Wet pavement and streetlights combined to give me an especially good look at this half-lost stamp. It’s from the north side of East Michigan Avenue between Fairview and Magnolia, in front of the MetroPCS store. When I first photographed it back in 2020, I had to peel away a sod layer to see to the edge of the hacked-off slab, but thanks to my efforts at that time it is still all as visible as it can get. The reason for the update – besides that it’s an especially good look at it – is that I am now quite confident in the date being 1927. The curve of the penultimate numeral does not make sense for anything other than a 2.
This one might not, scratch that, probably will not excite anyone as much as it did me. But I’ll try to explain. This DPW (Department of Public Works) stamp is on the east side of Bingham Street between Eureka and Prospect. It’s a little worn, but that is definitely 1927.
Why does that matter? It’s not even close to the earliest DPW stamp I’ve found, so that’s not it. No, it matters because I previously had not seen this style of stamp used with a date this early. Stamps I had collected from 1918 through the early 1940s had used a different style. I already knew there was some overlap, in that the earliest style (call it “Style A”, with a larger typeface reading “DEPARTMENT OF / PUBLIC WORKS”) can be found on stamps as late as 1942, and the style I think of as the 1940s-50s style (call it “Style B.,” with a smaller typeface reading “LANSING D.P.W.”) had previously turned up on stamps as early as 1936. This stamp pushes the earliest date for Style B backward almost another decade. As Popeye would say: “I kin not savvy.”
Looking north on Bingham. The stamp is on the nearest full slab. The nearest partial slab has a sneak preview of a Minnis & Ewer stamp that is definitely going to show up here at some point. It’s not an accident that I got the house with the nice holiday lights in this shot too.
The many species and subspecies of DPW stamps deserve a full taxonomy. Unfortunately I don’t have the time for that just now, but I am planning on doing it soon.
