age, the
issue of the 3c letter-card, the 3c stamped envelope, and the 3c
postage stamp from the Department has ceased. Any unused 3c
letter-cards, 3c stamped envelopes or 3c stamps, still extant,
will, however, continue available for postal purposes, or may be
exchanged at any Post Office, at their full face value, for postage
stamps of other denominations.

The color of the Domestic-rate postage stamp, as prescribed by the
Universal Postal Union, is red, and it is intended to discontinue
the issue of the ordinary two-cents purple colored stamps as soon
as the present supply on hand is exhausted. This will be about the
20th July, 1899. Thereafter the Department will issue two cents
stamps in red, first, however, surcharging down to two cents the
unissued remnant of the three cents stamps in red, now in the
possession of the Department, and as soon as the supply of such
surcharged _threes_ is exhausted, the issue of two cents stamps in
red will begin. The surcharged stamps will be issued to Postmasters
as 2c postage stamps and be recognised as postage stamps of that
denomination.

The official estimate of the time the then existing stock of 2c purple
stamps would last was not far wrong for on July 20th the first of the
surcharged labels were issued. The surcharge follows a somewhat peculiar
arrangement the numeral "2" and "S" of CENTS being larger than the rest
of the inscription, which is flat at the bottom and concave at the top.
This distinctive type is said to have been adopted to make
counterfeiting difficult, though it is hardly likely anyone would have
reduced a 3c stamp to the value of 2c with the idea of defrauding the
Government! Evidently the inscription was specially engraved and from it
a plate was constructed so that a sheet of one hundred stamps could be
overprinted at one operation. Some little variation will be found in the
thickness of the type of the surcharge though whether this is due to the
use of more than one plate or simply to overinking or wear is a doubtful
matter. The normal position of the surcharge is horizontally across the
bottom of the stamps but owing to poor register it is sometimes found
much out of position, and specimens with the overprint across the centre
of the labels have been recorded.

The surcharge was, at first, applied only to the 3c stamps of the
numeral type but it was soon decide