1869 Pictorial Issue
The Post Office decided at the last minute not to annoy the British and so used the 10 cent Patriotic Eagle and Shield design again with the addition of flags.
[5] These error stamps command high prices: at an auction in early 2011, used copies of the three inverts realized a total of a quarter of a million U.S.
[6] During the past century, the pictorial series has enjoyed warm praise in philatelic commentaries: some have expressed admiration for the boldness of its concept and the skill of its miniaturistic engraving by James Smillie, others, affection for the period charm of its illustrations.
[4] Still others writers cite the nostalgic associations of the pictorials, noting that for most collectors of American stamps, the 3-cent locomotive—a common item of which many cheap copies are available—was the first issue of real antiquity they were able to collect, in the otherwise empty early pages of their albums.
As early as September, newspapers announced that the Post Office was planning a new definitive issue to supplant the unpopular series, and the replacements went on sale during April 1870 — less than thirteen months after the pictorials had first been vended.
Many accounts characterize the strident criticism that greeted the pictorials as a spontaneous, broad-based public reaction, motivated by the patriotic conviction that national heroes were the only acceptable subjects for U.S. stamps.
Moreover, even before the pictorials appeared they had already acquired enemies as a result of the previous year's unusually contentious competition for the contract to produce the 1869 U.S. stamps.
The designs and printing proposals offered by the National Banknote Company during June 1868 had been chosen by the Post Office, despite the fact that another company—Butler, Carpenter—had submitted a lesser bid.
[7] In this climate of ill will, a set such as the pictorials—an issue that avoided moderate solutions—was particularly vulnerable, for features of the new stamps that were unfamiliar could easily be characterized as hopeless flaws by opponents who had been involved with the Butler, Carpenter fight.
The reduced size enabled National to fit 150 stamp-images on a pane instead of the normal 100, and Butler, Carpenter had characterized this shrinkage as a penny-pinching short-cut that reeked of unfair competition.
"[9] And the designs were particularly vulnerable to being rendered unattractive or even risible by the poor quality control exercised by the still infant stamp production industry.
Only collectors of exceptional affluence are able to afford well-centered copies of the pictorials; less fortunate hobbyists must often settle for lopsided examples that must have been even more displeasing to those who bought them at post offices during 1869.
In contrast to these almost accidental accumulations, "the new series was intended in some sort to portray the history of the Post Office in the United States, beginning with Franklin, the Continental postmaster and the post rider of the early days, followed by the locomotive of a later day and the Ocean Steamer carrying the mails…, the most important scenes in the early history of the country, its triumphant arms, and Washington its first and Lincoln its last President.
"[9] In keeping with the suggestions in the Post Office advertisement, the essays that National Banknote Company submitted for the new issue on July 22, 1869, indeed represented a fresh approach.
After Lincoln had been moved to the 90-cent stamp, a 10-cent version of the Signing of the Declaration was mooted, but around September, National provided the present Eagle-and-Shield design for the denomination.
However much of a role Butler, Carpenter played in the press campaign against the 1869 Pictorials, another of National's rivals—the Continental Bank Note Company—considered the issue's failure as an opportunity to expand its own government business.
These designs resembled the company's revenue stamps, engraved in a distinctive style marked by intricate fine-line filigree meant to combat counterfeiting.
In addition, however, Continental attempted to provide the sort of national overview that the Pictorials' historical tableaux had suggested (neglecting this aspect might conceivably have invited unfavorable comparison).
For the 1870 series, in response to complaints about the small dimensions of the pictorials, the Post Office adopted a larger size for postage stamps than ever before.
Pictorial designs did not appear on stamps for ordinary mail until 1893: and those issues were carefully promoted as a special series in honor of that year's Columbian Exposition—one that would soon disappear, leaving national heroes as the sole subjects for definitives.
It was not until the series of 1922–25 that the Post Office again placed pictures on definitive stamps—confining them, however, to values of 15 cents and above; the lower denominations still presented the normal portraits presidents and other famous Americans.
The other was a five-dollar issue based on a distinctly odd experimental three-cent essay probably intended for the pictorials:[13] a design for a diamond-shaped stamp (corners top and bottom) presenting a dual portrait of Washington and Jackson.
