USA Hockey Stamp - Currier & Ives - Winter Pastime - 1976

On October 27, 1976, the Postal Service issued a 13-cent multicolored Christmas stamp depicting Nathaniel Currier’s 1855 hand-colored lithograph 'Winter Pastime'. The stamp was designed by Stevan Dohanos based on the lithograph held by the Museum of the City of New York.

The multicolored stamps were issued with two types of tagging. The stamp (Scott 1702) was printed on the Bureau of Engraving and Printing seven-color Andreotti gravure press (601) as sheets of two hundred subjects with overall tagged, perforated 11, and distributed as panes of fifty (five across, ten down). The lettering at the base is black and usually .5 mm below the design, and there is generally no 'snowflaking' in the sky and pond.

The second version (Scott 1703) was printed on the Bureau of Engraving and Printing seven-color Andreotti gravure press (601) as sheets of 230 subjects, block tagged, perforated 11, and distributed as panes of fifty (five across, ten down). The lettering at the base is gray black and usually .75 mm below the design, and there is generally 'snowflaking' in the sky and pond. Mr. Zip, “MAIL EARLY IN THE DAY,” electric eye markings, and five plate numbers, one in each color used to print the sheet, are printed in the selvage.

'Currier & Ives' was the name used by a New York printmaking firm from 1857 until 1907. This business had been in operation since 1834, first as Stodart & Currier (1834) and then as N. Currier (1835 to 1856). All the prints produced by this firm are usually referred to as "Currier & Ives prints." Nathaniel Currier was a printmaker and businessman. James Ives started as the firm's bookkeeper in 1852 and five years later became Currier's partner. Neither was an artist, so though all Currier & Ives prints were published by the partners, they were drawn and lithographed by other persons. Nathaniel Currier retired in 1880