Sale 1201 — The Dr. William H. Johnson Collection of the U.S. 1890 Small Bank Note Issue
Sale Date — Tuesday, 21 May, 2019
Category — Die Proofs

VERY FINE. A RARE SET OF LARGE DIE PROOFS FOR THE 1890 ISSUE, WITH EACH SIGNED BY THE ENGRAVER OF THE FRAME AND THE VIGNETTE.
Scott Retail as normal set without signatures






VERY FINE APEARANCE. AN EXTREMELY RARE COMPLETE SET OF PANAMA-PACIFIC SMALL DIE PROOFS FOR THE 1890-93 ISSUE.
From February 20 to December 4, 1915, the Panama-Pacific Exposition was held in San Francisco, to commemorate Balboa's discovery of the Pacific Ocean and to celebrate the opening of mankind's greatest engineering achievement, the Panama Canal.
The Post Office Department decided to prepare a limited number of proof sets showing every United States stamp printed up to the time of the Exposition. A total of 413 different designs were made. Only two sets were officially prepared, but it is widely recognized that between 3 and 5 of each were made. These included Officials, Newspapers and Periodicals, Philippines and other special use stamps.