The Postal Savings System and United State Savings Stamps From

Postal and Treasury Savings Stamp Systems: The War Years Harry K. Charles, Jr., Ph.D. [email protected] Abstract The Postal and Treasury Savings Stamp Systems and their associated stamps (and collection certificates and booklets) played an integral role in our country’s history during the twentieth century, especially during both World Wars. These savings stamp systems were in existence, in one form or another, from 1911 through 1970 – about sixty years. The Postal Savings Account System was officially abolished in 1966, but the sale of savings stamps for bond purchase continued until 1970. These systems raised billions of dollars for the government while giving the saver a fair, secure return on their money. The importance of these savings stamp systems to the war efforts cannot be over emphasized. They allowed everyone in the country, rich or poor, young or old to save and contribute to the war effort. School children saved pennies and brought stamps, workers brought stamps every payday, people took their change from store purchases in stamps – every where one looked there were reminders to contribute to the war effort through the purchase of war and postal savings stamps. The stamps were a convenient method to accumulate, a little bit at a time, the necessary money to buy savings certificates. This article traces the development of the Postal and Treasury Savings Stamp systems throughout their history with emphasis on the World War I and World War II periods. 1. Introduction After nearly forty years of struggle the United States Postal Savings System was finally created in 1910 by Congress. Postal Savings bills were introduced many times into Congress, but they were always defeated by coalitions of bankers and money brokers, especially from the western states and territories were they had monopolies on money leading Finally, the Postal Savings System in the United States was created in 1910 by an act of Congress entitled “An Act to Establish Postal Savings Depositories for Depositing Savings at Interest with the Security of the Government for Repayment There of, and for other purposes.” This act was approved on June 25, 1910 and was further amended by Section 5 of an Act of Congress approved on March 4, 1911. In accordance with these acts, individual post offices, post office branches, and postal stations were designated as Postal Savings Depositories [1]. Officially in operation on January 1, 1911, the Postal Savings System was established for three primary reasons: 1) to attract savings of a large number of immigrants who were accustomed to savings at Post Offices in their own country; 2) banks were not regulated and their stability was always in questions, thus many people did not trust banks and they horded money (i.e. kept their savings in cash) making localized supply of money scarce; and 3) even if banks were honest and stable, they did not exist in many rural areas (but these areas did have post offices). On March 26, 1911, the first Postal Savings Banks in the United States were established. The system was inaugurated with one post office in each of 19 states. On the following day, 25 additional offices in twenty-five other states were established. The original 44 offices chosen were selected based on their efficiency record. Table 1 lists the original 44 postal savings banks [2]. The people of the United States greeted the postal savings system with great enthusiasm. There were 400 depositories in operation by June 30, 1911 and 12,820 offices in operation only two years later with over $33 million dollars on deposit. Table 1: Listing of the 44 Original Postal Savings Banks [2] Opened 3/26/1911 Opened 3/27/1911 Globe, AZ Middleboro, KY Astabula, OH Larimie, WY Anaconda, MT New Iberia, LA Berlin, NH Manitiwoe, WI Ansonia CT Olympia, WA Bristol, RI Montpelier, VT Bessmer, AL Oroville, CA Cahoes, NY Nebraska, NE Brunswick, GA Pekin, IL Carson City, NV Newbury, SC Cour d' Lane, ID Pittsburg, KA Clifton Forge, VA Norwood, MA Decorah, IO Princeton, IN Deadwood, SD Port Arthur, TX Dover, DE Rumbord, ME Dubois, PA Provo, UT Kalamath Falls, OR Stuttgart, AR Frostburg, MD Raton, NM Leadville, CO Graffton, WV Rutherford, NJ Guyman, OK Salisbury, NC Houghton, MI Wahpeton, ND Johnson City, TN An account could be opened by any person ten years of age or older, and each person was limited to one account. Deposits could only be made in even dollar amounts. No account could exceed a maximum of five hundred dollars, exclusive of accumulated interest. Later in 1916, this limit was raised to $1000 and to $2500 in 1918. When a person applied to open an account, the postmaster or his representative would