In 1926 the United States celebrated 150 years since independence, to commemorate this the Post Office were in the middle of releasing stamps that depicted events during the Revolutionary War.


The stamp was issued on August 3rd, along with #643, to commemorate the first display of the Stars and stripes in the face of the enemy, which was on August 3rd, 1777 at the defence of Fort Stanwix. Not to commemorate the surrender of the British General Burgoyne at Saratoga which occurred on October 17th, 1777.

Interestingly it is not known what the design of the flag that was flown over Fort Stanwix on that fateful month. All that is known is that it was red white and blue, it replaced the Kings colors that flew over the fort since 1758.

A pane of 50 of #644, there were four panes to a sheet of 200

The siderographer's initials J.M.B in the margin.

Siderogrpaher: A process of reproducing steel-engraved designs for printing. The design is engraved on a steel block, then hardened and used to transfer a raised-image version to a steel roller under heavy pressure. The roller is then hardened and used as a die to impress duplicate images on printing plates for transferring to paper by the intaglio method