Stamp
Category
Ephemera
Date
Unknown
Materials
paper, ink, glue
Measurements
26 x 20 mm
Order this imageCollection
Mr Straw's House, Nottinghamshire
NT 748711.4
Caption
Presidents of the United States have frequently appeared on U.S. postage stamps since the mid–1800s. The United States Post Office released its first two postage stamps in 1847, featuring George Washington on one, and Benjamin Franklin on the other. The 5-cent Franklin and the 10-cent Washington postage stamps issued in 1847 were the first postage stamps issued and authorized for nationwide postal duty by the U.S. Post Office. The firm of Rawdon, Wright, Hatch, and Edson of New York City were given a four-year contract to print the first U.S. postage stamps and the initials: "RWH&E" are clearly engraved at the bottom of both stamps. The engraving of Washington is identical to the one by the portrait engraver Asher Brown Durand on a Bank-Note issued by Fairfield County Bank of Connecticut, during a period when many banks issued their own forms of paper currency. Both the Washington and Franklin issues were reprinted in 1875 from re-engraved images subtly different from the originals. George Washington (February 22, 1732 – December 14, 1799) was the 1st President of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797, and before this, served as the commander of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War from 1775 to 1783. The Electoral College elected Washington unanimously in 1789, and again in the 1792 election; To this day George Washington remains the only American president to have received 100 percent of the electoral votes. Washington took his oath of office while standing on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City. Near the end of Washington's second term as president, Martha Washington commissioned the well-known portrait artist Gilbert Stuart to paint both her portrait and the president's. Stuart was known for the length of time it took him to complete a painting, and consequently neither the president nor his wife ever saw the finished paintings. The two portraits remained unfinished and tacked to a door in Stuart's Boston studio until his death in 1828. In 1860, artist Rembrandt Peale finished Stuart's work, filling in where this artist had left off. Stuart's portrait of Washington became the model image for a good number of postage issues of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Summary
Postage stamp - red printed stamp with 'UNITED STATES OF AMERICA SERIES 1902' above an image of George Washington beneath which is printed '1732 WASHINGTON 1799 POSTAGE TWO CENTS' in a swaged abnner. The bottom left corner is folded up exposing the plain back. A black printed postal mark obscures the picture '....T.STAT....'. The stamp is loose in the album between pages '4' and '5'. The stamp is kept in 'THE WORLD POSTAGE STAMP ALBUM' with blue book boards and two world globes front centre in black and white surrounded by a series of world stamp images. On the back in the centre printed in black are two crossed flags depicting the British flag above a globe. The album contains a hundred and forty five pages, plus an additional page added at the rear of 'United South Africa' taken from another album (record 748711.1).
Provenance
Straw collection bequeathed to The National Trust on the death in 1990 of William Straw.