page_title: Postage stamps and postal history of the Canal Zone
section_title: 4-cent Thatcher Ferry Bridge
hierarchical_section_title: Postage stamps and postal history of the Canal Zone / Final years / 4-cent Thatcher Ferry Bridge
caption_attribution_description: English: CZ Thatcher Ferry Bridge, 4c, 1962 Commemorative Issue
context_page_description: Postage stamps and postal history of the Canal Zone is a subject that covers the postal system, postage stamps used and mail sent to and from the Panama Canal Zone from 1904 up until October 1978, after the United States relinquished its authority of the Zone in compliance with the treaty it reached with Panama.
  The Canal Zone was a strip of territory 50 miles long and 10 miles wide across the Isthmus of Panama, and was ceded to the United States for the purpose of constructing and operating the canal which connected the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Upon the establishment of the Canal Zone in 1903, seventeen Post Offices had also been established and were operated by the U.S. Government. The Canal Zone and its post offices, with the main distributing office in Cristobal, operated as an independent government agency under the direct authority of the President of the United States. In the towns where there were railroad stations, the station agents of the Panama Railroad functioned as postmasters. Along with ships and freight, domestic mail and mail from around the world moved through the canal.
context_section_description: A 4-cent Thatcher Ferry Bridge commemorative stamp (Scott 157) was issued on Columbus Day, October 12, 1962, commemorating the opening of the new bridge over the Panama Canal at Balboa.   (See below image, left)
  Famous error
  One pane of fifty stamps was released without the silver ink used to depict the Bridge. This error is likely to have made this issue the most famous Canal Zone stamp. Three additional sheets of this error were discovered in the Philatelic Agency at Balboa, which attempted to print an additional 100,000 copies in an effort to reduce its value to collectors. The sheet was unknowingly sold in a group of 5,000 to a Boston stamp dealer, H.E. Harris, who successfully sued in federal court to stop the additional printing. Today, examples of this famous error are still owned by collectors and are valued at many thousands of dollars. The National Postal Museum is in possession of  two of these fifty-stamp sheets.  (See below image, right)
caption: Thatcher Ferry Bridge, 4c, Commemorative Issue of 1962
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