History of the Postage Stamps of the United States of America Part 3

(_c_) There are one long and three short lines under "_Saint_," and one long and two short lines and a dot under "_Louis_," the latter on a line between the ear and eye of the bear.

(_d_) A diamond in the top of the 5, and an upright diamond in the back, with eleven dots below and four dots above it.

(_e_) The bear is on a ground lined horizontally above and vertically below.

Mr. Pemberton thinks, from a fine clear copy he had seen, that for some reason the numeral of this variety had been originally engraved as a 1.

He says there is a thin line to the right of the down stroke of the 5, three small dots in a curve to the right of the diamond in the top of the 5, and two small dots, one over the other to the left of the diamond.

_Fourth Variety._[A] Mr. Pemberton describes a fourth type of the Five cents which he claims is a restoration of the second variety, from which one variety of the 20 cents was made by alteration.

(_a_) The buckle has the point turned down to the right.

(_b_) There are eleven dashes above "_Saint_," and ten above "_Louis_."

(_c_) There are four lines under "_Saint_," and three long and two short lines under "_Louis_," the last on a level with the bear's ear.

(_d_) A diamond in the top, and a long diamond in the back of 5, with four dots over and four dots under the latter. Coa.r.s.er shading around the figure, and a curved vertical line at the back of the bow, being part of the 0 of 20 badly erased.

(_e_) Bear on a vertically lined ground. The two lines of the frame above Louis bulged.

[A] NOTE.--Without examining the specimen from which Mr.

Pemberton described, it is impossible to say that it may not be one of the retouches which Mr. Kershaw thinks he made.

TEN CENTS. The words "_Saint_," and "_Louis_" are in small, colored, ordinary capitals, unshaded. There is a long flourish curved upwards over each word. It seems to have been intended to have a point with a short dash on each side of it, above each of these, with a second long flourish curved upwards and then brought down round the end of the word, and continued as a flourish under them, but the details are different in the several types. The numerals are ornamented by a diamond in the middle of each down stroke, with three dots, above and below each diamond, except in type one, which has only two dots below the diamond in the 1.

The following varieties will be noticed:

_First Variety._ The point and right dash, between the corner flourishes on both sides, usually missing, and the upper flourish does not come distinctly round the right hand word.

3 lines beneath "Post Office."

5 " " "Saint."

4 " " "Louis."

_Second Variety._ The point and right dash, between the flourishes in the right hand corner, gone, and the upper flourish, does not come round the right hand word distinctly.

3 lines beneath "Post Office," with a smaller stroke over each.

4 lines beneath "Saint."

4 " " "Louis."

_Third Variety._ The point between the dashes, between the flourishes on the left, missing.

3 lines beneath "Post Office," with a smaller stroke over each, and dots between them.

3 lines and 2 dots beneath "Saint."

4 " 1 " " "Louis."

Mr. Pemberton at one time chronicled a fourth variety of this value also, but could not afterward identify it. Indeed the impressions show great variation from the intended design in the corner flourishes, which seem to have been engraved too fine in parts.

TWENTY CENTS. While the author and many others do not believe the twenty cent value to be genuine, in deference to such authorities as Messrs.

Scott and Pemberton, who accept the few specimens known, they are here described. In the American Journal of Philately, of January, 1870, Mr.

Scott, after describing the three varieties each of the 5 and 10 cents for the first time, mentions the 20 cent value as a new discovery.

Comparing the three specimens, he says: Two are exactly alike, and have evidently been altered from variety three, above described, while the third is different, having evidently been altered from variety two. At a later date he mentions a fourth specimen. Five specimens are all that have ever been chronicled, we believe.

Mr. Pemberton describes the first three more at length, in a paper in the Stamp Collector's Magazine, for January, 1871. He says he had before him 13 stamps of the 5 cent value, and 12 of the 10 cents, but he does not state how many he had of the 20 cents, but that 10 of the 25 specimens were lent him from America. The American Journal, for January, 1871, however, says he had the three known specimens of the 20 cents. The theory of his article is that the twenty cents was made by erasing the numerals, and of course incidentally other surrounding parts of the varieties two and three, of the five cent value on the plate, and engraving the numerals 20, printing that value and afterwards erasing the 20 and replacing the five. It is also the theory of the article that this was done with all three varieties of the 3 cents, although the author had seen only two varieties of the 20 cents, and only one specimen of the 5 cents, which he could torture into a re-engraving. He alters the arrangement of varieties of Mr. Scott, to which we prefer to adhere, and thus describes them:

_Variety One_, from variety three of the five cents.

One long and one short line under "_Saint_." Half of each of the original top strokes and the third stroke under "_Louis_" being erased, but the dot left. The inner line of the frame erased from the T to L, and a smaller portion of the outer frame above erased also.

_Variety Two_, from variety two of the five cents. Four strokes under "_Saint_," but bolder and closer than the original, the vertical stroke over the left bear's paw nearly erased.

Four strokes under "_Louis_," but deeper and more regular, the third stroke downwards on a level with the bear's ear. L of "Louis" has been re-engraved. Bear's paw on the garter erased.

The inner line of frame half erased between "_Saint_," and "_Louis_."

It remains to be added that the numerals are, in both these varieties, very badly drawn, single lined and solid, instead of open and ornamented, and are shaded by miserably drawn irregular horizontal fine lines of uneven length, totally different from the figures in the other two values.

