The Washington Franklin Series, or the "Series of 1908" as it is known by the USPS, came on the heels of the 1902 Series of regular issues which in turn had received its fair share of criticism for "overly ornate" designs. One of the great ironies of this series is that the Post Office was actually trying to simplify the designs of the regularly issued stamps to cut down on production costs. Emulating the European use of a single design of an existing monarch's head on many denominations, but having no monarch to call our own, the U.S. Post Office opted for two vignette designs, a Washington "head" and a Franklin "head".  

From these two simple yet elegant designs one will find 220 major and 99 minor stamp varieties as listed in the Scott 2000 Specialized Catalogue of U.S. Stamps and Covers. The use of five design variations, two paper types, two types of watermarked paper as well as unwatermarked paper, three printing methods, a minimum of fourteen distinct perforations or combinations thereof, two overprints, a full spectrum of colors and twenty denominations makes it easy to see how complex this "simplification" turned out to be for the philatelist. 

The study of the Washington Franklin stamps has traditionally been an area of some difficulty for many collectors of U.S. stamps. On the other hand collecting the Washington Franklin Heads can be one of the more fascinating areas in all of philately, presenting a wonderful microcosm of the evolution of stamp production in the United States as well as the entire world. 

To provide an aide in the study of the Washington Franklin stamps, we have taken the liberty of breaking the series into thirteen sets, each highlighting an important change in the way U.S. stamps were made over the fourteen year period from 1908 to 1922. Please click on the appropriate link at the right to learn more about each important change.

Change:

---------

to strengthen the paper ( higher rag content) and to reduce shrinkage

to strengthen the paper (less paper removed in the watermarking process) 

to lessen the separation of stamps in vending machines (a lesser number of holes per inch)  

to comply with International Postal Union guidelines and to make differentiate denominations easier

to lessen separation of the stamps in the sheets themselves and to make it easier to separate the coil stamps (the 8.5 gauge proved difficult)

faster and more efficient printing technique than the flat plate printing method, quality nearly as good. Enabled the production of much longer sheets, a must for coil roll production

cheaper than watermarked paper; also, watermarks difficult to detect and therefore not an effective deterrent to counterfeiters

to ease the separation of stamps, the perf 10 stamps sometimes tore when separating the sheet stamps

to eliminate the abrasive effects of the inferior inks available during the World War I era, by not using engraved plates wear was minimized and the plates lasted longer