NORSE "MAYFLOWER"

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 34, 8 August 1925, Page 16

NORSE "MAYFLOWER"

SHII^p|qTUKES ON UNITED '••STATES .STAMPS./ ;. ■ '- '• ■

Two pleasant little .<hips have sailed into the calm anchorage' of the stamp album recently, writes Frad J.. Melville in the "Daily Telegraph." - They hail from the United States, tut i mark the centenary of the arrival in -America of the first shipload of Norwegian immigrants. They are beautifully engraved vignettes on whiul. the. Bureaw -of; Envmving and Printing hw expended .great care. The designs tiro-by-Miv.Ctasty, one of the bureau's artists.....-mc *c shows, within, a frame of rod, a, picture in black of the sloop Restaurationen, the Mayflower of "the Norsemen,- which sailed out :■ of.-Stavanger. Harbour, -on. 4th July, 1825; with fifty -two. .-einiprants on board, and after a perilous and romantic voyage readied the port of Now York-on It is C estimated that there, are 2,000,000. descendants of -the Norsemen now in the United States, and in- the- Senate s resolution to commemorate the centenary it is. recorded that "they.have bean anymportant factor in developing large sections- of- our country and -in ■otherwise, contributing to the moral and material -welfare of our nation." The companion oo stamp., printed? in blue and black, depicts an- old: Viking ship within a frame bearing, tho Norwegian shield, at. the.left and thel:American stars.^ind/stripes:-at; the right. .•--•'■:'■.' :'- r,.:T.--''"7" 1--" ■'"■•" These stamps will not replace the- or* dinary 2c and sc-I!uited''Stat'es;,s!;airip.s, as there is no inttfiitiw: r6f*':maldng very' extensive printings- which; ;wou]ri! be;costly in tha case of' bi-cbloured 'stamps of low denominations. There .will, .however, be enough to po roUrid'amongst col : . lectors, the first ■ printing-order-- being' for 10,000,000 of the 2c and 2,000,000. of the oc, a mere trifle in a country using 16,000,000,000 stamps in a yea;.'. -From the first printing supplies ;,-were issued to the big cities of Minnesota, on IBtli May but they were also obtainable it. the Philatelic Stamp Agency of the Post Office at Washington, a modern institution which looks after the .requirements of collectors. .As with all the other bi-coloured stamps printed by the Bureau they are produced from small intaglio plates of 100 subjects, a quarter of the size of the ordinary stamp plates. In the past "inverted centre" errors of such bi-coloured stamps have slipped through, and in the first printing of theie Norse-American stamps one . sheet was with the ship inverted, but it was detected by the checking staff and destroyed.

A prominent United States philatelist waxes sarcastic over the possibilities suggested by this Norse issue in a country with such an extensive and vnried ancestry. If all" Uie: others.-demand celebration issues tlic Post !Ofßce and the bureau will be kept.busy. He writes: "We must not forget the German who brought beer and.«auerkra'ut,to Hobok'en, the Irish who police jnir streets, and' boss our .politics, the first organ-grinder from Italy, the first pajk-peddler from Central Eur6pe, and a 'let: of Tothor forbears.' When finished we might turn to national evont*. Think of stamps issued to honour Mrs. O'Leafy's.. coiv that started, the Chicago-fire, tlifrfirst tin Lizzie, Bryan's first Presidential candidacy, and the re-, turn of the White House cat.""