The Story of Canal Zone Stamps By Philip L. Dade and Gustavo Schay This Dade-Schay copy should (must) be read in conjunction with “Canal Zone Stamps” by Plass, Brewster, and Salz. Parts of sections and chapters have not been copied here because they are complete and well described in that book. A reprint of the book may be purchased from the Canal Zone Study Group. The Dade-Schay copy from which this present work is produced did not reproduce well on some pages. This has led to unforced errors and omitted letters and words. There are mistakes which are mine and beg forgiveness. I do not have an original copy from which to work. This work has been done with Dragon Naturally Speaking and often I was misunderstood by the program. Thanks to Chris DeVoe for his excellent proofreading which has reduced the errors considerably. Thanks to George Campbell for images. Thanks to Richard Bates for his work at the National Postal Museum in researching the original document. Thanks to David Zemer who kept encouraging me to finish this task when I thought nobody cared. Respectfully submitted: Ralph Weil. Index ii Foreword iv Preface vi Chapter 1: The Basic Panama Stamps and Their Overprints 1 The Third Panama Issue 1 The Fourth Panama Issue 4 The First Plate 4 The Second Plate 5 The Third Plate 5 The Fourth Plate 6 Basic stamps for No. 9 and 10 8 Chapter 2: The First Series 8 Scott No. 1, 2, 3 Chapter 3: The Second Series 10 Scott No. 4 - 8 Chapter 4: The Taft Agreement 11 Chapter 5: The Third Series 12 The “Canal Zone” Overprint 12 The First Stage 13 The Second Stage 13 The Third Stage 13 The Fourth Stage 14 The Fifth Stage 14 The Sixth Stage 14 The Panama Overprints 16 The 8 Cent Surcharges 16 Chapter 6: The Boyd Report and its Effect on the Third Series 20 Chapter 7: The Fourth Series: 24 Scott No. 16 and 17 Chapter 8: The Fifth and Sixth Series 27 The Fifth Series - Scott No. 21-26 27 The Sixth Series - Scott No. 27-30 28 Chapter 9: The Seventh Series 29 Scott Nos. 31-35, 38-41, 46-48, 52-54, 55-57 Chapter 10: A Few Notes 30 Early Overprints 30 Method of Ordering Stamps 31 Early Post Offices 31 Payment for Stamps 32 All Issues Gummed 32 Slogan Dies 33 Official Seals 33 Chapter 11: The Eighth and Ninth Series 34 The Eighth Series - Scott No. 36 and 37 34 The Ninth Series – Scott No. 42-45, 49-51, 58-59 35 Chapter 12: The Tenth and Eleventh Series 36 The Tenth Series - Scott No. 60-67 36 The Eleventh Series – Scott No. 68-69 37 ii Chapter 13: Panama’s Honored Great (persons on stamps) 39 Chapter 14: The Abrogation of the Taft Agreement 41 Chapter 15: Dispute of 1924 - 1927 and the Big Burning 41 Chapter 16: Background of the U.S. Issues and Basic U.S. Stamps 49 The Basic Stamps 55 Chapter 17: The Twelfth Series 58 The Flat A - U.S. Overprints - Scott No. 70-81 Chapter 18: The Thirteenth Series 63 The Sharp A - U.S. Overprints - Scott No. 84-95 Chapter 19: The Fourteenth Series 70 Rotary Press U.S. Overprints 70 Scott Nos. 97-104, 115, 116, 118, 119 Perforated 10 x 10 71 Perforated 11 x 10½ 71 Chapter 20: The Fifteenth Series 75 Canal Zone Permanent Issue Scott Nos. 105-13, 116, 117, 136, 137, 139-41, 146 75 Chapter 21: Commemorative Issues 86 Liberty Bell 87 Twenty-Fifth Anniversary 88 Barro Colorado Anniversary 90 Gold Rush Centennial 90 Chapter 22: Air Mail Issues 91 Permanent Series 94 First Coast-to-Coast Air Mail 96 First Flight and Commemorative Cachets 96 Chapter 23: Postage Dues Stamps 98 Mount Hope Printing 103 U.S. Overprints 104 Permanent Canal Zone Issue 106 Chapter 24: Official Stamps 107 Perforated “P” 108 Official Overprints 109 Chapter 25: Postal Stationary 116 Envelopes 116 U.S. Overprints 119 Local Overprints 119 Canal Zone Seal Type Stamped Envelopes 119 Canal Issues 121 Air Post Envelope 125 Registration Envelope 126 Postal Cards 127 U.S. Overprints and C.Z. Originals 130 Chapter 26: Booklets 131 U. S. Overprints 133 Permanent Series 133 Chapter 27: Precancelled Stamps 135 Chapter 28: Counterfeits 140 Chapter 29: Check List 143 iii FORWORD Two generations of stamp collectors have seen comparatively little published information concerning Canal Zone stamps. Since the days of Colman, Bartels, and Evans, such writings on Canal Zone stamps as have appeared have been sporadic, unrelated, and unfortunately in many instances, inaccurate. It would be unfair to point out any special reason for the inaccuracy of the information but the extraordinary thing is that incorrect data continues to be published to this day. As a specialist in the Canal Zone postage, this author on several occasions requested information from official postal sources and from the Record Bureau of The Panama Canal, in an effort to obtain facts and