U.S. 3 Cent Commemoratives are my main collecting interest. This image, or one like it, is used as my background in several of my YouTube videos and other things.
Traditionally, U.S. commemorative stamps are said to begin with the Columbian Exposition set issued 1 January, 1893.
The third stamp of that set, was the first 3 cent commemorative. The stamp depicts the Santa Maria, Columbus’s flagship.
Alfred Jones and Charles Skinner were the engravers, though the ultimate source of the image is uncertain. It may have been a Spanish engraving.
They were printed by the American Bank Note Company, using a flat plate, with 11,501,250 stamps issued.
The rate of 3 cents did not pay any of the current postal rates of the time, and the stamp was considered a make-up rate stamp.
That’s traditionally.
However, in 1869 the U.S. issued a 3 cent stamp depicting a locomotive. While it does not have the later recognized commemorative stamp dimensions, it is still a commemorative.
It was issued as part of the first non-portrait pictorial stamps of that year. Depicting the latest in railroad technology, it commemorated the Transcontinental Railroad, and the technology of innovation. To me, this stamp is the real first 3 cent commemorative stamp.
Also produced by the American Bank Note Company, 335,534,850 flat plate-printed stamps were issued.
The last 3 cent commemorative though, I can agree with tradition on.
The last was issued on 27 February 1959 commemorating the sesquicentennial of Abraham Lincoln. One of a three stamp set, this was Rotary Press printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. 91,160,200 were issued.
The design of the stamp is from a 1906 sculpture of Lincoln by Gutzon Borglum. The sculpture is in the Crypt of the Capital Building, Washington, D.C., and as far as I can determine was not damaged during the recent insurrection.
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