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STATISTICS
Issued: The 2¢ was officially issued on January, 1st 1893, a Sunday, and at Post Offices the following day. There are a couple of examples postmarked in New York, N.Y., on January 1st, 1893 (see image below).
Plate Size: Sheets of 200 subjects (2 panes of 100) and, because the ABNC company ran out of the plates an additional 45 plates were made in sheets of 100 (2 panes of 50).
Printer: The American Bank Note Company.
Watermark: None.
Quantity Issued: 1,464,588,750.
Color: Brown violet, gray violet or dark brown violet.
Common use: The stamp paid the domestic letter rate making it the most commonly used Columbian value.
THE INSPIRATION FOR THE DESIGN
The design originated from a painting titled ‘Columbus Landing at Guanahani’ by John Vanderlyn. Now located in the Rotunda of the Washington Capitol Building.
It is worth noting that Columbus is clean shaven whilst sighting land on the one cent stamp, whilst this two cent value depicts Columbus during the landing sporting a full beard. This was the subject of much derision at the time of issue.
VARIETIES
The best known variety of the Columbian series is the “broken hat”, it´s probably the result of a small crack caused by a weakening of the metal on the transfer roll.
An imperforate variety was issued at the time of printing.
ESSAYS AND PROOFS
Despite the popularity of the Columbian series there are very few essays and proofs on the market.
- Brookman, Lester G., U.S. Postage Stamps of the 19th Century, Lindquist 1966
.comThe Swedish Tiger’s US Stamp Site An Illustrated Guide
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