USA’s 1898 ‘Western Cattle In Storm’ $1

In March 1929 a Scottish newspaper, The Northern Whig, commented: In the past the United States has drawn upon some unusual sources for stamp designs, occasionally taking pictures from books and photographs without sanction or acknowledgment to publishers or copyright holders. A memorable case was the $1 1898 Trans-Mississippi postage stamp. Its design was copied from a steel engraving of the late J. MacWhirter’s painting, The Vanguard, which depicts Highland cattle in a Scottish snowbound landscape. On the United States stamp the identical scene is titled ‘Western Cattle in Storm’.

The ’s editor seemed unaware that at