2019-05-15 Wed

The USPS is offering a special boxed set for sale as a part of the Transcontinental Railroad forever stamp pane release that took place on 10th May in Promontory Summit, Utah. The set contains six imperforate panes called progressive proofs, in different colours like cyan, magenta, yellow, black, cymk [cyan, magenta, yellow, black] composite, and gold foil. Other items like a standard die-cut pane of the stamps, a red protective sleeve with gold foil imprint, a certificate of authenticity card, and a 44-page book with a yellow cover imprinted with gold foil are also included in the set. The box with a blue lid has a gold foil impression with sepia illustrations on the base's inside and the lid.

The book describes how the Transcontinental Railroad project was completed. It also mentions how the new stamps were designed, printed and processed. These were the first stamps to be printed on the Gallus RCS press by Banknote Corporation of America using four-colour offset lithography and gold foil in an inline-process. The inline foil process minimizes printing errors. The gold foil lines are printed at a mere .72 points of thickness using the new press.

Each proof pane shows the design in one colour, with a plate number digit for that colour. The composite colour proof does not contain the gold impression and features the full plate number of B1111. The gold foil proof has no plate number and no extra colour. The proof panes show how the four colours and the gold foil come together to create the framed train portraits by Michael Deas and typographic elements by Kevin Cantrell. Other items related to the Transcontinental Railroad issue, like pin sets, cacheted covers, art prints etc. are also available for sale.

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Image Courtesy: The USPS