Tail Fin & Juke Box
The first two stamps on the second row of this album page show the back fender of an American automobile from the 1950s or early 1960s. Specifically, they shows a tailfin affectation that an automobile designer, Frank Hershey added to the design of the 1948 Cadillac. However, it didn’t necessarily provide an improvement on speed or stability – at least that wasn’t his reasoning. Hershey saw the Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter plane, which had a twin-boom design with a rudder on each boom for stability and maneuverability, and decided it looked cool and would be a neat addition to the Cadillac he was designing.
The tailfin was well received by the public and began the tailfin era of automobiles that lasted until the early 1960s. It could be found during that period on many models of American cars and some from other countries. Since this period was what was known as the space age with the development of many rockets and space craft, it was only fitting that cars align in style. Afterall, we were told that flying cars were coming – which still hasn’t happened – and they would need rudders.
The second pair of stamps on the second row here shows a jukebox. The earliest such devices was developed in the 1880s, first used in San Francisco, but they were most popular in the 1940s through the 1960s. They were coin-operated, electric phonographs that played the song you chose from a limited selection of records, recorded music. The word juke comes from a Creole word for rowdy. Jukeboxes were often found in juke joints or bars where you could listen to music and dance – it was considered a rowdy place with rowdy music. So the box that played rowdy music was called a juke box.
Note
Finding all of these stamps was tedious, which is all the more bothersome because they’re not very attractive or interesting. Plus, there are only six designs here for fourteen spots on the page, a total of seventeen stamps of sorts. The difference between several of them is the size and color of the year, 1995 in the bottom left corner of each. This is noted by Leuchtturm on the printed album page.
For two years, I hunted for these stamp on-line. It required going to sites like that of Hip Stamps (hipstamps.com) and entering the catalog numbers of each, one at a time. Sometimes I would find one, but after looking closely at the scanned image of the stamp, I wasn’t convinced the dealer had the one I needed, that they understood the subtle difference to catalog it, correctly. Sometimes I would find one from a dealer that wouldn’t ship outside the U.S., or had nothing else I wanted to buy so that I didn’t have the minimum amount for an order – or the stamp cost only about a dollar, but the shipping charge to Italy would have been over thirty dollars. For this last situation, I’d wait until my next visit to the U.S. to order it, but someone else would have bought it before I did.
Anyway, this page is now complete. I’m relieved to be done with it and glad not to have to keep looking at it. I’m especially pleased not to have to keep typing catalog numbers 2902 through 2920b, and all the numbers in between, into search boxes on stamp dealer sites.
Contains 14 spots: own 14 – 14 unused, 0 used.
Page is finished.
Album or Web Page Last changed Mar 22, 2026
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
✓ |
2902 |
|
|||
✓ |
2905 |
|
|||
✓ |
2908 |
|
|||
✓ |
2909 |
|
|||
✓ |
2911 |
|
|||
✓ |
2912 |
|
Flag Series
✓ |
2897 |
32c (may 1995) |
|||
✓ |
2913 |
32c (may 1995) |
|||
✓ |
2914 |
32c (may 1995) |
|||
✓ |
2919 |
32c (mar 1995) |
|||
✓ |
2920 |
32c (apr 1995) |
|||
✓ |
2920b |
32c (apr 1995) |
|||
✓ |
2915 |
32c (apr 1995) |
|||
✓ |
2916 |
32c (may 1995) |
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.
