Stamp of the Week

This week we feature the Air Post Special Delivery Stamp issue of 1934. The purpose of this issue was to combine the prepayment of air mail and special delivery service into one stamp. It had the same priority of a special delivery service, but was transported by airplane.

The special delivery charge entitled the purchaser to have their letter sent to its destination immediately after being dropped off at the post office. It did not have to wait until a ‘full packet’ was ready to be shipped to the post office handling its destination address.

This issue was a flat plate printing. 9,215,750 of the dark blue color scheme were printed. The inperferate version made it’s appearance in 1935. A second run of 72,517,850 stamps was done in 1936. The color scheme was changed to carmine and blue along with the great seal being slightly smaller than in the original printing.

This is the only instance were the U.S. Post Office has combined these two services.

U.S. special delivery services were discontinued in 1997. Air mail stamps, though not the method of transportation, were discontinued in 2012.

Deep collecting on this issue includes four known variations in the marginal markings. Also, several freaks and errors have been identified as well. I placed a bid on eBay for a fold over.

Presently, I am trying to find out who designed this issue. If anyone has any information on that, please share it.

The photo of these stamps was taken on a faux marble surface, similar to the marble counter of the post office in my home city of Yonkers where I bought many of my first stamps. It was built years before these stamps were issued.

Happy Collecting!