Today’s #stampoftheday is a 3-cent stamp from 1947 that commemorates America’s first postage stamp, which was issued in 1847. The 1947 stamp features pictures of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin (who nation’s first postmaster general) as well as a Pony Express rider, a steam locomotive, a 1940s locomotive, a modern steamship, and a four-motored plane. The stamp was issued in conjunction with the Centenary International Philatelic Exhibition (CIPEX), which was held in New York City’s Grand Central Palace, a building on Lexington Avenue (near Grand Central Terminal). The Palace was the city’s main exhibition hall from 1911 until 1953.

This was the fourth international stamp exhibition held in the United States. The first had been in 1913, followed by another in 1926, which was marked with the issuance of stamps commemorating the Battle of White Plains. (Feel free to insert your own joke about whatever that battle was about. I’m thinking it had something to do either with shopping malls or fair housing.)

The plan was to hold these events every ten years. So while the third was held in 1936, the fourth was delayed by a year so it would coincide with the 100th anniversary of America’s first stamp, which featured a portrain of Franklin. Moreover, because World War II had kept Great Britain, Switzerland, and Brazil from holding events to honor the 100th anniversaries of their first postage stamps (in 1940 and 1943), postal officials from those countries accepted offers to also mark those milestones at the New York gathering.

So it was a big deal (at least for people who loved stamps). The line to get in stretched around the block. The opening ceremony began with opera star Giovanni Martinelli’s rendition of the “Star Spangled Banner.” He was accompanied by the New York Post Office Band (and entity, that a quick search reveals, was around for at least several more decades and played at both the 1964 New York World’s Fair and the 1982 event renaming city’s main post office for James Farley, who helped elect Franklin Roosevelt and served as FDR’s Postmaster General from 1933 until 1940.)

After the opening ceremony there was a special unveiling of an exhibit for the world’s most valuable stamp, the only known 1¢ British Guiana stamp that had been issued in 1856. The event also included a Hall of Honor featuring virtually every variety of stamp issued between 1840 and 1870, drawn from over 200 different collectors and the entire exhibition, which took three of the building’s 11 floors, included 119 booths.

Organizers had high hopes for the event, to say the least. Prescott Thorp, a noted stamp dealer, for example, said: “We stand on the threshold of a new world era. People from far corners of the earth stand incredulous and fearful of the future. Contacts between the peoples of different nations are few and far between, and understanding between them is, to say the least, difficult.” (…the more things change, the more they stay the same, eh?)

He continued: “Stamp collecting is international in character. We in our hobby possess a fabulous touchstone, the ‘open sesame’ to complete understanding with one another…our ’empire’ extends into every nook and cranny of the entire world.”

To mark the exhibition, the Post Office issued the three-cent stamp with Washington, Franklin, and the various ways mail had been (and was being) moved. The Post Office also issued a souvenir sheet with reproductions of America’s first two postage stamps (one of Franklin, the other of Washington). When cut from the souvenir sheet, these stamps were actually valid U.S. postage.