W. G. Crosby FDC Catalog | home
Famous Americans (859-93)
On July 19, 1939, Postmaster General James A. Farley announced that he had authorized the issuance of a series of stamps "in honor of famous Americans who achieved outstanding distinction in the arts and sciences." The series was to consist of 35 separate stamps, honoring 5 individuals in each of seven different groups: Authors, Poets, Artists, Educators, Inventors, Composers, and Scientists. Of historical note, the stamp picturing Booker T. Washington (Scott #873) was the first U.S. Stamp to honor an African American.
As plans for the series developed, it became a very difficult series of stamps for first day cover producers. The US Post Office Department made multiple changes to the series almost up until the day that the first stamps were released. As documented by Paul Hoffman in his cover article for First Days of May 15, 1984, the announcement of the series was only the beginning of a long path until the final determination and completion of the series became official. And many thanks to Paul for his assistance in helping me create this part of the catalog.
The most significant problems for FDC producers (many of whom, including Crosby, preferred to use the stamp color as part of the cachet design) was the fact that the USPOD kept changing the denomination, order, stamp color and even first day city. As originally announced, the seven sets of stamps were to include 1¢, 1½¢, 2¢, 3¢, and 5¢ varieties with colors of green, brown, red, purple, and blue respectively. Additionally, each set was to be issued in alphabetical order. Later, the USPOD announced that instead of the 1½¢ variety there would be a 10¢ variety, switching the brown color to that variety. At the same time, it was announced that the order of each set would be based on birth date (from earliest to most recent) rather than alphabetically. While first day cities were not announced until November, 1939, a number of the cities were changed the next month due to public concerns that too many of the stamps were to be released in major metropolitan centers rather than in cities or towns more closely related to the individual being honored by the stamp.
Crosby, who undoubtedly had begun to create cachets long before the final announcements, found himself with cachets based on the original color varieties and alphabetical listings. That is why Crosby cachets can easily be found in both the original color variety as well as the final color variety. (Only 8 stamps out of the total of 35 did not have a color change.) The chart below lists the original and final color varieties for all of the stamps. There is, however, one caveat to Crosby color selections. When the original notice of the order of the stamps was made, the notice indicated that the stamps would be issued in alphabetical order...but did not actually list them in that order. When it came to the subjects of the artist group, Crosby apparently initially alphabetized the artist St. Gaudens as if the last name was just Gaudens. Consequently he assumed that Remington would be the third stamp in the series (the 2c value in red at that time) and that "Gaudens" would be the second stamp in the series (the 1½c value in brown). Thus there are examples of cachets in those colors. At some point (before the later announcement of the change of the order of the stamps) Crosby must have realized his error because there are also examples of the St. Gaudens' cachet in its accurate original red color.
Scott #
& Name
|
Original Color
|
Final
Color
|
 |
Scott #
& Name
|
Original Color
|
Final
Color
|
859-Irving
|
Blue
|
Green
|
 |
879-Foster
|
Green
|
Green
|
860-Cooper
|
Red
|
Red
|
 |
880-Sousa
|
Blue
|
Red
|
861-Emerson
|
Purple
|
Purple
|
 |
881-Herbert
|
Brown
|
Purple
|
862-Alcott
|
Green
|
Blue
|
 |
882-MacDowell
|
Red
|
Blue
|
863-Clemens
|
Brown
|
Brown
|
 |
883-Nevin
|
Purple
|
Brown
|
864-Longfellow
|
Green
|
Green
|
 |
884-Stuart
|
Purple
|
Green
|
865-Whittier
|
Blue
|
Red
|
 |
885-Whistler
|
Blue
|
Red
|
866-Lowell
|
Brown
|
Purple
|
 |
886-St Gaudens
|
Red
|
Purple
|
867-Whitman
|
Purple
|
Blue
|
 |
887-French
|
Green
|
Blue
|
868-Riley
|
Red
|
Brown
|
 |
888-Remington
|
Brown
|
Brown
|
869-Mann
|
Red
|
Green
|
 |
889-Whitney
|
Blue
|
Green
|
870-Hopkins
|
Brown
|
Red
|
 |
890-Morse
|
Purple
|
Red
|
871-Eliot
|
Green
|
Purple
|
 |
891-McCormick
|
Red
|
Purple
|
872-Willard
|
Blue
|
Blue
|
 |
892-Howe
|
Brown
|
Blue
|
873-Washington
|
Purple
|
Brown
|
 |
893-Bell
|
Green
|
Brown
|
874-Audubon
|
Brown
|
Green
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
875-Long
|
Purple
|
Red
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
876-Burbank
|
Red
|
Purple
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
877-Reed
|
Blue
|
Blue
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
878-Addams
|
Green
|
Brown
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
In addition to the color varieties, the fact that first day cities were not announced until late in the process (and then changed in some cases) resulted in Crosby leaving out first day city information on certain sets of covers and then modifying the information for later editions of the covers as that became known.
