1951 $1 Stock Transfer Stamp, Bright Green

Scott #RD346 is a 40-cent bright green Stock Transfer revenue stamp from the Series 1951 issue, featuring a portrait of Louis McLane, the 10th Secretary of the Treasury. The "Series 1951" overprint in black places this stamp in the penultimate year of the Stock Transfer series, which ran from 1940 through 1952. At 40 cents, this is one of the lower denominations in the series, used on smaller stock transfers — though even at this face value, the tax represented a meaningful transaction in postwar securities markets.

Louis McLane served as Secretary of the Treasury from 1831 to 1833 under President Andrew Jackson. His time at Treasury was dominated by the fierce political battle over the Second Bank of the United States, which Jackson was determined to destroy. McLane initially opposed Jackson's plan to kill the bank and tried to find a compromise, which put him at odds with the president. Jackson eventually moved him to the State Department rather than fire him outright — a diplomatic reshuffling that allowed McLane to serve without openly defying the president. McLane later served as president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, one of the most important transportation companies of the era.

The 1951 issue is one of only two years remaining in the Stock Transfer program by this point, as the series was discontinued the following year.