New Official mail stamp will join the old

By Michael Baadke

On page 2 of the Jan. 5 Linn's, Jay Bigalke reported on United States definitive stamps that will be issued later this year. His report was based upon information published in USA Philatelic, the mail-order catalog published quarterly by the U.S. Postal Service.

A new 1¢ Official mail self-adhesive stamp is scheduled to be issued Feb. 24. This lick-and-stick version was issued in 1995.

We have one update to that report in this issue on page 30.

One stamp from the announced group that caught my attention is the 1¢ Official mail self-adhesive in panes of 20 scheduled to be issued Feb. 24.

Participation in the Official mail program is restricted to official government agencies only. This means that only these agencies may use these stamps for postage.

The first U.S. Official mail stamps were released in 1873.Official mail stamps properly used on cover have a devoted collector following.

The 19th-century examples can be outstanding finds, but even 21st-century Official mail stamped covers are prizes. The Official stamps don't show up on mail all that often, and genuine postal uses aren't particularly easy to obtain.

U.S. Official postal stationery is also very collectible. The Official mail stamped envelopes issued from 1983 to 2001 (Scott UO73-90) often sell for $20 or more for collectible single postally used examples.

Since the Official mail postage stamp program resumed in 1983 after a hiatus of nearly a century (with a few exceptions), a new stamp has always been issued to fulfill the first-class letter rate following a rate increase. This held true until the rate changed from 41¢ to 42¢ in May 2008, when no 42¢ Official mail stamp appeared.

In the Sept. 22, Linn's, Jay Bigalke asked David Failor, the head of the USPS stamp services division, if the days of Official mail stamps and stamped envelopes are getting shorter.

"They are certainly being looked at," Failor replied.

The creation of a new 1¢ Official mail stamp appears to indicate that the Postal Service has enough 41¢ stamps on hand to fulfill the needs of authorized mailers.

Rather than creating a new stamp for a first-class rate that will be obsolete in one year, the Postal Service will instead issue a new 1¢ stamp that can be used singly or in multiples with the 41¢ stamps to pay the proper letter rate until the 41¢ stamps are all used up.

If the description in USA Philatelic is accurate, the 1¢ stamp will be the first self-adhesive U.S. Official stamp in history.

After the stamp is issued in February, collectors will certainly want to keep their eyes open for examples of these new 1¢ stamps properly used on authorized government mail. There is little doubt that before long such covers will be among the key items in a collection of modern U.S. Official mail postal history.