About This Stamp
The portrait of John Quincy Adams (1767–1848), the sixth U.S. president, appears on the orange 6-cent value of the 1938 Presidential series. The likeness was taken from a bust on display in the U.S. Capitol.
The son of the second U.S. president, John Adams (who appeared on the 2-cent value of the Presidential series), John Quincy Adams began a brilliant 54-year career in public service when President George Washington appointed him minister to the Netherlands. He was at the time 27 years old. A less-know fact, John Quincy Adams committed considerable energy to assuring that James Smithson's financial bequest to the United States be used as Smithson had willed — for the creation and dissemination of knowledge. The bequest served as the financial underpinning of the Smithsonian Institution.
Two varieties of the 6-cent stamp exist — a sheet stamp (issued July 28, 1938) and a horizontal (sidewise) coil (issued January 20, 1939).
The primary usage of the 6-cent stamp was for paying the six-cents-per-ounce domestic airmail rate (in effect July 1934 through March 1944 and again in January 1949 through July 1958) and two times the three-cents-per-ounce domestic first-class rate (in effect July 1932 through July 1958). The 6-cent stamp also saw a great deal of use paying the special six-cent airmail military concession rate available to those serving in World War II.