National Postal Museum Commemorative Stamps

On July 30, 1993, the U.S. Postal Service released a block of four 29-cent stamps to mark the grand opening of the Smithsonian Institution's new National Postal Museum in Washington, D.C.

One of the stamps has a easily overlooked tie to Georgia -- a round May 3 cancellation from Milledgeville, Ga. Although the postmark appears to cancel three stamps, it actually is the type of cancel used before the introduction of postage stamps in 1847. The stamp also shows four stamps -- (from left to right) a 1902 2-cent locomotive stamp from the Pan-American Exposition series, an 1860 90-cent George Washington stamp, a 1923 24-cent airmail stamp (in this case the famous "Inverted Jenny" error), and a 1930 65-cent airmail stamp in the Graf Zeppelin series.

The stamp also portrays the opening excerpt of a California gold rush miner's letter to a cousin and a barcode [to reflect modern automatic sorting of mail].

(c) Carl Vinson Institute of Government, The University of Georgia

Go to Milledgeville cancel stamp page

Go to Georgia on Stamps page

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