U.S. Commemorative Stamps

A "Commemorative Stamp" is one issued to honor a person or event. It is printed once, in relatively small quantities (typically 50 to 100 million in the U.S.), and withdrawn from sale (if not sold out) after a specified time, usually about a year. Or at least that's what it used to be - these days, with stamps for insects, aquariums, and dinosaurs, the definition has been stretched quite a bit. They usually make at least a pretense of a connection to U.S. history or culture, but let's face it, the name of the game is "market appeal".

Immediately below is a table with crude statistics for all U.S. postage stamps issued from 1847-1996, summarized by decade. Note that the number of commemoratives per decade remained relatively constant for the first forty years after their inception, then jumped dramatically.

Years	Total Issues	Defin's	Commem's	Other
1847-56	7	7	0	0
1857-66	14	14	0	0
1867-76	33	33	0	0
1877-86	16	16	0	0
1887-96	48	32	16	0
1897-06	43	23	20	0
1907-16	35	25	10	0
1917-26	65	47	15	9
1927-36	133	25	94	14
1937-46	170	51	107	12
1947-56	149	25	110	14
1957-66	230	26	178	26
1967-76	265	49	163	53
1977-86	347	122	187	38
1987-96	398	157	179	62

I say these statistics are "crude" because I have ignored varieties, differences in format (I count a sheet version and a coil version of the same design as one issue), and philatelic issues such as souvenir sheets; and I have counted setenant issues by the sheet rather than by the design (so a sheet with twenty different stamps, such as the Legends of the West, is counted as one); and I have taken a few other liberties to simplify things. My goal was to show the way commemorative issues have increased over time. ("Other" is Airmail, Xmas, and Love issues.) Just for the record, compiling this list was not easy. The Linn's Stamp Almanac has such a table, but I could not reproduce their numbers, and wanted to count things differently. Try it yourself - how do you handle souvenir sheets, booklets, Love stamps, Xmas stamps, and all the special varieties? Is a perforation variety a new issue? What about a different format, such as a coil vs. a sheet? Should a sheet with twenty designs really count as twenty issues?

Below are some examples of commemoratives, sorted by date issued. As you can see, a lot has changed.

Click on any image below to view a high-resolution version.

US COMMEMORATIVES, 1869-1924

Pictorial Issues of 1869
(NOT commemoratives)

These stamps were very unpopular when issued, I suppose because the concept of stamps was still a new one, and people expected the new ones to look like the old ones, with portraits of famous people, which most of these did not have. They were printed both with and without grills, so there are at least two versions of each, though I show only one. A full set of even the cheapest varieties will cost you several thousand dollars - used.

Columbian Exposition Issue - 1893
First true commemoratives

Images courtesy of Shreves Philatelic Galleries.

12/04/2004 - NEW WEB SITE. I just discovered Nick Blackburn's very informative and entertaining site, with a page that lists (and shows) the first commemorative for every country -

http://www.snap-dragon.com/first_issues_guinness.htm - First issues by type for each country. The list is sequenced by date of each country's first postage stamp, and goes from Great Britain (1840) through Georgia (1995).

His very ambitious site shows great promise, so check it out regularly, and send him feedback to encourage his efforts. He and I are having a discussion about the terms setenant and composite right now - see my S page for more.

Trans-Mississippi Exposition Issue - 1898

Images courtesy of Shreves Philatelic Galleries.

Pan-American Exposition Issue - 1901

Click Here to visit my display of Cinderella stamps from the Pan-Am Expo.

Louisiana Purchase Exposition Issue - 1904

Worn out already? The USPS has not re-issued these stamps this year, so I guess they've tired of the game. But surely they'll reissue the Panama-Pacific Expo stamps? Check back in 2013!

Jamestown Exposition Issue - 1907

Lincoln Memorial Issue - 1909
Alaska-Yukon Issue - 1909
Hudson-Fulton Issue - 1909

1909 was the 100th aniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. The first stamp below, Scott 367, was issued to commemorate that event. (The USPOD had finally decided the text "Commemorative Series" was pointless.)

That same year Seattle held an expo to advertise the Alaska Territory. The date seemed odd to me, but according to this page at Wikipedia: It was originally planned for 1907, to mark the 10th anniversary of the Klondike Gold Rush, but the organizers found out about the Jamestown Exposition being held that year, and rescheduled. The organizers of the Expo campaigned successfully for the second stamp below, Scott 370 - it shows William H. Seward, Secretary of State under both Lincon and Johnson, who had engineered the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867.

