Crime Serge of the Roaring ’20s Leaves a Mark on Philately
The times are known as the Roaring ‘20s. Robbers found post offices to be as lucrative a target as banks and much easier. As a result, hold-ups of post offices, especially in Kansas and Nebraska, became a serious problem. Outlaws held up mostly rural post offices for their stamp inventories then transported the loot out of state and sold them for use in other parts of the country.
While the large notable post office robberies in the era involved train robberies, the robbery of rural post offices have their bit of notoriety. Most notable, “Pretty Boy” Floyd committed his first robbery, of a local post office at the age of eighteen. His life of crime, romanticized by the press began at a post office.
In an interesting although unsuccessful effort to stop the robbers, the Kansas and Nebraska Overprints were introduced, now listed by the Scott as #658-679. Beginning in April of 1929 the USPS overprinted stamps of the Fourth Bureau Issue with ‘Kansas’ and ‘Nebr.’ Only the 1-cent through 10-cent stamps was overprinted. Higher values were not included because they were not printed by rotary press and could not easily be overprinted.
The overprinted stamps could only be sold at post offices within their respective states, but they were valid for postage throughout the United States and wherever U.S regular stamps could be used. But still, if a haul of stamps with Kansas overprints show up out of state they were suspect and thus, of lesser value to businesses looking for postage costing below face. And because the robberies were only a problem in the smaller rural offices, security in the larger offices being adequate to deter the crooks, a problem arose because many postal workers were not aware of these overprints. In fact, because there was considerable confusion nationwide and many postal clerks misunderstood the rules, often additional postage-due was assessed for the entirely legal usage of the Kansas-Nebraska stamps.
The Post Office Department decided to abandon any further consideration of state-overprinted stamps on March 29, 1930.
Thus, the program failed, but not before leaving an interesting stamp issue for collectors. And 100 years ago, as today, things are not as simple as they may seem.
An interesting note; while crime prevention was the principle talking point behind the program, it has been suggested that economy, rather than theft actually played the pivotal roll in promoting the state overprint idea. Kansas and Nebraska postmasters were required to requisition a one-year supply of the overprinted stamps, not the normal quarterly supply requisition. Had the experiment succeeded, the Post Office Department planned to extend the scheme to all forty-eight states, hoping to cut fulfillment costs by 75 percent.
However, postal crime did matter. “Pretty Boy” Floyd wasn’t the only notable to begin a career of crime at the post office. The Newton Gang (ca. 1919 through 1924) was the most successful gang in robbery history. Known for train robberies and bank robberies, it is claimed that this gang took in more money than the Dalton Gang, Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch and the James-Younger Gang combined. The Newton Gang met and formed a team in prison while Dock Newton was serving time for, yes, a post office robbery.
And to the point of postal robberies being easier than bank robberies, an example comes from a police report from Elmer, Missouri August 19, 1922. Thieves took 93 dollars in money and stamps from the post office and then entered the bank through a window. They badly damaged the bank vault door with a sledge hammer but were unable to open it. They gave up on the bank leaving behind their nitroglycerine. But taking the proceeds from the post office robbery.
And so goes the history of crime and the Post Office.
