Stamp Desk / Name in plain sight
United States, 1847
Portrait of Benjamin Franklin on a brown stamp with a red cancellation.
Illustration of a historical stamp for learning, shown at screen size. Not valid for postage.
How to read it
U S in the corners, POST OFFICE and cents: the United States.
- 1U S · POST OFFICE
- 2FIVE CENTS
- Inscription
- U S · POST OFFICE · FIVE CENTS
- Meaning
- “U S” in the top corners stands for United States; the value is in cents.
- Issued by
- United States
- Today
- the United States Flag of United States
- Year
- 1847. On sale from 1 July 1847.
- Made by
- Rawdon, Wright, Hatch & Edson (bank-note engravers) (printing)
One fact
This 5-cent Benjamin Franklin and a 10-cent George Washington were the first stamps issued by the US federal post office.
Source and public-domain rule
United States, published before 1931. Published in the US in 1847. Works published in the United States in 1930 or earlier are out of copyright there (the longest term, 95 years from publication, ended on 1 January 2026 for 1930 works), and stamps made by the federal government itself are not protected at all. Under the EU comparison of terms a work from outside the EU is protected no longer than in its country of origin. Legal sources: Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain, 17 U.S.C. § 105.
Scan: Stamp US 1847 5c.jpg on Wikimedia Commons (revision 1057803515), licence templates {{PD-USGov}}. Downloaded 2026-10-19, sha256 211eb55b873e…; cropped and cleaned for this site. Facts checked 2026-10-19 against source 1 and source 2. Research record, not legal advice; a human rights review is pending. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.
