United States Stamp History
Stamp Book Leaflets

TWO CENT WASHINGTON

The Stamp Book Issue of February 8, 1912
2c Washington, Imprint IX, 33 plates

SL Vertical Watermark, Perf 12
Carmine

Almost all of the countries in the world adopted the Universal Postal Regulations (UPR). The regular 2c denomination stamp was to be in the red family. This included stamp book leaflets. The Bureau decided to continue to use carmine as the principal color for flat plate stamps.

The old design, TWO CENTS denomination used for the leaflets of 1908 and 1910 was replaced by a new design, 2 CENTS 2 for the 1912 issue.

Of the 33 plate numbers, 14 were classified as scarce or very hard to find. They were *5767, *5778, *5783, *6057, *6061, *6112, *6113, *6116, *6119, *6562, *6563, *6564, *6565, and *6696. (See Durland.)

The total stamp book leaflet output printed for the interval of issue which was one year ten months and 9 days was 66,666,667 or 400,000,002 stamps according to Harrigan's figures used by Schmidt. In his work Schmidt used the total leaflets per issue. With this information Schmidt's arithmetic was to divide that number by his scarcity factor for each of the 12 positions. Some position output is hard to believe!

Shades varied from carmine, bright carmine, dark carmine, to deep carmine.

Covers left over from the 1910 issue were not expendable so the BEP used them until they were exhausted. This meant the beginning covers for the issue of 1912 would have covers type II-a and type II-b. New covers type II-c, type II-d, and type II-e would include leaflets from the 1912 issue. Beginning with type II-c all four pages of text were changed. The text varied on the front cover of the 1c and 2c stamps. The Washington Post Office was on the 1c. The INSIGNIA of the P.O.D. was on the 2c but it was smaller by 6mm than previously used. New colors for the 2c-12 was BUFF and the 2c-48 was BLUE. The inside front cover was changed to include: (BY DIRECT STEAMER ONLY), FOURTH CLASS OR PARCEL POST, and Add: POST STAMPS (See line 17). Type II-d was altered on the inside front cover: Omit: MUST BE PREPAID WITH PARCEL POST STAMPS. Type II-e bound the first 1c-96 book and the covers were LAVENDER Printed Green. This 1c book color was used in issues of 1912, 1914, 1916, and 1917. The first stamp combination books were, 1c/2c - 24/24 WHITE printed Red.