page_title: Postage stamps and postal history of the Canal Zone
section_title: 1904 issues, second series
hierarchical_section_title: Postage stamps and postal history of the Canal Zone / 1904 issues, second series
caption_attribution_description: English: US regular issues of 1902-1903, overprinted for use as Canal Zone stamps, issued on July 19, 1904
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: These stamps consisted of existing U.S. regular issues of 1902–1903 and were overprinted in 1904 with CANAL ZONE and PANAMA in vertical fashion, for use as Canal Zone postage: Issued in denominations of 1c, 2c, 5c 8c and 10c. Benjamin Franklin became the first historical figure to appear on Canal Zone Postage. The overprinting was conducted in Washington D.C. These were the first U.S. stamps overprinted for use in the Canal Zone, and consisted of a huge quantity on 10-million stamps. As the stamps featured American historical figures, such as Benjamin Franklin, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, they were generally not well received by the largely Panamanian population in and around the Canal Zone.  These issues were briefly used for less than five months and were taken off sale as a result of the "Taft Agreement". This agreement was brought about as a result of an investigation into the protests made by Panama officials and business. These issues were in use from July 18 to December 11, 1904. Only a small percentage were actually sold, with the greater bulk of them destroyed on January 2–3, 1906, supervised by the Director of Posts, Tom M. Cooke.
  Two years after they were issued they were withdrawn from sale with the remainders of all values destroyed on January 2 and 3, 1906. Their withdrawal was arranged through an agreement between the Secretary of War, William Taft, and the Government of the Republic of Panama. The arrangement between the two governments resulted in many varieties for two reasons: One was due to the fact that the Canal Zone surcharge was printed on small quantities of stamps, with copper faced type which was reset at least five times for some of the values. The other was because many of the stamps used were those which had already been surcharged by the Panama authorities, and which were again surcharged with the Canal
  Zone overprinting. The last of these overprints were issued in 1939.
caption: US regular Issue, 5c, overprinted
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