The Kansas and Nebraska Overprint Stamps


The Roaring Twenties were a prosperous period in United States history, but the country's prohibition of alcohol and the speakeasies and organized crime that came with it maade for some interesting times.  Criminals like “Machine Gun” Kelly and “Pretty Boy” Floyd loved to rob post offices and mail shipments, and they created such a mess of the postal system that the federal government was forced to take somewhat extreme measures to deter them. 

The Kansas and Nebraska overprint stamps were first produced in 1929.  Designed to deter theft and the use of stolen stamps, they were overprinted with an abbreviation of one of those state's names and could be legally purchased only within that state.  Although they could be used for postage anywhere in the United States, the theory was that a sudden widespread use of transported "out-of-state" stamps would alert postal inspectors to potentially criminal use.

The theory remained only that - in practice, the Kansas-Nebraska overprints did little to deter postal theft and the practice of overprinting stamps for that purpose was soon abandoned.  In fact, the Kansas-Nebraska overprints actually inspired increased illegal activity - counterfeiters began overprinting ordinary 1920s US stamps with falsified "Kans." and "Nebr." overprints and selling them to stamp collectors as the genuine article.  Most of the genuine Kansas-Nebraska overprints have a much higher catalog value than the un-overprinted stamps that were used to produce them. 

Some interesting stamp history, eh?  A somewhat-good idea that backfired.