Paint Chips

There’s not much different about these stamps from the ones on the previous few pages. They don’t have a watermark. The ones on the bottom row weren’t perforated. There are a couple things worth noting here, though.

First, in 1910 and 1911 when they first issued stamps with the Washington and Franklin designs, they didn’t produce any stamps higher than one-dollar because they still had plenty from the 1903 printing: see the two-dollar Madison, and the five-dollar Marshall stamps on the Adorned Definitives page. There wasn’t much demand for those denominations, so the supply from the original printing lasted for about fourteen years. Rather than go to the trouble and expense of designing new stamps in align with the Washington & Franklin series, they just reprinted the design of 1903, but with coarser paper and a perforation of ten instead of twelve. See the two stamps at the end of the fourth row. They did, however, make a replacement for the one-dollar stamp using the newer design, replacing the Washington with Franklin for that face amount. It’s in the middle of the same row.

Carmine Washington 5-Cent of 1916

The second thing worth noticing is the stamp pair, or at least what is meant to be at the beginning of the second row on this album page. That stamps printing was an odd error. I don’t like collect errors. I prefer stamps that were printed properly and well. Of course, not all of my stamps are well centered – those can cost much more than I can afford. But this error is more of an anomaly, a strange occurence.

When they set the plate to print a sheet of the two-cent carmine Washington stamp (i.e., the one on the second row, catalog number 463), they accidentally set two of them in the middle of the sheet with a five-cent face value (see Carmine Washington 5-cent stamps). I don’t know how that could have happened. However, that made for a new stamp (catalog number 467), a five-cent stamp made with reddish ink instead of blue per the international postal convention.

Note

As you can see, I’ve been acquiring these stamps. They’re still dull as the ones on the previous pages, but they don’t cost as much. The Bureau produced more of them, so the supply is high compared to the demand for them among collectors. I completed the bottom row with unused stamps. Next I’ll try to fill in the spots where I’m missing stamps on the first and third rows. Afterwards I’ll work to replace the used ones. It’s slow and boring process.

Contains 23 spots: own 16 – 8 unused, 8 used.
Album or Web Page Last changed Mar 20, 2025

Stamp Details

The table below lists information about the stamps shown on this page of Lighthouse’s stamp album. For more details about a particular stamp, click on its description. That will take you to the related web page of Colnect.

spot

own

catalog

subject

description

comment

Other Definitives

1.1	✓	462	George Washington	1c (sep 1916) definitive, green
1.2	✓	463	George Washington Type I	2c (sep 1916) definitive, carmine
1.3	✓	464	George Washington Type I	3c (nov 1916) definitive, violet
1.4	✗	465	George Washington	4c (oct 1916) definitive, brownish orange
1.5	✗	466	George Washington	5c (oct 1916) definitive, blue
2.1		467	George Washington	5c (mar 1917) definitive, carmine
2.2	✗	468	George Washington	6c (oct 1916) definitive, red orange
2.3	✗	469	George Washington	7c (oct 1916) definitive, black
2.4	✗	470	Benjamin Franklin	8c (nov 1916) definitive, olive
3.1		471	Benjamin Franklin	9c (nov 1916) definitive, salmon red
3.2	✗	472	Benjamin Franklin	10c (oct 1916) definitive, yellow orange
3.3	✓	473	Benjamin Franklin	11c (nov 1916) definitive, dark green
3.4	✗	474	Benjamin Franklin	12c (oct 1916) definitive, claret brown
3.5	✗	475	Benjamin Franklin	15c (nov 1916) definitive, grey
4.1		476	Benjamin Franklin	20c (dec 1916) definitive, ultramarine
4.2		477	Benjamin Franklin	50c (mar 1917) definitive, violet
4.3		478	Benjamin Franklin	$1 (dec 1916) definitive, violet black
4.4		479	James Madison	2$ (mar 1917) definitive, dark blue
4.5		480	James Marshall	5$ (mar 1917) definitive, green

Imperforated Definitives

5.1	✓	481	George Washington	1c (nov 1916) definitive, green
5.2	✓	482	George Washington Type I	2c (dec 1916) definitive, carmine
5.3	✓	483	George Washington Type I	3c (oct 1917) definitive, violet
5.4	✓	484	George Washington Type II	3c (oct 1917) definitive, violet

Footnotes

Spot refers to the postion of the stamp on the album page (e.g., 3.2 indicates row 3, position 2).
Amt. is an abbreviation for the face amount of the stamp.
Own indicates the stamp status: ✓ for unused; ✗ for used or canceled; ⭑ signifies I ordered one; ; ✨ indicates it was bought recently; ✠ means an auction bid is pending; and ◎ is used, and it costs too much for unused.
To search by catalog number, go to the search box and enter it in the catalog number box. However, it’s a bit broken; I need to fix it.