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| STAMP PHOTO FROM SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION NATIONAL POSTAL MUSEUM ARAGO WEBSITE |
The rising criminality of the Roaring Twenties was not expressed only by an increase in bank robberies; post offices were also a prime target, especially in the Midwest. In 1928, thieves stole and fenced U.S. postage stamps worth over $200,000 from post offices. In an effort to make it easier to trace such thefts, the Post Office Department embarked on a scheme where it intended to print all postage stamps, except for those for use in major cities, with the name of the state where they were legally issued. The theory was that anyone possessing or selling large quantities of stamps marked with the name of one state in a different state would have a heap of 'splaining to do. In 1929, the postal authorities issued a trial run of stamps in eleven different denominations for sale in Kansas and Nebraska and labeled them either "Kans." or "Nebr."
The experiment was a flop. Even though a stamp marked with the name of a particular state could be legally used anywhere in the country, numerous folks thought that the postage was valid only for mail sent within Kansas or Nebraska. Many postal workers in Kansas and Nebraska did not know about the overprints and refused to accept them at all. The overprints did not appreciably assist in the investigation of post office thefts. The Post Office Department therefore quietly abandoned its plans to expand the project to the remaining 46 states.
As would be expected, due to their limited issue and unusual origin, these stamps are now prized by collectors.
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