United States Stamp - Jack London - Issued January 11, 1988

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United States Stamp - Jack London - Issued January 11, 1988

Postage Stamp
Title: Jack London
Scott Cat. Number: 2182
Subject: London - John Griffith London (1876-1916)
Design: Richard Sparks of Norwalk, Connecticut, under the direction of Howard Paine, a design coordinator for the Citizens’ Advisory Committee.
Artist – vignette: Sharpe - Jim Sharpe (1936-2005)
Typographer: Bradbury Thompson
Engraver - vignette: Hipschen – Thomas R. Hipschen (1950-)
Engraver – lettering and numerals: Dennis Brown
Media: Intaglio
Printer: Bureau of Engraving and Printing
Color: Blue
Size: 18.03 mm x 20.82 mm
Country: United States
Postage Value: 25 cents
Issue Series: 27th in the Great American Series
Issue Origin: Jack London’s 110th birthday
Issue Date: January 11, 1988
Issue Location: Glen Ellen, California – location of London’s Wolf House estate, now the Jack London State Historic Park.
Issue Size: 59,850,000

Richard Sparks based his design on a photograph of London taken in 1914 by the author’s wife, Charmian.
Kittredge – Charmian (Kittredge) London (1871-1955)

See: "The Engraver’s Line: An Encyclopedia of Paper Money & Postage Stamp Art" by Gene Hessler, BNR Press, Port Clinton, Ohio, 1993.

Page 4 and 5 explain the production steps taken to turn original art into an engraved postage stamp. Worth reading as the engraver works from the beginning on a plate of about 3.5” x 4,” engraving a stamp at its finished size. Engraving is used for very few stamps today and, when one reads about the process, one can understand why. The author even provides particular engraver’s recipes for the acid they used, including that of James Smillie, the famous landscape engraver. Smillie - James Smillie (1807-1885).

Sharpe - Jim Sharpe (1936-2005)

United States Postal Service

ME

USA

January 11, 1988