Format of Listings
As documented in Mellone's Specialized Cachet Catalog of First Day Covers of the 1940's, Crosby created multiple types of cachets for this series. Some had photos and some without. He also created covers on airmail envelopes, Monarch size envelopes, and #10 size envelopes. And finally he apparently worked with certain organizations to create covers for their group reflecting designs that only appear for those individual stamps. And he even created full sets of covers in both silver and gold colors. Unlike the Planty Catalogs which documented most of Crosby cachets for pre-1940 issues with color information, as well as the listing of variations of the cachets, the Mellone Catalog makes no reference to color nor to the variations that appear in Crosby's Famous American cachets. This catalog, however, will try to detail much of that information. Within most sets of the non-photo type, Crosby included up to 3 lines of text immediately below the image of the honoree which documented the name, birthplace, home and first day city.
Standard Sized Envelopes
The first section of the catalog for the Famous Americans will include the cachets used by Crosby on #6, standard sized envelopes. There are 10 basic styles (numbered from WGC-1 to WGC-10 as shown below) that Crosby used for these envelopes. In addition, he created, apparently in conjunction with various organizations several specialized covers for some of the issues. There are also some covers for the John Philip Sousa stamp cancelled on the first day of issue aboard President Roosevelt's yacht, the USS Potomac. The last two groups of covers are included in the pages of the catalog showing the basic cachets and will be listed as WGC-11.
While most of the cachets are documented in either the original or final color of the stamps, there are numerous examples of other colors. In particular Crosby used various shades of purple, brown and even green in the cachets. Additionally, Crosby prepared one cachet for each 10c stamp in yellow. Notably, sets of gold and silver cachets can be found for all 35 stamps. Most of these cachets were apparently created in conjunction with JAS Stamp Services of Pocatello Idaho, whose rubber stamp logo can be found on the back of those covers.
Basic Design of Crosby Cachets
|
WGC-1 (M#37B) Roses Design at top
|
WGC-2 (M#37A) - Roses - no photo variety
|
|
WGC-3 (M#37F) - Lines coming out at top
|
WGC-4 (M#37E) - Lines - no photo variety
|
|
WGC-5 (M#37H) - Shield and Wings
|
WGC-6 (M#37G) - Shield - no photo variety
|
|
WGC-7 (M#37J) - Pillars at top
|
WGC-8 (M#37I) - Pillars - no photo variety
|
|
|
|
WGC-9 (M#37C) - This design utilizes relatively large photos for #859-863 (left) while the cachets on the remaining stamps use the smaller size of photos (right).
|
|
|
WGC-10 (M#37K) - This design was apparently used only on the first three values of the Composers series (Scott #s 879-881)
|
Color Variety Chart with listing of varieties of Non-Photo line information.
The chart below attempts to document the known cachet color varieties which appear on the standard #6 envelopes for the styles of cachets listed above. (The chart does not include WGC-9 (M#37C) because all known covers for that variety appear only in the final color announced by the USPOD.) For each cachet variety, there is a listing for the original ("O") or Final ("F") color variety. In addition, for the non-photo styles, there is also a listing for whether there are 1, 2, or 3 lines of text below the image of the subject of the stamp. A black "X" indicates that an example of that type is shown in this catalog. A red "X" indicates that the cachet exists in that variety but that none is presently shown in the catalog. "NA" indicates that such an example does not exist because both the original and final colors are the same. A blank space indicates that a variety in that format is not presently documented. Note also that in addition to the original and final colors, Crosby also used different colors which are illustrated in the catalog, but not referenced in this chart. One thing that stands out when reviewing the chart is that Crosby apparently did not create a complete set of cachets for the entire series in any of the listed varieties. Thanks to Paul Hoffman for providing the inspiration for this chart.
* Scott 890 (Morse) is known for type WGC3, M#37F only in silver.
 |
WGC-10 (M#37K)
|
Original or Final Color
|
O
|
F
|
Lines Under Image
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
879-Foster
|
NA
|
NA
|
NA
|
X
|
X
|
 |
880-Sousa
|
 |
X
|
 |
 |
X
|
X
|
881-Herbert
|
 |
X
|
 |
 |
X
|
 |
Special Cachets for Some Subjects.
In addition to the above cachets that Crosby produced for the standard #6 FDC covers, he also created individual cachets for some issues and worked with various groups to produce special covers just for those organizations. Those covers can be found in this catalog with the covers shown above and are generally listed as WGC-11.
Crosby also created cachets of #6 envelopes to group all of the issues for each set on one cover to be cancelled when the 10c variety was issued. At least two different varieties are known for each set. These are listed as WGC-12
#10 and Monarch Sized Envelopes
Crosby created cachets on #10 envelopes for all of the 35 Famous American stamps. Some are on plain envelopes while others are on airmail-bordered envelopes. In most cases there are two cachets on the envelopes. Those cachets are generally some variety of the standard cachets shown above with one each of a photo and non-photo variety. Apparently the decision to create the #10 envelopes occurred after the final word from the USPOD on the color and order of the stamps, because all the covers that have been documented are in the final color variety rather than in the original color variety. These covers are listed as type WGC-15.
In addition to the covers created for the individual stamps, Crosby also prepared #10 covers intended to be used for each entire group of 5 stamps and printed in the brown color of the 10c and final variety for each group. These are generally of a non-photo type which have images of each of the 5 stamps in the group. I have listed these cachets as type WGC-16.
He then used Monarch sized envelopes to create covers which were designed to show all stamps of the same denomination on one cover. Those covers were then cancelled on the first day of issue of the final series of stamps...the inventors.. These covers are of the non-photo type and are in the final colors and denomination categories announced by the USPOD. I have listed these covers as WGC-17
|