The Regular Issues of 1922–1931 were a series of 27 U.S. postage stamps issued for general everyday use by the U.S. Post Office. Unlike the definitives previously in use, which presented only a Washington or Franklin image, each of these definitive stamps depicted a different president or other subject, with Washington and Franklin each confined to a single denomination. The series not only restored the historical tradition of honoring multiple presidents on U.S. Postage but extended it. 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. The Regular Issues also included other notable Americans, such as Martha Washington and Nathan Hale—and, moreover, was the first definitive series since 1869 to offer iconic American pictorial images: these included the Statue of Liberty, the Capitol Building and others. The first time (1869) that images other than portraits of statesmen had been featured on U.S. postage, the general public disapproved, complaining that the scenes were no substitute for images of presidents and Franklin. 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."Kenmore Collector's Catalog", 2010 Winter addition, catalog #906 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.

This series of postage stamps was the fourth to be printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, in Washington D.C.. Postal history "firsts" in these Regular Issues included the first fractional-value postage stamps, the first stamp to pay tribute to the Statue of Liberty and the first postage stamps to honor Warren G. Harding, Rutherford B. Hayes, Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and William Howard Taft.

Upon release these Regular Issues were initially printed on the flat-plate printing press, into which sheets were inserted one at a time, but shortly thereafter they were produced with the Stickney rotary press which printed images with slightly less quality and clarity but which allowed for the dramatic increases in production rates, as printing paper was fed into the press from continuous rolls of paper.Printing & Production Equipment, Smithsonian N.P.M. 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.Smithsonian National Postal Museum

Subject and design The definitive postage stamps of 1922, also known by collectors as the Fourth Bureau Issue, were issued in denominations ranging from -cent to 5-dollars with a corresponding subject and color for each. This would be the second issuance of definitive stamps released by the U.S. Post Office where the name of the subject was spelled out in print, unlike the Washington-Franklins previously issued where the respective subjects were presented in image form only. All the 1922–1931 denominations between 1-cent and 15-cents were printed in colors identical—or nearly identical—to the colors used for their counterparts in the preceding Washington-Franklin series (new colors, of course, had to be chosen for the 1-cent and 14-cent values, which had not previously been offered). Of the higher-denomination stamps, however, only the 50-cent value retained its Washington-Franklin color (the $2 stamp employed the same blue used for pre-Washington-Franklin $2 designs between 1894 and 1918).

The first stamp of the Regular Issues series was issued on October 4, 1922, the 11-cent Rutherford B. Hayes stamp, which also marked the hundredth anniversary of Hayes's birth. The issue was first released in Hayes' hometown of Fremont, Ohio, and in Washington D.C. Thus began the practice of issuing a new stamp on a specific day and in a particular city. The Hayes stamp is regarded by many collectors as the beginning of modern First Day Cover collecting. 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. One distinctive design feature of this series is that the stamps valued at 17 cents and higher appear in landscape format, distinguishing them from the less expensive stamps (15 cents and lower), which conform to normal portrait-orientation. 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. In the 1922-1931 issues, the corner ornamentation designed for the landscape issues is larger and more elaborate than—yet still aesthetically consonant with—the ornament employed on the lower values.

The Regular Issues were issued in three basic forms, consisting of sheet-stamps, coil-stamps (long strips of single stamps rolled into a 'coil') and booklet stamps (i.e., six stamps to a leaflet). There were three printings, or series, of stamps released on succeeding dates, the average series being released over the course of approximately two years. The 26 different subject themes employed for this issue were used to print more than 75 distinct postage stamp issues in three separate series over a ten-year period.

