Folks flocked to the post office for a box of crayons.
A stamp featuring the first box of Crayola crayons was featured on a run of the U.S. Postal Service’s “Celebrate the Century” series released 25 years ago this week. The Easton brand, Binney & Smith, made that first box in 1903. It appeared in the stamp sheet recalling events from the 1900s and 1910s.
It got the attention of local collectors and fans, as The Express-Times reported on Feb. 4, 1998:
Donald Lloyd, a stamp collector from Allentown, said the Crayola stamp becomes one of his favorites out of thousands in his collection.
“This is excellent,” he said. “This is the best way to get them. I like to get them personalized. Anything that makes the stamp special or personalized, you want it.”
The personalization came in the form of first-day cancelation stamps, similar to those marked after going through the mail.
On the day of release, thousands of sheets were estimated to be sold at the Palmer branch of the Easton Post Office and hundreds more in Bethlehem. One postal employee told the newspaper: “People who don’t normally collect are coming to get it because it’s something from the Lehigh Valley.”
It wasn’t the only local stamp issued in 1998. Another outside the century series commemorated Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Stephen Vincent Benét, who was born a century earlier in Fountain Hill.
Individually, each stamp is now worth a buck or two, at least according to the Mystic Stamp Co. dealer website, though a full mint-condition “Celebrate the Century” set is listed at about $150.
• 10 YEARS AGO | A new Route 33 interchange in Palmer Township breaks ground, with Gov. Tom Corbett on hand for the proceedings.
• 20 YEARS AGO | In the aftermath of the Space Shuttle Columbia’s disastrous disintegration upon reentry, reporters look to local experts for context. One of those interviewed is Walt Tremer, a Southern Lehigh High School teacher who was in the running to fly on the Space Shuttle Challenger’s doomed mission in 1986. Tremer says the space program — and its dangers — are now well-established: The disaster is “a great tragedy, but we will forge ahead.”
• 25 YEARS AGO | Bethlehem Steel’s basic oxygen furnace is demolished at the corner of Fourth and Emery streets, another casualty of the November 1995 shutdown of its flagship plant.
• 100 YEARS AGO | Easton gangster Tony Turko and an accomplice are sentenced to death in New Jersey for the infamous Cat Swamp murder in June 1921, when Turko’s gang killed a passerby while hijacking a silk delivery truck.
This story is part of Lehigh Valley Then, a periodic series that recalls historical headlines from lehighvalleylive.com, The Express-Times and their predecessors from 10, 20, 25, 50 and 100 years ago. Stories are pulled from microfilm at the Easton and Bethlehem area public libraries.
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Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@lehighvalleylive.com.
