The commemorative stamps issued in this year comprise three entirely unique sets and commemorate three entirely different events. Properly, they should be considered as distinct as say, the Pan American, Louisiana and Jamestown issues. For convenience, they are often lumped into a single set by collectors, but the entirely different dates of issue and different sizes reaffirm this concept of separateness.

The Two Cent Lincoln Commemorative of 1909

This stamp marks the first time the U.S. Post Office issued a "commemorative" stamp that did not promote a current event. Still, as with the McKinley stamp of the Louisiana Purchase Issue, the stamp was a memorial stamp as much as a commemorative one. When the ordinary issue was changed in 1908 to designs of Washington and Franklin only, there was a public outcry about the exclusion of Lincoln, whose likeness had been on at least one denomination of each issue since 1866. Since the year 1909 marked the 100th anniversary of Lincoln's birth, a stamp commemorating that event seemed a logical choice.

There are many collectible varieties of this stamp, with the more obvious being the imperforate and blue paper stamps which have been given separate Scott numbers. There are many collectible plate positions, and the marginal imprint with small solid star used by the Bureau for identification purposes, is nearly unique to this stamp. There are spacing varieties as well, the sheets were printed with both 2mm and 3mm spacing between the stamps.

The imperforate stamp was distributed to private coil vending companies who in turn provided their own perforations. Many of these private perforations, found as well on the other 1909 commemoratives and many of the ordinary "imperforate" stamps of the era, are quite collectible. We have enclosed imperforate in quotes since the stamps, once privately perforated, are no longer imperforate.

The imperforate two cent Lincoln of 1909 is found with the following private perforations: Brinkerhoff Types I, II, IIa, and IIb; Farwell Types 4A and 4B; Mailometer Types I, II, III, and IV; Schermack Types I, Ia, Ib, II, and III; and the U.S. Automatic Vending Machine Types I, II, and III. The U.S. Automatic Vending Machine Company also introduced the prototype for privately perforated coils with this stamp, Type IIIx.

See also: Private Perforations - Vending and Affixing Machine Perforations on U.S. Stamps

The Two Cent Alaska-Yukon Exposition - The Seattle World's Fair of 1909

In 1909, to celebrate its connection with the Alaskan and Canadian Northwest frontiers and to commemorate the gold rush in the Klondike region, Seattle hosted a world's fair, the Alaskan-Pacific-Yukon Exposition. Efforts were made to get the Post Office to issue a set of stamps to promote the event, as had been done for the Columbian, Trans-Mississippi, Pan-American, Louisiana Purchase and Jamestown expositions that had preceded it. After some badgering, the Postmaster agreed to issue one stamp to honor the event.

The design of this stamp went through several phases, including an attractive seal - the furry kind - on a block of ice, but these concepts were turned down when the promoters of the event insisted on promoting Alaska's mild summers and not its harsh winters.

The exposition had been planned for 1907, the 40th anniversary of Secretary of State William Seward's purchase of the Alaskan territory from Russia for $8 million, but conflicts with the Jamestown Exposition pushed it back two years. In 1867 the purchase of Alaska had been known as "Seward's Folly", but by 1909 the importance of this acquisition was well appreciated, and Seward was widely regarded as a prophet of sorts. His portrait on the stamp is certainly justifiable, in the same manner as Livingston's was on the one cent Louisiana stamp.

As with the Lincoln stamp of 1909, there are many collectible varieties, including the privately perforated "imperforate" stamps, and additionally, a variety of collectible World's Fair and Exposition cancels.

The imperforate two cent Alaska-Yukon of 1909 is found with the following private perforations: Attleboro; Brinkerhoff Types I, II, and IIa; Mailometer Types I, II, III, and IV; Schermack Type III; and the U.S. Automatic Vending Machine Types I, Ia, II, and III.

The Two Cent Hudson-Fulton Celebration of 1909 - New York City, New York

Like the Alaska-Yukon Exposition - World's Fair, the Hudson-Fulton Celebration committee pushed for the issuance of a stamp to promote their event. As the title of the stamp suggests, the celebration commemorated two events - the discovery of the Hudson River - in 1609, and the first demonstration of a viable steamship - in 1807.

The stamp depicts both of these events, although the dates on the stamp suggest otherwise, commemorating only the tercentenary of the discovery of the Hudson River. If one looks closely at the central vignette however, it is plain that an early seventeenth century sailing boat, Hudson's "The Half Moon", and a nineteenth century steamboat, Robert Fulton's "Clermont", are sailing peacefully on the same Hudson River. An anachronism to be sure, but the point was clearly made.

The imperforate stamp was not really necessary, since its large size made it ill-fitted for most private vending machines, but a fair number were issued - 216,480. Although 200,000 may seem small for a commemorative issue, many, if not most, of these were saved by collectors, and the imperforate stamps are not exceptionally scarce. As with the other imperforates of 1909, some of these were privately perforated, although primarily for philatelists.

The imperforate two cent Hudson-Fulton of 1909 is found with the following private perforations: Brinkerhoff Type II; Mailometer Types I, II, III, and IV; Schermack Type III; and the U.S. Automatic Vending Machine Types II and III.

There is a web site, by Steven Stratford, devoted entirely to the 1909 U.S. Commemorative stamps: us1909.com.

These stamps rightfully belong to the "Series of 1908", although they were not issued until early 1909. The rest of the 1908 series stamps may be seen by clicking here.

The thirteen cent, fifty cent and dollar stamps were issued in one variety only, on the double-line watermarked paper, although the thirteen cent does appear in the blue paper variety. Both the ten cent and fifteen cent stamps were issued on single-line watermarked paper as well, and are also known in the blue paper varieties. The ten cent was also issued in coil form.

For more information on the identification of the various Washington Franklin stamps, see: Washington Franklin Identifier.