1939: Philately

More than most hobbies, philately is sensitive to political and social change. Except for the United States, the 1939 stamps of most of the major powers, and of many minor ones, were affected by war or conquest. Five stamp-issuing governments — Albania, Alexandretta, Czechoslovakia, Danzig, and Poland — lost their identities; five — Carpatho-Ukraine, Ethiopia, Greenland, Hatay, and Slovakia — were added to the list.

The current war in Europe did not, however, add nearly so many new issues in 1939 as were produced during the corresponding period in 1914 — a few hundred as against more than a thousand.

About 920 new designs, exclusive of overprints and surcharges, were issued by all governments during the year, and about 2,600 major and minor varieties — new designs, new issues of earlier designs, overprints, surcharges, souvenir sheets, etc. — were produced for postal use. The number is probably a trifle smaller for 1939 than for 1938, but the two years are nearly equal in the number of new stamps.

The continued business depression and the deflation of the boom which had sent values in some speculative issues soaring, were reflected in the general lowering of the catalogue prices of stamps in 1939 as compared with 1938. Quotations in the current (1940) catalogue represent a net loss of approximately $6,000 from the previous year, and price levels would seem to be about on a par with those of 1937. The greater part of this loss was accounted for by a few of the higher priced stamps, like the United States 5 cent brown of 1861, unused, which dropped from $2,250 to $1,500. Prices generally were at their lowest at about the time — September — when the catalogue was issued, and tended to rise in the later months. In the auction sale of the Brown collection of United States stamps, held in New York in November, most of the items sold at catalogue or better, and many brought from two to three times their estimated price.

The Philatelic Agency in Washington announced that the fiscal year ending June 30 had been the fourth in the Agency's history in which sales had gone over the million-dollar mark, total for the year being $1,312,016.48. Although the Presidential series was completed in 1938, final figures on its distribution were not immediately available, and the announcement comes properly in a review of 1939. First day sales of this series of thirty-two stamps brought $639,036.91 for 7,970,732 stamps.

Seven commemorative stamps, all 3 cent values, were issued by the United States in 1939. These were the two World's Fairs (San Francisco and New York) and the Washington Inaugural, issued in April; Baseball, in June; Panama Canal, in August; Printing in America, in September: Four States, in November. The 'Heroes of Peace' series of famous Americans, which was to have been started in December, was postponed. In addition to the United States' Panama commemorative, both the Canal Zone and the Republic of Panama issued series of stamps marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of the opening of the canal.

From the stamp collector's point of view, one of the most important events of the year was the establishment of regular transatlantic air mail service in May. A special 30 cent air mail stamp was issued for transatlantic service. With the opening of this service the last link in regular air mail routes around the world was forged. First day transatlantic covers, and first 'round the world' covers, although not among the great rarities, are among the most historically significant air mail items. It is, of course, impossible to predict how much the war will affect transoceanic air service, but 1939 was a year of both expansion and preparation, and created an unprecedented number of international air-mail covers.

The year's most spectacular philatelic event began late in 1938 and was completed in January with the sale to a New York collector, Mr. E. B. Martin, of the now famous 24 cent green, United States 1869, block of four stamps with inverted centers, first used to pay postage from the United states to Liverpool. This block, the only one of its kind known, was sold at the Crocker sale in London, in November 1938, to Mr. Y. Souren, a New York dealer, who kept in touch with the sale by transatlantic telephone, the first time this system of communication had been used for a stamp sale. After its purchase, the block came to New York and was exhibited, with other rarities, at the Waldorf-Astoria in January. Two thousand collectors attended the exhibition. The block was purchased from Mr. Souren by Mr. Martin for $25,000, approximately twice its auction price of £2,500.

Although an unusual number of interesting pictorial stamps appeared during the year, there were few new designs of outstanding merit. The United States produced two of the worst in its history — the Washington Inaugural, A313, and the Four States commemorative, A317 — and two that are well above average. Both of the latter, the Golden Gate commemorative, A311, and the Printing commemorative, A316, are successful departures from traditional American design. From foreign countries the French semi-postal, SP51, reproducing Fragonard's 'The Letter'; Mexico's printing commemoratives, A134, A135 and A136; Morocco's air mail, AP4, using flying storks as a motive; and the railroad commemoratives from the Netherlands, A43 and A44.