U.S. IGY stamp - the 1958 Postal Bulletin announcement of its issuance

This post is devoted to the listing of the U.S. IGY stamp (Scott #1107) that appeared in the U.S. Postal Bulletin to announce the issuance of the stamp, and to explaining some of what is found in that listing. Realizing all these Bulletins can be found online has yielded one of several philatelic resources I have recently learned about. I've previously introduced this stamp by focusing on its listing in the commercial Scott stamp catalog.

The U.S. Postal Bulletin has been issued since 1880 as a publication of the Post Office Department (POD) and later the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). The purpose of this publication has been to itemize and explain the services provided by and the business of  the USPS. For decades the U.S. Postal Bulletin was published daily except Sundays and holidays, but every two weeks in recent years  (US Postal Bulletins and PL&Rs).

The verbatim listing is given below. Terms in red are further explained in the footnotes below the listing.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

POSTAL BULLETIN¹

INSTRUCTIONS AND INFORMATION FOR POSTAL EMPLOYEES PUBLISHED WEEKLY 

LXX1X Washington 25, D. C , Thursday, April 24, 1958—Eight Pages 20080

All Postal Installations 

International Geophysical Year Commemorative Postage Stamp

The Department² will issue a 3-cent stamp honoring the International Geophysical Year through the Chicago, Ill., post office, on May 31, 1958. 

This stamp will be 0.84 by 1.44 inches in dimension, arranged horizontally, and issued in sheets of 50. It will be printed on the Giori rotary sheet-fed press³ in two colors, back [sic, should be black] and orange, and perforated on an L-type machine. An initial printing of 120,000,000 has been authorized.

The design of the stamp is based on a photograph of the sun and depicts an area of intense solar activity such as occurs periodically and is among the phenomena being studied during the 18-month period of the International Geophysical Year. Superimposed above the solar disc and the fiery solar prominences emanating from it is a segment of Michaelangelo's famous fresco The Creation of Adam. Across the top of the stamp is the wording International Geophysical Year 1957-58, arranged in two lines, and across the bottom is U. S. Postage 3¢. All lettering is in white-face Gothic.

Ervine Metzl, the designer of the stamp, explained that "In the small confines of a postage stamp we have endeavored to picture a man's wonder⁴ at the unknown together with his determination to understand it and his need for spiritual inspiration to further his knowledge."

Stamp collectors desiring first-day cancellations⁵ of the 3-cent International Geophysical Year commemorative stamp may send addressed envelopes, together with money order remittance to cover the cost of the stamps to be affixed, to the Postmaster, Chicago 7, Ill ⁶. An enclosure of medium weight should be placed in each envelope and the flap either turned in or sealed. Envelopes submitted should be of ordinary letter size and each must be properly addressed. An envelope must not be sent for return of first-day covers. The outside envelope to the Postmaster should be endorsed First Day Covers Geophysical Year Stamp. Collectors should refrain from requesting hand cancellations⁷ since covers will be machine canceled⁷ so far as practicable. Orders for first- day covers must not include requests for uncanceled stamps.

For the benefit of collectors desiring stamps of selected quality for philatelic use, the 3-cent International Geophysical Year commemorative stamp will be available at the Philatelic Sales Agency⁸, Post Office Department, Washington 25, D. C., on and after June 2, 1958. To insure prompt shipment, mail orders to the Agency should include no other stamp issues. The Philatelic Sales Agency does not service first day covers.

Postmasters at first-class post offices⁹ requiring this issue in lots of 25,000, or multiples thereof, will requisition it from the Office of Industrial Services, Bureau of Engraving and Printing¹⁰, Washington 25, D. C. Those offices requiring less than 25,000 may obtain this stamp by submitting requisitions to their regional distributing office.

Postmasters ordering stamps from regional distributing offices should submit requisitions about May 19, 1958. Regional distributing office postmasters should submit requisitions promptly upon receipt of this notice.

Postmasters shall post a copy of this notice on the bulletin board¹¹ and give information to the press regarding the issuance of the 3-cent International Geophysical Year commemorative stamp.—Office of the Special Assistant to the Postmaster General.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

¹ Postal Bulletins since the year 2001 can be found at the U.S. Postal Service web site. Archives of older Bulletins from 1880-2013 can be found at the Digitized US Postal Bulletins and Postal Laws & Regulations web site. For example, to find the Bulletin announcing the IGY stamp, go to the latter web page, enter geophysical as a keyword in (1)Select Word Search Type, click the search button and select the 1958 issue among the search results.

² The Smithsonian Magazine provides a brief history of the USPS. Or, get a more detailed PDF brochure of its history produced by the USPS. The Post Office Department became the United States Postal Service in 1971. The Postmaster General was a member of the cabinet from 1828-1971.

³ I erred in my earlier post when I said that the IGY was the fourth multicolored stamp to be printed using the Giori press. It was the fifth, also preceded by Scott #1042, the 8¢ Statue of Liberty (redrawn). I was fooled because in the Scott catalog, a stamp series listing groups together all stamps in that series, including later stamps in a series listing that began at an earlier date. This stamp was part of the Liberty Series of definitive ("ordinary" stamps, as opposed to commemoratives) stamps, issued from 1954-1961, and was a few pages earlier that other 1958 stamps in the Scott catalog.

⁴ As here, language pertaining to the IGY written at that time definitely tends towards being male-biased. I hope to talk in a future post about professional and amateur women participants and interest in the IGY.

⁵ This is the method I used to order FDCs in the 1960s, such as the one below. To order first day covers today, you can buy the new stamp at your local post office, affix it to a SASE (with the stamp), and sending it within 120 days of the date of issue to USPS Stamp Fulfillment Services. Or you can order an unaddressed ready-made cacheted cover from a dealer or cachet company (or eBay, like I do). 

First day cover acquired by mail from Roswell, NM (but a domestic rather than an alien cover), Robert Goddard, Scott #C69 (C means airmail in Scott catalog-ese)

⁶ During World War II, when thousands of experienced postal employees left to serve with the military, the Post Office Department began a zoning address system in 124 large cities to facilitate mail sorting. Delivery zones were identified by one or two numbers between the city and state. Most of the cities used the system until 1963, when the Zoning Improvement Plan (ZIP) Code was inaugurated (USPS; The United States Postal Service: An American History; Publication 100, p. 54).

⁷ "A machine postmark or machine cancellation is a postmark or cancellation on mail that is applied by a mechanical device rather than with the use of a handstamp. Nearly all machine-cancellation devices apply both postmark and cancellation simultaneously. While some mail is cancelled using handstamps, machine cancellation is ubiquitous, and in the industrialized nations the vast majority of mail is cancelled by machine" (Wikipedia, Machine postmark).  

⁸ The Philatelic Agency was officially established on December 1, 1921 to allow the Post Office to expand its commemorative stamp program, keep track of  sales, help fund the Post Office Department, and encourage stamp collecting. It existed for over four decades. Recent stamps can now be ordered online at USPS.com.

⁹ The only thing I could find on what this means is in the aforementioned USPS American History booklet (p. 38):  "large (first class) Post Offices." Maybe those 124 large cities from above?

¹⁰ "In 1894, an agreement between the Postmaster General and the Secretary of the Treasury made the Bureau of Engraving and Printing the exclusive printer of postage stamps" (USPS American History, p. 108). "The Bureau printed its last postage stamps in 2005. Since then, all postage stamps have been printed by private firms" (ibid., p. 109).

¹¹ I just got my first artifact of a Post Office notice that was to be displayed on bulletin boards. I'll talk about its significance another time.

Post Office notice for the 1964 Amateur Radio Operators commemorative