The Fourth Bureau Issue, also known as the Series of 1922, was a definitive series of postage stamp

Postage stamp

A postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...

s issued by the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 between 1922 and 1938. The series comprises 27 different designs with denominations ranging from one-half cent to 5 dollars. The designs featured past presidents, prominent Americans, architectural landmarks, and icons of American culture.

The first issue of the series, featuring president Rutherford Hayes, was released on 4 October 1922, the 100th anniversary of Hayes's birth, in his hometown of Fremont, Ohio. This was the first instance of the USPS issuing new stamps on a specific day and in a specific city. Collectors regard the First Day Covers of this stamp as the beginning of modern First Day Cover collecting.

The Fourth Bureau Issue stamps were produced during a period of modernization and rapid change within the Bureau of Engraving and Printing

Bureau of Engraving and Printing

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing is a government agency within the United States Department of the Treasury that designs and produces a variety of security products for the United States government, most notable of which is paper currency for the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve itself is...

. The long production life of the series resulted in stamps that were produced on both the older flat plate printing press as well as the new rotary printing press

Rotary printing press

A rotary printing press is a printing press in which the images to be printed are curved around a cylinder. Printing can be done on large number of substrates, including paper, cardboard, and plastic. Substrates can be sheet feed or unwound on a continuous roll through the press to be printed and...

. The series includes numerous variations of color shades, perforation

Perforation

A perforation is a small hole in a thin material or web. There is usually more than one perforation in an organized fashion, where all of the holes are called a perforation...

 differences, security overprint

Overprint

An overprint is an additional layer of text or graphics added to the face of a postage stamp or banknote after it has been printed. Post offices most often use overprints for internal administrative purposes such as accounting but they are also employed in public mail...

s, precancel

Precancel

A precanceled stamp, or precancel for short, is a postage stamp that has been cancelled before being affixed to mail. Precancels are typically used by mass mailers, who can save a postal system time and effort by prearranging to use the precancels, and delivering the stamped mail ready for sorting...

s, commemorative

Commemorative stamp

A commemorative stamp is a postage stamp, often issued on a significant date such as an anniversary, to honor or commemorate a place, event or person. The subject of the commemorative stamp is usually spelled out in print, unlike definitive stamps which normally depict the subject along with the...

 overprints, plate errors, and other distinguishing factors of interest to collectors

Stamp collecting

Stamp collecting is the collecting of postage stamps and related objects. It is one of the world's most popular hobbies, with the number of collectors in the United States alone estimated to be over 20 million.- Collecting :...

.

Individual Stamp Designs

Design	|Image
½¢ Nathan Hale Nathan Hale Nathan Hale was a soldier for the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He volunteered for an intelligence-gathering mission in New York City but was captured by the British...
1¢ Ben Franklin	Image
1½¢ Warren Harding profile	Image
1½¢ Warren Harding portrait	Image
2¢ George Washington George Washington George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...	Image
3¢ Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...	Image
4¢ Martha Washington Martha Washington Martha Dandridge Custis Washington was the wife of George Washington, the first president of the United States. Although the title was not coined until after her death, Martha Washington is considered to be the first First Lady of the United States...	Image
4¢ Howard Taft	Image
5¢ Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...	Image
6¢ James Garfield James Garfield James Abram Garfield served as the 20th President of the United States, after completing nine consecutive terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. Garfield's accomplishments as President included a controversial resurgence of Presidential authority above Senatorial courtesy in executive...	Image
7¢ William McKinley William McKinley William McKinley, Jr. was the 25th President of the United States . He is best known for winning fiercely fought elections, while supporting the gold standard and high tariffs; he succeeded in forging a Republican coalition that for the most part dominated national politics until the 1930s...	Image
8¢ Ulysses Grant	Image
9¢ Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...	Image
10¢ James Monroe James Monroe James Monroe was the fifth President of the United States . Monroe was the last president who was a Founding Father of the United States, and the last president from the Virginia dynasty and the Republican Generation...	Image
11¢ Rutherford Hayes	Image
12¢ Grover Cleveland Grover Cleveland Stephen Grover Cleveland was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States. Cleveland is the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms and therefore is the only individual to be counted twice in the numbering of the presidents...	Image
13¢ Benjamin Harrison Benjamin Harrison Benjamin Harrison was the 23rd President of the United States . Harrison, a grandson of President William Henry Harrison, was born in North Bend, Ohio, and moved to Indianapolis, Indiana at age 21, eventually becoming a prominent politician there...	Image
14¢ American Indian Indigenous peoples of the Americas The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...	Image
15¢ Statue of Liberty Statue of Liberty The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886...	Image
17¢ Woodrow Wilson Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...	Image
20¢ Golden Gate Golden Gate The Golden Gate is the North American strait connecting San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean. Since 1937 it has been spanned by the Golden Gate Bridge...	Image
25¢ Niagara Falls Niagara Falls The Niagara Falls, located on the Niagara River draining Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, is the collective name for the Horseshoe Falls and the adjacent American Falls along with the comparatively small Bridal Veil Falls, which combined form the highest flow rate of any waterfalls in the world and has...	Image
30¢ American Buffalo American Buffalo American Buffalo may refer to:*American Buffalo , a play by David Mamet*American Buffalo , a 1996 film of Mamet's play directed by Michael Corrente*American Buffalo , a United States coin...	Image
50¢ Arlington Amphitheater Arlington Memorial Amphitheater The Arlington Memorial Amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery, near the center of the Cemetery, is the home of the Tomb of the Unknowns where Unknown American Servicemembers from World War I, World War II, and Korea are interred. This site has also hosted the state funerals of many famous...	Image
$1 Lincoln Memorial Lincoln Memorial The Lincoln Memorial is an American memorial built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. It is located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The architect was Henry Bacon, the sculptor of the main statue was Daniel Chester French, and the painter of the interior...	Image
$2 United States Capitol United States Capitol The United States Capitol is the meeting place of the United States Congress, the legislature of the federal government of the United States. Located in Washington, D.C., it sits atop Capitol Hill at the eastern end of the National Mall...	Image
$5 Head of Freedom Statue Statue of Freedom The Statue of Freedom — also known as Armed Freedom or simply Freedom — is a bronze statue designed by Thomas Crawford that, since 1863, has crowned the dome of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.. Originally named Freedom Triumphant in War and Peace, official U.S...	Image

Overprints

• Kansas
  Kansas
  Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
  
   and Nebraska
  Nebraska
  Nebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....
  
   Overprints
• Molly Pitcher
  Molly Pitcher
  Molly Pitcher was a nickname given to a woman said to have fought in the American Revolutionary War, who is generally believed to have been Mary Ludwig Hays...
  
   Overprint
• Hawaii
  Hawaii
  Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
  
   Overprint
• Canal Zone
  Panama Canal Zone
  The Panama Canal Zone was a unorganized U.S. territory located within the Republic of Panama, consisting of the Panama Canal and an area generally extending 5 miles on each side of the centerline, but excluding Panama City and Colón, which otherwise would have been partly within the limits of...
  
  Overprint

External links

• http://www.glassinesurfer.com/stamps/4thbureau6.shtml
• http://www.arago.si.edu/index.asp?con=1&cmd=1&tid=2033913
• http://www.siegelauctions.com/enc/1922.htm
• http://www.siegelauctions.com/enc/rotary.htm
• http://www.1847usa.com/identify/YearSets/1922.htm
• http://www.apnss.org/Fourth-other.htm
• http://www.postalmuseum.si.edu/museum/1d_Blackhardings.html