The Twenty-four-cent Prexie

Benjamin Harrison was the twenty-third President of the United States, but the Presidential series stopped trying to match stamp denominations with the sequential number of the Presidency after Grover Cleveland. Thus Harrison is on the twenty-four cent stamp. His likeness was taken from from a bust by Weinman that is in the Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis. Twenty-four-cent stamps were issued in sheet format only. These were first released on December 2, 1938, and 91,372,700 were delivered through 1956.

Twenty-four-cent Prexies found much of their use for registered mail. A registered airmail letter with return receipt was twenty-four cents until the rate increases of March, 1944. Second-step indemnity registered airmail was the same cost at that time, as was registered double or triple weight first class mail, and first class registered mail with second step indemnity and return receipt. Another twenty-four-cent combination involved registered official penalty mail with return receipt posted outside Washington, D.C. from March of 1944 until the end of 1948.

A certified letter cost twenty-four cents from late 1958 until 1963. Other uses include a special delivery airmail postcard, domestic or sent to Canada from 1952 through mid 1957, and to Mexico from 1949 through mid 1957. A surface letter to China, with airmail in China was also twenty-four cents until mid December of 1941.

The remaining solo uses of the twenty-four-cent Prexie are mainly fourth class or multiple rates.

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