The 3¢ Chicago Century of Progress Stamp of 1933
Promoting the 1933-1934 World's Fair in Chicago
Number 729
Number 731a
Number 767a
The perforated stamp, Number 729, is easily distinguished from the imperforate stamp cut from the souvenir sheets. This design was issued as a Farley reprint only as a souvenir sheet, Number 767. It is impossible to distinguish the Farley Special Printing from the regularly issued souvenir sheet, Number 731, by examining individual souvenir sheets, unless the sheet has a margin of 13mm. That is, the distance between the stamps must be 13mm, as shown in the 767a
gutter pair above. This pair can only be from the Farley special printing since a pair with this much spacing between stamps can not be made from the originally issued souvenir sheets.
The Farley printing was issued as a full sheet of 225 stamps, with 9 panes of 25 stamps separated by 13 mm gutters. The stamp is often collected as a pane of 25 stamps to retain the marginal markings of the originally issued souvenir sheet, as shown below. Single stamps, or anything less than the full sheet for that matter, are given the suffix "a", that is either 731a or 767a. In the illustrated example below there is a wide margin present and therefore it can only be the Farley Special Printing, Number 767.
