McCormick's mechanical reaper, patented in 1834, did more to open the American Midwest to large-scale farming than almost any other single invention - and this stamp is one of 35 in the Famous Americans Issue, the most ambitious commemorative series the Post Office had attempted to that point.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

• Catalog Number: Scott #891

• Denomination: 3 cents (3¢)

• Date of Issue: October 14, 1940

• Printing Method: Rotary Press, Engraved (Intaglio)

• Perforation: 11 × 10½

• Color: Bright Red-Violet

• Subject: Portrait of Cyrus Hall McCormick, inventor of the mechanical reaper — Inventors group, Famous Americans Issue

CONDITION ANALYSIS (Seller-Assessed)

• Status: Used

• Grading: Good

• Postmark: Moderate wavy-line machine postmark present, falling without obscuring the portrait or principal design elements.

• Obverse: Natural aging and light paper toning are visible. Portrait and inscriptions remain identifiable throughout.

• Reverse: Hinge remnants present, indicating prior album housing. No tears or significant damage observed.

• Centering / Margins: Good, with perforations clear of the design frame on all sides.

• Perforations: No visible tears. Missing bottom right corner perforation.

HISTORY

The Famous Americans Issue of 1940 was the most ambitious commemorative series the U.S. Post Office Department had produced to that point - 35 stamps across seven thematic groups honoring authors, poets, educators, scientists, composers, artists, and inventors. Each group contained five denominations ranging from 1¢ to 10¢, and the series was released across the year in individual group issues. Cyrus Hall McCormick appears in the Inventors group, identified by the winged gear and lightning bolt symbol in the stamp's lower left corner.

McCormick was born in Virginia in 1809 and patented his mechanical reaper in 1834 at age 25. The device mechanized the harvesting of grain at a scale that human labor could not match — one reaper could do the work of several farmhands in a fraction of the time. He moved his manufacturing operation to Chicago in 1847, positioning it at the center of the Midwestern agricultural economy, and the company he founded eventually became International Harvester. The reaper's impact on American food production, westward settlement, and the economic balance between free and slave labor in the years before the Civil War was substantial and widely recognized by historians.

The stamp was issued October 14, 1940, as the United States watched the war in Europe with growing concern. The Famous Americans series as a whole reflected a quiet assertion of American cultural and intellectual achievement at a moment of international uncertainty.

STEVEN SAYS

Thirty-five stamps, seven categories, issued across 1940. The Famous Americans series is one of those projects where the ambition of the Post Office is easy to overlook. McCormick's reaper changed how America fed itself. The winged gear symbol in the corner marks him as an inventor, worth knowing if you collect the full series.