About This Stamp
The 7.4-cent Baby Buggy stamp depicts the wicker baby buggy popular during the 1880s. Issued on April 7, 1984, at the SANDICAL stamp show in San Diego, California, it was intended to pay the third-class carrier-route sort bulk rate initiated on May 22, 1983. When the rate increased to 8.3-cents on February 17, 1985, the 7.4-cent stamp remained available for false franking with an additional payment to the post office.
Unlike the lower values, the 7.4-cent Baby Buggy was printed on the Bureau of Engraving and Printing’s B press. The B press used a single sleeve rather than the paired sleeves of the Cottrell press. There were no gaps between the plates in which ink could accumulate, and therefore there are no vertical lines to the right of the plate number. Plate numbers were separated by 52 stamps instead of 24.
The Bureau of Engraving and Printing printed 203.83 million stamps, all from plate 2. The unprecancelled block tagged version intended for collectors was available only in coils of 500. The precancelled stamp is not service-inscribed but bears the words “Blk. Rt. CAR-RT SORT” between two parallel lines. Unlike stamps printed on the Cottrell press, there are no precancel gaps. The precancelled, untagged version was available in coils of 500 and 3,000.
Jim Schleyer of Burke, Virginia, designed the 7.4¢ Baby Buggy, and Frank J. Waslick of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing modeled it. The engravers, both from the Bureau of engraving and Printing, were Kenneth Kipperman for the vignette and Dennis Brown for the lettering.