A crowd of grinning sailors in their whites, one of the armed-forces stamps issued as World War II ended.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

• Catalog Number: Scott #935

• Denomination: 3 cents (3¢)

• Date of Issue: October 27, 1945

• Printing Method: Rotary Press, Engraved (Intaglio)

• Perforation: 11 × 10½

• Color: Blue

• Subject: A group of U.S. Navy sailors, honoring Navy service in World War II

• Format: Commemorative single, Armed Forces series

CONDITION ANALYSIS (Seller-Assessed)

• Status: Used

• Grading: Fine

• Postmark: Black machine postmark of curvy lines across the right side, with a partial circular datestamp reading into the left edge. The sailors and the 3¢ denomination remain readable.

• Obverse: The group of uniformed sailors, the country inscription, the branch panel, and the denomination are all identifiable.

• Reverse: No original gum present, as expected for a used stamp. The paper shows light toning and a small blue mark near the lower center, with no tears or thinning visible.

• Centering / Margins: The design is in-frame with slight shifts leftward and downward.

• Perforations: Intact on all four sides.

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

HISTORY

The Navy stamp belongs to the same 1945 armed-forces set as the Coast Guard issue, and like its companions it went on sale within weeks of the war's end, while the country was still absorbing the scale of what its servicemen had done. By 1945 the United States Navy had grown into the most powerful fleet the world had ever seen, having fought its way across the Pacific in a string of enormous carrier battles and amphibious campaigns and helped guard the Atlantic convoys that kept Britain and the Soviet Union supplied.

Rather than show a battleship or a carrier, the designers chose a warmer image: a tight group of ordinary sailors in their summer whites, faces open and confident. It was a deliberate choice to honor the men themselves rather than the machines, the millions of enlisted personnel who crewed the ships and won the war at sea.

Issued October 27, 1945, in blue, and timed to coincide with Navy Day, the stamp saw heavy everyday use at the three-cent letter rate. It is a modest, human tribute to the sailors coming home that autumn, standing in for a service that had carried the country to victory across two oceans.

STEVEN SAYS

I like that they skipped the battleship and just showed a bunch of sailors grinning in their whites. By 1945 the Navy was the most powerful fleet in history, but this honors the actual guys who crewed it. This copy even kept a strip of the sheet margin attached along the top, which collectors like to see.