figures never before brought to light. Being very well aware that the task was one requiring a considerable outlay of time, the author suggested to Panama Canal authorities that he be permitted to seek the information himself from the official files. Early in 1945, it was suggested to Mr. C. M. Lupfer, Assistant Executive Secretary of The Panama Canal that enough hitherto undisclosed information very well might be obtained from the official records to make the publication of a book on Canal Zone stamps possible. Mr. Lupfer, himself an ardent stamp collector and one of the Canal's real "old timers," was sympathetic to the idea and granted permission to study exceptionally complete Executive Office files on the Canal Zone postal system and its history. This is believed to be the first time that permission has been granted any individual to work on official files in a non-official capacity. Following the retirement of Mr. Lupfer in 1948, permission was requested and obtained from the newly appointed Assistant Executive Secretary (who in 1949 became Executive Secretary) Mr. E. C. Lombard to continue the work. Mr. Arnold Bruckner, Director of Finance of The Panama Canal also granted permission to use the files in his department. Much of the information contained in this book will be found at variance with heretofore published and generally accepted data on Canal Zone issues. It can be stated here that all data published in this volume has been compiled by the authors from official records, personally perused, checked, and verified and, in no instance, has the work of any other government employee been used for this purpose. By the same token, any errors appearing in this work are the fault and responsibility of the authors, who herewith expresses willingness to accept this responsibility. It is sincerely hoped that other students in correcting such errors as may be found to exist here will be willing to furnish the authors with proof of their claims. That there are errors in this work, we have not the slightest doubt. That there has been guesswork from time to time in compiling the data and some trick mathematics, we freely admit. But guesswork and calculations are definitely labeled as such in the book and the reader is free to agree or disagree with our conclusions as he chooses. That there are omissions is also acknowledged. One of the problems which early had to be resolved by the authors was the decision on what to include and what to leave out. The official files of The Panama Canal are so vast, so all-inclusive that sufficient material to write ten volumes the size of this one was on hand. Each of those volumes and each subject therein could have been expanded ten times again. Obviously, such a project was out of the question and, regretfully, many important subjects have been left out entirely and others, barely touched upon. Nothing, for example, has been written about the passage of mail across the Isthmus before the Canal was constructed; the paquebot service and cancellations; railroad cancellations and mail; cancellations in general; the chronological initiation and closure of the various post offices; the physical handling of international mail and The Panama Canal Zone mail; registration; postal service during Canal construction days; sale of United States stamps on the Zone; stamp vending machines; the postal money order business and its most interesting history; internal operations of the Canal Zone postal system such as classification of post offices, fiscal reports and accounting, etc., and many more interesting subjects on which many volumes of files and records exist. iv If you, our readers, through your reception of this first book, appear to be sufficiently interested, per- haps the authors can prepare successive volumes on these fascinating, now reluctantly omitted stories of a period unique in the Western world's philatelic history. Our co-author, Mr. Gustavo Schay, unlike the undersigned (who originated this task primarily from an ex-newspaperman’s viewpoint as an interesting writing and research problem) is a philatelic student. His vast collection of Panama stamps is without question one of the finest in the world. Mr. Schay, professionally an architect, found the early Panama issues to be the intriguing problem that they are, and for twenty-five years has been an avid student of these overprints and early issues. Needless to say, it was only Mr. Schay’s intimate and personal knowledge of these issues which made this book at all possible. Mr. George Brett needs no introduction to collectors having been a contributor to philatelic publications for the past decade, particularly on Bureau issues.