Parcels-post Stamps Are Novel in Design.
Arrangements have been made by Postmaster General Hitchcock for engraving and manufacture of a series of 12 stamps, unique in size and novel in design, for exclusive use in forwarding packages by the new parcels post. Under the law enacted recently by Congress, ordinary stamps cannot be used for this purpose.
The special parcels-post stamps will be larger than the ordinary stamps and will be so distinctive in color and design as to avert confusion with other stamps.
The new issue will be in three series of designs. The first will illustrate modern methods of transporting mail, one stamp showing the mail car on a railway train; another an ocean mail steamship; a third an automobile used in the postal service, and a fourth the dispatch of mail by aeroplane.
The second series will show at work in their several environments the four classes of postal employees—post-office clerks, railway mail clerks, city letter carriers, and[{61}] rural delivery carriers. The third series will represent four industrial scenes, showing the principal sources of the products that probably will be transported extensively by parcels post.
The stamps will be ready for distribution December 1, that the 60,000 post offices may be supplied with them before the law becomes effective January 1.