Finally, also in 1909, The Hudson-Fulton Celebration was staged in New York Harbor. This event was a combined celebration of Henry Hudson's discovery of the Hudson River in 1609, and Robert Fulton's historic steamboat voyage on the Hudson in 1809. The celebration's backers persuaded the USPOD to issue the third stamp below, Scott 372. By this time it was clear the cookie jar was open - anyone could get a stamp issued to advertise their event.

Panama Pacific Exposition Issue - 1913

Allied Victory Issue - 1919

Pilgrim Tercentenary Issue - 1920

To my knowledge these stamps (and Scott 1208) are the only US postage stamps that do not have our country's name on them. This caused quite an uproar at the time. There was even a rumor the omission had been unintentional, and the stamps would be recalled and redone, but the USPOD denied any error, and issued this statement:

There is no necessity for the name, as the stamps are fully identified and authenticated to the postal service in a notice, of which a copy is attached. Any additional lettering would have overcrowded designs which required all of the spaces assigned to them.
- (Johl, The United States Commemorative Stamps of the 20th Century, Vol 1, p.75)

Aside from these, all US stamps, and those of all other countries, include the country name, EXCEPT for those of Great Britain. As the first country to issue postage stamps, Great Britain does not identify itself by name on its issues. Instead, a portrait of its ruling monarch is always included in the designs.

Harding Memorial Issue - 1923

Warren Harding died in office near the end of his term, in August, 1923. There were not yet any rules about when and how anyone could be honored on a postage stamp, so the Post Master General, who had been Harding's friend, issued the stamp below. It was the first time since Lincoln that a President had been honored so soon after his death, and I think it ironic that Harding, a mediocre President at best, got a stamp less than a month after he died, while Wilson, for example, a much greater man, was not so honored until a year and a half after his death.

Here is a table, sorted by date of death, showing the dates of birth, death, and memorial stamp for all deceased presidents since 1900. The stamp for Harding created a stir, resulting in a rule that all Presidents should be honored on a stamp within a year of their deaths, generally on the anniversary of their birth. The rule was suspended for Hoover (politics), and bent a little for Nixon (supposedly because of a pending rate increase in January). FDR was honored with a set of four stamps, released over a period of seven months following his death, and few then or now would suggest he did not deserve the honor. Ordinary mortals cannot be commemorated on a U.S. postage stamp until they have been dead for at least ten years. (Some people confuse "commemorated" with "shown". Living people have been shown on stamps, not to commemorate them personally, but to illustrate the stamp's subject.)

President	Date of death	Birth	Stamp issued
McKinley	September 14, 1901	Nov 29	April 30, 1904
T. Roosevelt	January 16, 1919	Oct 27	October 27, 1922
Harding	August 2, 1923	Nov 2	September 1, 1923
Wilson	February 3, 1924	Dec 28	December 28, 1925
Taft	March 8, 1930	Sep 15	September 18, 1930
Coolidge	January 5, 1933	Jul 4	November 18, 1938
F.D.R.	April 12, 1945	Jan 30	June 27, 1945
Kennedy	November 22, 1963	May 29	May 29, 1964
Hoover	October 20, 1964	Aug 10	August 10, 1965
Eisenhower	March 28, 1969	Oct 14	October 14, 1969
Truman	December 26, 1972	May 8	May 8, 1973
Johnson	January 22, 1973	Aug 27	August 27, 1973
Nixon	April 22, 1994	Jan 9	April 26, 1995
Reagan	June 5, 2004	Feb 6	Feb 9, 2005

Huguenot-Walloon Tercentenary Issue - 1924

1924 was the three hundredth anniversary of the embarkation of the ship "Nieu Nederland" from Leyden, Netherlands, carrying thirty-two families of French-speaking Protestant Walloon refugees fleeing religious persecution in Flanders, now a part of Belgium. Their landing in May is considered the founding of New Netherland, the original Dutch settlement in the New World, on Manhattan Island. This stamp was issued in conjunction with the tercentenary celebration.

US Commemoratives from 1925 onward

From 1925 forward, the USPOD (now the USPS) issued new commemoratives every year. For details on all of them visit 1847 USA, the premier online reference about stamps of the United States.

HOME