There is one stamp that tops all the philatelic popularity polls as America’s most popular stamp. And it has done so for over a century. It is the $1 TransMississippi issue of 1898. As you can see it’s a beautiful stamp, carefully engraved. But the story of how it reached its pinacle of popularity has never been told.

Before 1893, no country had ever issued commemorative stamps—that is, stamps that, while valid for postage, were issued with stamp collectors in mind. The goal of commemoratives were the earliest attempts to inspire philatelists to put away newer stamps in their collections, stamps for which the Post Office received payment but for which they needed to provide no service. Since most such stamps were never used, selling to collectors provided more than simply an interest free loan. It was revenue with virtually no cost, and that idea appealed as much to the Post Office of 1890 as it does to ours today.

The Columbian issue of 1893 was actually quite unpopular with collectors for at least thirty years after it came out. The designs were considered too busy—the reproductions of large scale paintings that are pictured on most values meant that a 2’x4’ canvas was reduced 99% to a few square millimeters. Even with the finest engravers' skill, the stamps were hard to appreciate at such a small scale. Further, though philately was popular even in 1893, the Post Office really almost killed the goose that laid the golden egg. The face value of the set was over $15, almost equal to an 1893 average weekly wage. And the collectors and dealers who speculated in the stamps got burned—for up to thirty years after they were issued, Columbian dollar values traded at less than their postage value.

When the 1898 TransMississippi issue came out, many of the mistakes of the Columbian issue were not repeated. The face value of the set was much lower. Portraits were still reproduced on the stamps, but the $1 was the beneficiary of a wonderful artistic decision on the part of the engraver. He chose to bring the center of the picture—the steer running—far forward in the frame. And the stamp was printed in black. The effect was to render an almost perfect tiny lithograph, and from the moment of its issue, the stamp was esteemed by collectors.

Becoming a favorite in our hobby requires more than beauty and popularity. It requires a bit of rarity as well. For in collecting hobbies, aspiration is as much a part of the game as aquisition. Lobster trumps French fries on lists of favorite foods, not simply because it is superior, but because it is a rarer, less common of a treat. In the same way, the $1 TransMississippi has always been a stamp that collectors have aspired to, and it therefore has maintained its popularity from generation to generation.

The landscape of new issues from 1893 to 1928 was bleak. During this 35 year period, the Post Office issued only a few commemoratives, and American collectors had few varieties of new issues to pique their philatelic interest. Two full generations of collectors had only the TransMississippi set as the last beautiful set of stamps to aspire too. And since the $1 was a premium stamp form the beginning, it solidified its position as the most popular US stamp. Today, a nice used example is about $200, and a nice mint one about $400.