The history of United States airmail stamps spans nearly a century of changing aircraft, postal rates and printing technology. The first appeared in May 1918, when the Post Office Department inaugurated scheduled airmail service between Washington, Philadelphia and New York. The 24-cent stamp depicted the Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny” used on the route and produced the celebrated “Inverted Jenny” error. Lower 16-cent and 6-cent Jenny stamps followed as rates declined.
During the 1920s and 1930s, airmail stamps reflected the rapid development of commercial aviation, featuring aircraft, maps, beacons and other symbols of the expanding national network. Later issues commemorated aviation milestones while increasingly serving as definitive stamps for changing domestic and international airmail rates. Domestic airmail ceased to be a separate service in 1975 as air transportation became routine for First-Class Mail; dedicated international airmail service similarly disappeared in 1995.
Nevertheless, stamps catalogued as airmails continued for international rates. The “Scenic American Landscapes” series, begun in 1999, replaced aviation imagery with photographs of notable American scenery. Its final issue, the $1.05 Lancaster County, Pennsylvania stamp of January 2012, became Scott C150, the last U.S. stamp assigned a traditional airmail “C” catalogue number, closing a sequence that had begun with the Jenny 94 years earlier.
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United States