note the similar bust used as in the 1894 50¢ vignette. The 1870 rendition of the bust was criticized in that it was said that Jefferson was appearing to be falling asleep or nodding off. This was corrected in the 1894 design, the vignette was tilted a tad to the right and the eyes reworked, the whole effect being one ‘wide-awake’ third president of the United States.

The resemblance between Houdon’s bust of Thomas Jefferson and this rendition is quite marked.

VARIETIES

The only known variety is the imperforate printing shown above.

ESSAYS AND PROOFS

References

• Brookman, Lester G., U.S. Postage Stamps of the 19^th Century, Lindquist 1966

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Helpful Links.com
The Swedish Tiger’s US Stamp Site An illustrated Guide

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