The delegates in Independence Hall as the Constitution is signed, on its 150th anniversary.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

• Catalog Number: Scott #798

• Denomination: 3 cents (3¢)

• Date of Issue: September 17, 1937

• Printing Method: Rotary Press, Engraved (Intaglio)

• Perforation: 11 × 10½

• Color: Bright Reddish Purple

• Subject: The signing of the U.S. Constitution at Independence Hall, Philadelphia

• Format: Commemorative single

CONDITION ANALYSIS (Seller-Assessed)

• Status: Used

• Grading: Fine

• Postmark: Heavy black circular datestamp across the lower center of the design, showing a visible “DEC 8” postmark date. The signing scene and anniversary dates remain identifiable beneath the postmark.

• Obverse: The convention scene with its many delegates, the framed caption, the corner figures, and the twin 3¢ numerals are all identifiable beneath the postmark.

• Reverse: No original gum present, as expected for a used stamp. The paper shows light toning toward the edges, with no tears or thinning visible.

• Centering / Margins: The design sits within the design frame with downward and leftward shifts.

• Perforations: The perforations touch on the bottom design frame and are intact on all four sides

• Other Findings: This stamp retains an attached bottom sheet selvage (the imperforate margin from the edge of the sheet).

HISTORY

This stamp marks the 150th anniversary of the signing of the United States Constitution, which took place at the Pennsylvania State House, now Independence Hall, in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787. The design recreates that moment, the delegates gathered in the convention chamber as the finished document is signed, based on the tradition of grand history paintings of the scene.

The convention itself had been a remarkable gamble. Delegates arrived in the summer of 1787 ostensibly to revise the failing Articles of Confederation, but instead they scrapped them entirely and, behind closed doors and shuttered windows, drafted a wholly new framework of government. The debates were fierce, the compromises uneasy, especially the bargains over representation and slavery that would haunt the country. When it was done, Benjamin Franklin, aged and ailing, reportedly looked at the half-sun carved on Washington's chair and remarked that he could finally tell it was a rising, not a setting, sun.

Issued September 17, 1937, in bright reddish purple, exactly 150 years to the day after the signing, the stamp honored the founding document at a moment when democratic government was under threat around the world. It presents the Constitution's creation as the deliberate, hard-won achievement it was.

STEVEN SAYS

This shows the actual signing in Independence Hall, and it went out on the exact 150th anniversary, September 17, 1937. What people forget is that the delegates were only supposed to tweak the old system and instead threw it out and wrote a whole new one in secret. As a bonus, this copy still has the bottom sheet margin attached.