I didn’t forget you for long, fellow Minnis & Ewer fans. Check out this stamp on the east side of Jones Street between Prospect and Kalamazoo. Notice anything about it? I mean besides what a beautifully preserved stamp it is.

Exactly! It solves the mystery of the “910” date stamp found elsewhere on Jones Street. (The area near Jones and Prospect is a rich vein of Minnis & Ewer stamps.) I wrote that I had never seen a four-digit year in a Minnis & Ewer stamp, so I couldn’t figure out why “910,” and was puzzled how the “910” were perfectly clear and there wasn’t even the trace of a “1.” But in this stamp we see both a four-digit year and a fainter “1” suggesting that it had a tendency to print lighter. Of the Minnis & Ewer stamps I have found with a legible month, this is the oldest. It appears that they phased out the four-digit year stamp between July and August 1910.