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Poster Stamp Gallery Clare Briggs (1875-1930) began his newspaper cartoon career around 1890 and worked in the St. Louis (Missouri) area until he moved to New York in 1900. Enjoying modest success, he was sent to Chicago by William Randolph Hearst. When he returned to New York in 1914 his career blossomed, and by the 1920's he was one of the most highly paid illustrators in the US. Skin-nay, one of his well-known cartoon characters, is depicted on several poster stamps issued for the Maurice L. Rothschild Clothing Co. in Minneapolis. These poster stamps were recently discovered in a c.1915 poster stamp album also issued by the Rothschild Company. These poster stamps were issued with different months of the year, and the poster stamp album was set up with spaces for monthly stamps - the customer was able to acquire a new stamp each month from the store. In the album were stamps starting with July (the first issued) through the following June, on the first page. The stamp for January had a year date of 1916, so the first issue is presumed to have covered July, 1915 through June 1916, and they were not designed by Briggs. The second issue, shown below, had a monthly stamp for July through November without year date, but the January stamp shows the year 1917, leading to the assumption that this was the second (year) issue. It is not known at this time if there were additional stamps issued.
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