5 cents, black.
This stamp appears to have been originally stamped upon the buff envelopes common at the time, and to have been cut out and fastened to the letter. No further information concerning it has yet been discovered. The files at Washington, of the Alexandria Gazette, the only Alexandria paper of that period, are defective from May 22nd, to October, 1845, and in part for 1847. Daniel Brien was Postmaster at Alexandria during 1845-47.
X.
Stamps of the Baltimore Postmaster.
This stamp was first chronicled in the Philatelical Journal in 1874. The copy there described was the only one known, until very recently, a second copy was described in the New York World, and subsequently that and another were mentioned in the Alexandria Gazette, of August 3rd, 1886, as having been in possession of Mr. Thomas Semmes, of Alexandria. These are described as postmarked respectively, January 15th, and 31st., 1847, with the other marks usual upon letters of the period. From 1845 to 1849, Mr. James Madison Buchannan was the postmaster at Baltimore, and is said to have issued this stamp in the fall of 1846. Further details are wanting. The stamp is a simple looking slip of paper containing the signature of the postmaster in fac-simile, in one line, and the value, "5 Cents," in a second line, bordered by a frame of single colored lines, crossed at the four angles.
Impression, 55 by 15 mm., in color upon thin bluish paper.
5 cents, black.