1963 5c Carolina Charter

U.S. #1230
1963 5¢ Carolina Charter 
Issue Date: April 6, 1963
City: Edenton, North Carolina
Quantity: 129,945,000
Printed By: Bureau of Engraving and Printing
Printing Method: Giori Press
Perforations: 11
Color: Dark carmine and brown

This stamp was issued in 1963 to mark the three hundredth anniversary of the signing of the Carolina Charter, the document that established the Province of Carolina as a British colony. The charter was a grant of land from England's King Charles II to eight loyal supporters who had helped him regain the throne, an arrangement that made these men, known as the Lords Proprietors, the owners of an enormous stretch of territory. The land granted stretched across a vast swath of the continent between roughly 31 and 36 degrees north latitude, spanning from the Atlantic coast all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

The stamp's design is based on a photograph of the original charter document, which is preserved today in Raleigh, North Carolina. The design reproduces the look of the aged parchment itself, complete with an ornate illuminated letter at the top and a feathered quill pen resting beside the page, evoking the formal legal language and careful penmanship used to draft such documents in the seventeenth century.

The Carolina Charter laid the foundation for what would eventually become the states of North Carolina and South Carolina, shaping the early settlement and governance of a region that would grow into a significant part of colonial America.