S.S. Adriatic

The S.S. Adriatic was an ocean liner from the 1870s that carried passengers and cargo across the Atlantic Ocean, from Liverpool in England to New York. It was a steamship that included four masts for sails. I’m not sure under what conditions they would use the sails or the engines, but it’s a nice idea.

The first stamp on the third row is said to depict the S.S. Adriatic. However, it was issued in 1869, two years before the Adriatic was launched. Plus, the image shows a ship that’s not as long and has only two masts instead of four. It has two chimney from the steam engines while the Adriactic had only one. All of this makes me question if this is actually supposed to be the Adriatic.

Sometimes artists who design stamps deviate from reality for artistic and practical reasons. In this case, the ocean liner would be too long to fit on the stamp, without being much smaller and thereby more difficult to see. So this might be truncated version – but why add a second chimney and how was it drawn before the ship was completed.

Perhaps there was news of a ship that would carry passengers across the Atlantic, connecting Europe to the U.S. – much like the Pony Express and the Baldwin locomotive connected the territories to the U.S. Perhaps the Post Office wanted to get ahead of it with this stamp. If so, the artist might not have had accurate information on how the ship was designed. This maybe the reasons for the deviations, or it may have been based on a different ship than what the popular stamp catalogs say.

Note

These stamps are identical to the ones on the previous page. The difference is that those are embossed with a grill. That makes them more expensive than these. As if it wasn’t frustrating enough having a page of stamps I can’t afford, here is an identical page that will remain empty.

Contains 11 spots: own 0 – 0 unused, 0 used.
Album or Web Page Last changed Mar 16, 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

Natl. Bank Note Co. - Pictorial

1.1	123	Benjamin Franklin	1c (jan 1875) definitive, buff
2.1	124	Pony Express Rider	2c (jan 1875) definitive, brown
2.2	125	Baldwin 4-4-0	3c (jan 1875) definitive, blue
2.3	126	George Washington	6c (jan 1875) definitive, blue
2.4	127	Eagle and Shield	10c (jan 1875) definitive, yellow
3.1	128	S.S. Adriatic Ocean Liner	12c (jan 1875) definitive, green
3.2	129	Columbus Landing John Venderlyn	15c (jan 1875) definitive, brown blue
3.3	130	Declaration of Ind. John Trumbull	24c (jan 1875) definitive, green violet
4.1	131	Eagle, Shield and Flags	30c (jan 1875) definitive, carmine ultramarine
4.2	132	Abraham Lincoln	90c (jan 1875) definitive, black carmine
5.1	133	Benjamin Franklin	1c (jan 1880) definitive, buff

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.