Five reservists from the Marines, Coast Guard, Army, Navy, and Air Force, standing together under a spread eagle.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

• Catalog Number: Scott #1067

• Denomination: 3 cents (3¢)

• Date of Issue: May 21, 1955

• Printing Method: Rotary Press, Engraved (Intaglio)

• Perforation: 11 × 10½

• Color: Purple

• Subject: Five service members representing the Marines, Coast Guard, Army, Navy, and Air Force, with an eagle behind

• Format: Commemorative single

CONDITION ANALYSIS (Seller-Assessed)

• Status: Used

• Grading: Fine

• Postmark: Black slogan machine postmark with partial wording and straight lines across the design. The five figures and both 3¢ numerals remain clearly readable.

• Obverse: The five uniformed service members, the eagle background, the title inscription, and the denomination panels are all identifiable.

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

• Centering / Margins: The design sits comfortably within the frame, with slight shifts upward and leftward.

• Perforations: Intact on all four sides.

HISTORY

This stamp honors the reserve components of the United States military, the part-time service members who train alongside their civilian careers and can be called to active duty when the country needs them. Its design lines up five figures, one from each of the branches, the Marines, Coast Guard, Army, Navy, and Air Force, beneath the spread wings of an eagle, a compact portrait of a citizen-soldier tradition that reaches back to the earliest American militias.

The reserves had proven their value repeatedly by 1955. Reservists and National Guardsmen had been mobilized in large numbers for both World War II and the Korean War, moving quickly from civilian life into uniform when the regular forces alone were not enough. In the early Cold War, with the country maintaining a permanent state of military readiness for the first time in its peacetime history, the reserves became a formal and essential pillar of national defense rather than an afterthought.

Issued May 21, 1955, in purple, the stamp gave that often-overlooked service its own recognition. It celebrates the men and women who kept one foot in ordinary life and one in the military, ready to serve full-time on short notice, a quietly demanding role that rarely gets its own spotlight.

STEVEN SAYS

The reserves are easy to overlook: people who hold down regular jobs and train on the side, ready to be called up fast. They were mobilized heavily in both World War II and Korea. The stamp lines up all five branches under an eagle. A nice bit of recognition for the citizen-soldier tradition.