US Regular Issues of 1922–1931

Offering the customary presidential portraits of the martyred Lincoln and Garfield, the war hero Grant, and the founding fathers Washington and Jefferson, the series also memorialized some of the more recently deceased presidents, beginning with Hayes, McKinley, Cleveland and Roosevelt.

Later, the deaths of Harding, Wilson and Taft all prompted additions to the presidential roster of Regular Issue stamps, and Benjamin Harrison's demise (1901) was belatedly deemed recent enough to be acknowledged as well, even though it had already been recognized in the Series of 1902.

However, with the release of these 1922 regular issues, the various scenes—which included the Statue of Liberty, the Lincoln Memorial and even an engraving of an American Buffalo—prompted no objections.

[2][3] To be sure, this series (unlike the 1869 issues) presented pictorial images only on the higher-value stamps; the more commonly used denominations, of 12 cents and lower, still offered the traditional portraits.

[4] The Regular Issues were released over a nine-year period and can be found with three sizes, or gauges, of perforations which are used in the identification of the particular series for which a given stamp belongs.

[5] Benjamin Franklin and George Washington were traditionally depicted on the most commonly used stamps, the 1- and 2-cent issues, typically used for post cards and 1st class letters.

Here, the Post Office amplified an idea introduced in the previous Washington-Franklin issues, where landscape format had been used for the $2 and $5 stamps.

The framework designs varied depending on denomination but overall were uniform differing only in color, denomination and ornament type, while the central images depicted a variety of subjects which included presidential figures and other landmark scenes such as those of Niagara Falls, the Statue of Liberty and several other scenes.

[1] With the sudden death of Warren G. Harding on August 2, 1923, the U.S. Post Office was quick to release a memorial stamp in his honor only one month later, a record.

Clair Aubrey Huston designed this issue in one day using a modified version of the existing frame to surround an image taken from a copperplate etching of Harding.

The overprints were authorized and added to the 1926–27 printings to counter the rash of stamp thefts suffered by various mid-western rural Post offices.

Although these stamps closely resemble the standard flat-plate press sheet issues, their designs are somewhat longer or wider than normal because rotary printing stretches the image slightly.

The exception, released on June 15, 1932, in anticipation of the impending rate increase on standard letters from 2¢ to 3¢, scheduled for July 6, was a 3¢ Washington regular issue stamp.

Rather than designing this hurried production entirely from scratch, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing modified the 2¢ stamp from the Washington Bicentennial Issue which had been released at the beginning of the year, and already looked like a definitive.

The result was that a Washington definitive issue for the normal letter rate—an invariable feature of American postage since 1870—remained continuously available to the public.

The 3¢ Lincoln stamp from the 1922 series still sold widely in 1932 but disappeared from post offices the following year, prompting such protests that the Bureau had to reprint it from new plates in early 1934.

[32] During the six years following the final release of the regular issue in 1932, a steady stream of 3¢ commemoratives appeared which helped to meet the basic postal needs of the country.