United States postmasters' provisional stamps

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In 1845, Congress set nationwide postal rates: 5¢ for a normal-weight letter up to 300 miles and 10¢ for 300–3,000 miles, to take effect on July 1, 1845. Britain had already standardized rates and issued the world’s first adhesive postage stamps in 1840 to prepay mail. Although the US law didn’t authorize national stamps, local postmasters saw that uniform rates made prepaying feasible, so from 1845 to 1847 eleven places issued Postmasters’ Provisional stamps.

The first provisionals were New York and Baltimore in July 14–15, 1845; New Haven and St. Louis appeared later that year, with the rest in 1846. The eleven issues varied a lot in design and production. Five were printed from engraving plates; two were typeset; Millbury used a woodcut; New Haven and Lockport were handstamped; Annapolis was an indicium printed on an envelope. The rarest issues are Boscawen and Lockport, each known from a single copy. The Alexandria “Blue Boy” variant is unique on blue paper. Other scarce examples include Annapolis (2 copies), New Haven (11), Millbury (19), Baltimore 10¢ (7 copies), Brattleboro (500 produced, 52 known), Providence (at least 5,500 5¢ and 500 10¢), and St. Louis (nine 5¢ stamps, 3,000 10¢, 1,000 20¢ in the first two printings; the total around 9,000).

Among the eleven provisionals, New York issued the largest quantity: 143,600 stamps. When nationwide stamps were introduced on July 1, 1847, they largely followed the design of the New York Postmaster’s provisional, since both were designed and printed by the same firm, Rawdon, Wright, Hatch and Edson. After national stamps came out, postmasters’ provisionals became obsolete, but they helped people get used to prepaying with stamps.