Stamp charts

Sheet stamps+ US Regular Issues1922–1931 Description Flat-Plate printingperf.111922–1925Scott: 551–573 Rotary Press printingperf.101923-1926Scott: 581–591 Rotary Press printingperf.11x10½1926–1934Scott: 622–643692–701 ½-cent, Nathan Hale Apr. 4, 1925 — May 25, 1929 1-cent, Benjamin Franklin Jan. 17, 1923 Oct. 17, 1923 Jun. 10, 1927 1½-cent, Warren G. Harding (i)1½-cent, Warren G. Harding (ii) Mar. 19, 1925 — Mar. 19, 1925 — May 17, 1927 Dec. 1, 1930 2-cents, George Washington Jan. 15, 1923 Apr. 14, 1924 Dec. 10, 1926 3-cents, Abraham Lincoln Oct. 27, 1922 Aug. 1, 1925 Feb. 3, 1927 4-cents, Martha Washington Jun. 15, 1923 Apr. 4, 1925 May 17, 1927 4-cents, William Howard Taft — — Jun. 4, 1930 5-cents, Theodore Roosevelt Oct. 27, 1922 Apr. 4, 1925 Mar. 24, 1927 6-cents, James A. Garfield Nov. 20, 1922 Apr. 4, 1925 Jul. 27, 1927 7-cents, William McKinley May 1, 1923 May 29, 1926 Mar. 24, 1927 8-cents, Ulysses S. Grant May 1, 1923 May 29, 1926 Jun. 10, 1927 9-cents, Thomas Jefferson Jan. 15, 1923 May 29, 1926 May 17, 1927 10-cents, James Monroe Jan. 15, 1923 Jun. 8, 1925 Feb. 3, 1927 11-cents, Rutherford B. Hayes Oct. 4, 1922 — Sep. 4, 1931 12-cents, Grover Cleveland May 20, 1923 — Aug. 25, 1931 13-cents, Benjamin Harrison Jan. 11, 1926 — Sep. 4, 1931 14-cents, American Indian May 1, 1923 — Sep. 8, 1931 15-cents, Statue of Liberty Nov. 11, 1922 — Aug. 27, 1931 17-cents, Woodrow Wilson Dec. 28, 1925 — Jul. 25, 1931 20-cents, Golden Gate May 1, 1923 — Sep. 8, 1931 25-cents, Niagara Falls Nov. 11, 1922 — Jul. 25, 1931 30-cents, Buffalo Mar. 20, 1923 — Sep. 8, 1931 50-cents, Arlington Amphitheater Nov. 11, 1922 — Sep. 4, 1931 1-dollar, Lincoln Memorial Feb. 12, 1923 — — 2-dollars, U.S. Capitol Mar. 30, 1923 — — 5-dollars, Freedom Mar. 30, 1923 — —

Dates are day of first issue.(i) = Harding in profile, (ii) = Harding 1/4 turn.

Coil stamps+ US Regular Issues, Coil Stamps1923–1932Rotary Press Printing Description 1923–1929Perf.10 Vrt. 1923–1925Perf.10 Hz 1932Perf.10 Vrt. 1-cent – Benjamin Franklin Jul. 18, 1923 Jul. 19, 1924 — 1½-cent – Warren G. Harding (i)1½-cent – Warren G. Harding (ii) Mar. 19, 1925Dec. 1, 1930 May 9, 1925 — 2-cents – George Washington Jan. 15, 1923Mar., 1929 Dec. 21, 1923 — 3-cents – Abraham Lincoln May 10, 1924 — — 4-cents – Martha Washington4-cents – Howard Taft Aug. 5, 1923Sep. 18, 1930 — — 5-cents – Theodore Roosevelt Mar. 5, 1924 — — 6-cents – James A. Garfield — — Aug. 18, 1932 10-cents – James Monroe Jan. 15, 1923 — — Each of the three previous definitive issues offered by the U.S. Post Office had had at least one printing on watermarked paper. This series would be the first since 1895 issued by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing without watermarks (impressions in the paper). Each of the three different series of the Regular Issues is differently perforated, the first being "perforated 11" on all sides (i. e., eleven holes in a two-centimeter span), the second perforated 10 on all sides and the last perforated 11 horizontally by 10 vertically. Other distinguishing characteristics involve the actual printings: i.e., the first series was printed on the flat-plate printing press which distinguishes it from the other two series, as these were printed on the rotary press which incorporated two identical printing plates that were bent and affixed around a rotating printing cylinder. The bending of the plate produced a stamp image with slightly longer dimensions than those the flat-plate press produced. 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.Scotts Specialized Catalogue, US Stamp Identifier

View Stamp-Charts Nathan Hale This was the first half-cent stamp issued by the U.S. Post Office (indeed, the first American postage stamp bearing any fractional denomination) and was issued to accommodate the new postal rates established in 1925. Hale was selected for the subject of this issue by Postmaster General Harry New. The stamp was designed by Clair Aubrey Huston who modeled the image of Hale from a photograph of a clay model of a statue of Hale located at Yale University. Benjamin Franklin The engraving of Franklin in this issue was the same one used in the previous Washington-Franklin issue, engraved by Marcus Baldwin of the Bureau in Washington, who modeled his work after a photograph of a plaster bust of Franklin created by Jean Jacques Caffieri in 1777. This issue is one of the few in the series that was issued in sheets, in coils and in booklet form. George Washington As the first-class letter rate was 2 cents, this denomination was printed in the billions. This issue continues a tradition, begun in 1847, of portraying Washington on commonly used stamps. Like the engraving of Franklin, also by Marcus Baldwin, the engraving in this design was taken from the same die used on the previous definitive issues, known as the Washington–Franklin Issues. Abraham Lincoln This issue was designed by the famous stamp artist Clair Aubrey Huston who employed the engraving of Lincoln by George Smillie that had been used to produce the first 'Bureau Issues' in 1894. Smillie, an engraver at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, based his work on a photograph of Lincoln taken in 1864 by the famous Civil War photographer Mathew Brady. The issued was first released on Lincoln's birthday, February 12, 1923, in Washington, D.C., and in Hodgenville, Kentucky, located near Lincoln's birthplace.

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