on of the 1908 series (Scott 338, 356, 364 and 381) shown in Figure 5.
10¢ Washington of the 1908 series (Scott 338, 356, 364 and 381)
Some collectors will maintain that absent from this list are stamps commonly identified as yellow, such as the 1913 10¢ Panama-Pacific Exposition (Scott 400) and the 1922 10¢ James Monroe (Scott 562). However, these stamps are purposely not included in the above list of “yellow” stamps because Scott classifies these issues otherwise, as "orange yellow" or "yellow orange".
“Back of the Book” Yellow Stamps
The especially small list of stamps printed with yellow as a base color can be expanded by including issues in the “back of the book” category, specifically the 1873 Agriculture Department official stamps, Scott O1- O9. (Examples in Figure 6.)
Agriculture Department official stamps: Scott O3, Scott O4, Scott O6
Using designs of the regular issues then in use, these stamps satisfied a request by Congress to
abolish the much abused franking privilege. Stamps were issued for the Executive branch and its
subordinate departments, with Agriculture being one of those departments.
True, the various printings of the Agriculture Department stamps range in color from yellow to golden yellow to olive yellow. However, the generally accepted major type of the issue was printed solely in yellow, and that is how it’s listed in Scott’s.
An interesting note is that official stamps were valid only on
government mail and were never sold to the public, so
collectors found assembling this long series a challenge and
But in 1875, a special printing was made available to
collectors of the entire set, ungummed and overprinted with
"Specimen", as shown in these examples.
Further understanding related to the color yellow and U.S. stamps could result from research into the shades, hues and variations of yellow stamps as well as orange stamps incorporating yellow in their color scheme. Also, a comparison of yellow used in the major stamp catalogs, online resources, expertizing services and stamp auction houses could highlight the inconsistencies in how colors are identified on some stamps.
Yellow has definitely played a significant role in the history of U.S. stamps, whether for regular issues, commemoratives or back of the book items. But in stark contrast to the prominent use of yellow with the multi-color process, yellow as the single, primary tint is a most elusive color for U.S. stamps.