carefully fill out an application on envelope Form PS 300 as shown in Figure 1. Form PS 300 served several functions. It combined the depositor’s application to open an account, with a simple ledger record of his deposits and withdrawals showing the balance to his credit, and provided a receptacle in which the postmaster filed the duplicates of all certificates (see below) issued to the depositor. Form 301 Form 300 Figure 1. Postal savings account application and record forms On receipt of a deposit, the postmaster prepared in duplicate a postal-savings certificate(s) covering the amount of the deposit. The depositor was required to sign the duplicate certificate, after which the postmaster gave the depositor the original as evidence of his deposit. The duplicate was retained by the postmaster as part of his record and filed in envelope Form PS 300. Each depositor was provided with a Depositor’s Envelope, Form PS 301, in which he was to keep his certificate(s) of deposit. Imprinted on Form PS 301, in addition to depositor instructions, was a blank ledger record for keeping tract of his deposits and withdrawals. An example of envelope Form PS 301 is also shown in Figure 1. Certificate 1917 Series Duplicate 1911 Series Figure 2 Examples of a Postal Savings Deposit Certificate and its duplicate Certificates of deposit were supplied to the postmaster in duplicate in fixed denominations of one, two, five, ten, twenty, fifty, and one hundred dollars. Each certificate had a serial number and contained blank spaces, in which before issue to the depositor, the postmaster entered the name of the depository office, the date of issue, the date on which interest begins, the number of the depositor’s account, and the name of the depositor. As the account dollar limit was raised to $2,500, certificates of deposits for $200 and $500 were made available. Certificates series of different designs were issued in 1911, 1913, 1917, 1939 and 1954. An example of a certificate from the 1917 series and a duplicate from the 1911 series are shown in Figure 2. Certificates themselves from the 1911 and 1913 Series are extremely rare. 2. Initial Postal Savings Stamps As mentioned above, deposits into postal savings accounts had to be made in whole dollar amounts. To allow savers of modest means to accumulate the necessary dollar to deposit into a postal savings account, the system introduced the first postal savings stamp as shown in Figure 3 on January 3, 1911. The stamp (Scott No. PS1 [3]) was orange in color with a central denomination of 10-cents. The stamps were printed on double line USPS watermarked paper and were perforated 12. Plate numbers for PS1 are listed in Table 2. To accumulate the requisite dollar, a savings card was made available and is shown in Figure 3. 10-cent Orange 10-cent Blue Figure 3. First two Postal Savings stamps. PS1 on left and PS4 on the right The card (Scott No. PS2) was 136 mm x 79 mm in size and was printed in orange ink on buff card stock with 18 cards to the sheet in a 3 wide by 6 high format. The card sheet plate numbers are given in Table 2. It already had one 10-cent stamp imprinted on the card and sold for 10-cents. The saver then affixed nine PS1 stamps to make a total of $1.00. The card was then accepted by the postmaster for a dollar deposit in the saver’s postal savings account. The saver essentially exchanged the filled card for a $1.00 certificate of deposit. To prevent the fraudulent use of the filled card, the postmaster cancelled the filled card upon receipt. The cancel covered the entire card with large wavy stripes, the word cancelled and a blank space in the center for a date stamp. A cancelled (PS2) card is illustrated in Figure 4. As was customary at the time, the first savings stamps were printed in sheets of 400 (divided into panes of 100) with two different vertical spacings between stamp designs (nominally 2 mm and 3 mm). During the period from 1909 to 1917 the Bureau of Engraving and Printing was experimenting with variable spacing to accommodate or compensate for uneven shrinkage of the paper after it had been moistened in the printing process. It was observed that upon drying the shrinkage was greater on the outer edges of the sheet, thus, if the outer vertical rows of stamps were given greater initial spacing, it would compensate for the increased shrinkage and produce a better centered more evenly perforated sheet. On these experimental plates the six outer vertical rows of stamps on each side of the plate had 3 mm between the stamps and the rest of the sheet had 2 mm spacing. Thus, one can find pairs or blocks of PS1 with nominally 2 mm or 3 mm spacing between the vertical rows.

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