It is both impracticable and useless to attempt to repeat here all the arguments for and against the authenticity of these specimens. It is claimed that they were found in the same file of letters with the greater part of the specimens of the other values known. That the rate they indicate was a regular rate upon heavy letters from St. Louis to New York, and that many letters so marked that do not bear stamps, were found in the same and other files; that there are no traces of erasure of the 5 by scratching, and the paper is no thinner under the numerals than elsewhere. This seems to be the substance of what can be said in their favor.

On the other hand they are not alluded to in the notices published in the Republican, above quoted, or elsewhere; the engraver is positive that he did not alter the values; says that he retained the plate until after Mr. Wyman had ceased to be postmaster, which was at least two years after the stamps were prohibited by law, and that the workmans.h.i.+p of the numerals could not possibly be his, and would be a disgrace to any engraver; the figures are apparently made by an unskilled hand with an ordinary pen and ink; competent authorities in such matters state that it is possible to remove printing ink from paper; three of the known specimens have been photographed, two of one variety and one of another; in all the numerals differ, those of the two varieties mentioned by Mr. Scott as corresponding, vary as much as the two from different varieties of the five cents. While it is true that a portion of the inner line of the frame is gone between Saint and Louis, and that the strokes are bolder beneath these words on one variety, it is not apparent that they are nearer together, or of different shape as Mr.

Pemberton thought, or that the L of "Louis" has been re-engraved. The absent lines need no comment. Lastly, the work has a blurred appearance, as if the ink had slightly run into the paper around these famous 20 numerals, and in all the photographs they are of a different color from the remaining parts of the same stamps, and the other stamps photographed with them, particularly noticeable in light photographs, while the blurred appearance is more apparent in the dark photographs.

If these facts do not convince those who believe in the authenticity of these 20 cent varieties, that they, with Messrs. Scott and Pemberton, have been the victims of a clever fraud, the question will probably never be settled for them, as no new facts are likely at this date to be discovered.

The two cent value, once chronicled, is of a different design, and an admitted invention.

VI.

STAMP OF THE BRATTLEBORO POSTMASTER.

The stamp issued by the Postmaster, of Brattleboro, Vermont, is catalogued as a local as early as Kline's Manual, 2nd edition, 1863. The first magazine to describe it was Taylor's Record, February, 1865, which states that it was issued in 1848, by F. N. Palmer, to supply a temporary lack of the current five cents and gives a fair description of it. The American Journal of Philately, in January, 1869, in an article by Dr. Petrie, gave the first correct account of it. The article gives a letter purporting to have been written by Dr. Palmer, who says it was a strictly private enterprise, neither ordered or repudiated by the Department, and did not appear in his account with the head office at Was.h.i.+ngton. "My object," he says, "in issuing it was to accommodate the people, and save myself labor in making and collecting quarterly bills, almost everything at that time being either charged or forwarded without prepayment. I was disappointed in the effect, having still to charge the stamps and collect my bills. As to the number issued, I should say five or six hundred as an experiment. They were engraved by Mr. Thomas Chubbuck, then of Brattleboro, now of Springfield."

Mr. Palmer thinks the stamp was issued during his first year as postmaster, (1845).

The March number of the same journal, for the same year, mentions a specimen on a letter of 1846, postmarked with a pen, November 10th, but the stamp cancelled with the word "PAID," hand stamped in red. In the Stamp Collector's Magazine, November, 1870, Mr. L. H. Bagg, recapitulating the foregoing, states incidentally, that one reason for this accommodating spirit on the part of the postmaster, was that his salary depended on the cash receipts of his office, and hence his anxiety to have as many letters prepaid as possible, a fact which a.s.sists us in understanding why a stamp should have been issued at such a small place as Brattleboro then was. The postmarked letter shows that the use of the stamp did not do away with the necessity of marking the letter "PAID," and that it was this mark and not the stamp that was recognized by other postmasters. In his interview with Mr. Bagg, the engraver, Mr. Chubbuck, was quite confident that Mr. Palmer burned all the unsold stamps in his possession upon the appearance of the first regular United States Stamps, that the bill for engraving them was not collected until June, 1848, and that the charges were $7.50 for engraving the plate, and $1.50 for printing 500 stamps. Mr. Bagg also obtained from Mr. Chubbuck a part of a sheet, eight stamps, which was afterwards purchased by Mr. Scott, who got together all the copies he could, and thus reconstructed the sheet, which was shown to have contained ten varieties, in two horizontal rows of 5 stamps each, each stamp separately engraved, the words "Eng. by Thos. Chubbuck, Bratt'o,"

appearing in small script under the middle stamp of the lower row, and not extending over the length of that stamp.

BRATTLEBORO POST OFFICE.

ISSUE OF 1845 OR 1846.

"F. N. P.", the initials of the postmaster, Frederick N. Palmer, in fac-simile, with flourish beneath, on a vertically lined ground, in an oblong with cut corners, bordered by a heavy colored, a colorless and a finer colored line in a band lined diagonally, (from right above, to left below) and bordered by another fine colored, a colorless and heavier colored line, forming an oblong rectangle, and inscribed above "_Brattleboro, Vt._," in colored black letters, "_P._ and _O._" on left and right, in ordinary colored capitals, and "_5 Cents_" in outline capitals below.

Plate impression 21 by 19 mm., in color, on brownish paper.

5 cents, black.