New Air Pairs
In 1958, the U.S. Post Office issued the blue airmail stamp on the second row of this album page. Compared to the red stamps, I think it’s a nicer color. However, mail sorters at post office routing facilities process many envelops, rapidly. They often didn’t notice that the blue stamp was an airmail stamp since it looked similar to other non-airmail stamps – and presumably many customers didn’t write “Air Mail” on their envelops, or not prominently enough. As a result, many senders who paid for air mail service didn’t get the faster delivery, but their envelops went by normal ground based service.
In 1960, the then U.S. Postmaster General, Arthur Summerfield instructed the Bureau of Engraving to print new stamps in fireengine red – also known as carmine – to make them more noticable. This solved the problem. The new silhoutte jet stamp was in use for eight years. As further indication of its successful, they printed 1.23 billion of them.
Note
Although this page is a little sparse, it’s complete. Leuchtturm likes to put coil pairs on a separate page. I think they could have put these few stamps on the previous page. They’d fit, albeit a little tightly.
Contains 5 spots: own 5 – 5 unused, 0 used.
Page is finished.
Album or Web Page Last changed Apr 18, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
✓ |
C37 |
5c (jan 1948) |
|||
✓ |
C41 |
6c (aug 1949) |
|||
✓ |
C51 |
7c (jul 1958) |
|||
✓ |
C60 |
7c (aug 1960) |
|||
✓ |
C65 |
8c (dec 1962) |
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.
