The Kinsley graphic. [volume] (Kinsley, Kan.) 1890-1940, 1891-12-11
CHEEKY STAMP COLLECTORS.
They Make Trouble For Post once or
ficIals.


hcials.
No one has ever yet sent in million
Cancelled postage stamps to the post
Office department. although two hun
dred letters are received annually re-
questirg information about the prize
of three hundred dollars which the
government is supposed to offer for
that number. How this popular deiu-
sion originally started no one can tell.
For twenty years it has prevailed, aud
during all that time people have been
making collections for sale to Uncle
Sam Presumably no one has thus far
secured the desired million,
At all events the packages of old
stamps sent to Washington as INSTALL
ments never contain more than a few
thousand; fifty thousand was the most
that ever came IN one bundle. Ordina-
rily the collector gets tired by the time
four thousand or five thousand have
been got together. Children mostly
are engaged in this interesting but
fruitless pursuit, though many women,
both young aud old. take it up for a
while and bother every body they know
for contributions OF stamps from old
letters
People are constantly writing to the
department with requests for stamps
to put in their albums, both domestic
and foreign. Sometimes they say that
the dealers charge more than they can
afford, and 50 they appeal to Mr.. Wan
namaiSer. Awhile ago the post Office
used to sell specimen sets of its issues.
unused, but that was discontinued in
1884
A very interesting album is kept in
the stamp division, Ontaining sets of
all the stamps that the government
has ever issued. The book is worth 4
lot of money, merely for the face value
represented by its contents On the
first page are the two stamps of Uncle
Sans issue in 1S47.
One OF them is for i've cents, with a
head of Franklin, and the other Is for
/ ten cents, with Washington's bust
Before that year letters were dis
| tributed by mail in packages with ac-
| campaigning way bills, and the prices
/ charged for postage varied according
/ to the distance. On another page of
the scrap-boOlz are found the first per
/ fOrated stamps, which appeared in
| 1857. Up to that time the stamps
/ had to be cut apart with shears
/ The perforations then were made much
finer than they are now. it is said that
/ the British government paid a large
sum for the idea, but the United States
did not give a cent for its use.
Another page in the scraP-book is
| occupied by the stamps of 1869, which
] y
ing of them cost too much and they
had to be discontinued Whereas
| Uncle Sans postal tokens at the pres
l ent time are less handsome than those
of almost any other nation. these were
among the most exquisite ever issued.
| The fifteen-cent brown bore picture
of the landing of Columbus in blue
| The twenty-four-cent green was
I adorned with the signing of the Decla'
"a ton" ia purple.
The thirty-cent stamp had Il lovely
| design representing a shield, esgle aud
flags in red, white and blue The
tweIve-cent sort was in green with q
steamship on it; the three-cent denOmi-
nation was ultarmarine, with lOcOmo'
tive, and the tWo-cent brown showed 3
man on horseback. An these colors
| cost money, and where a stamp was
printed in two tints it had to 60 through
the presses twice. Accordingly the en-
tire series WAS soon suppressed-W Wash
| ingtOn Star.