The Two-cent Prexie
The two-cent Prexie features John Adams. The design was taken from a bust by Daniel Webster French. Stamps were issued in sheet, horizontal coil, vertical coil and booklet formats.
The sheet stamps were first released on June 3, 1938. 25,038,485,700 were issued until production ceased in 1959. Horizontal coils went on sale on January 20, 1939 and vertical ones on January 27 of that year. Total production for the two formats was 4,387,151,00, but Roland Rustad's estimate is that the vertical ones probably only accounted for 21,680,000 of that total. Booklet stamps were also first issued on January 27, 1939. 360,312,400 were issued over the period.
Two cents was a drop-letter rate and a post card rate to Canada, Mexico and the Postal Union of the Americas and Spain during most of the Prexie period. In the 1950's it became the domestic post card rate as well.
The second class transient rate was two cents for the first two ounces for about ten years beginning in the early 1950's, and magazines mailed by the publisher for local delivery could be sent for two cents from 1872 to 1954. Several types of third class mail required that rate at different times as well. The minimum charge per piece for bulk mail was two cents during 1959 and part of 1960.
The international printed matter rate during much of the 1950's was two cents.
Other two cent rates involved merchandise packets to PUAS countries, undeliverable second class material charges, and address correction service charges. Examples of double one-cent rates can also be found, including certificates of mailing for two items.