United States Fourth Bureau Definitives

Part II
by Michael Mills

The new administration brought in big brooms to change things, which would soon lead to the plate plate presses bring replaced by more efficient rotary presses that could turn out sheets of stamps faster, up to thirty percent cheaper. The Fourth Bureau, thus, was the pinnacle of craftsmanship of the old flat bed presses and the last hurrah of these nineteenth century presses, as well as the debut of the modern rotary press in the USA.

The rotary press was phased into production, and by 1926 large press runs such as these definitives were run through the rotary press exclusively. For collectors the phasing out of flat plate (intaglio), and the introduction of rotary releases adds another dimension to the usual hunt, though the half millimeter increase of the rotaries sometimes can be very hard on the eyes.

Fourth Series Design

The Fourth Series is a typical American national stamp issue. By custom the most commonly used values bore vignettes of Benjamin Franklin (first postmaster in America) on the one-cent, and George Washington (general and first president) on the two-cent. The next common value was the five-cent and it marked the first appearance of Republican ex-president Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt, who had expanded America's place in the world and whose death in 1919 had been officially overlooked by President Wilson. No memorial or commemorative stamp was issued: the two men were political opposites.

The other low values featured the vignettes of several other Republican party presidents, four of whom were from Ohio, including later in 1925, that of Warren Harding, who died while in office. Mid-values were frames for designs of recognizable Americana. The Statue of Liberty, the Golden Gate, and an American Buffalo are basic images of American iconography, though a mid-value Pres. Wilson was released in 1925 after his death.

The high values were reserved for the hallmarks of the US federal government, official buildings and monuments in Washington DC erected in the imperial classical style, and the five-dollar stamp rounded out the set with the Head of Freedom, the statue that sits above the Capitol Building in DC. This was the only stamp in the series in two colors. With its red frame, blue vignette, and white paper, it was a stunning red, white, and blue, while all other stamps were monochromatic. (Curiously, the US flag did not figure prominently into patriotic fashions of the times.)

Flat Plates

The first set of Fourths was rolled out value by value from early October 1922 through May of the following year, with the half-cent and one-and-a-half-cent coming along in 1925. These were the flat bed issues, and were issued in lower quantity printings than the later rotaries.

The first was an eleven-cent blue President Hayes issue, which had a first-day in Fremont, Ohio, his hometown. This is one of the few Fourths that doesn't seem to appear to have chronic centering problem, which is a plus, with an added bonus that the eleven-cent can be found in a multitude of shades. In fact, most, if not all, of the Fourths are naturally conducive to color studies, though some are exceedingly rare, especially those of the very first flat bed printings. This tends of compensate for the relative rarity in examples with very fine centering. Of the Fourths, VF six- and eight-cents are the more elusive.