Bryant stamps: the other radio verification stamp : eBay Guides

  One of the big fads of the 1920s was the radio verification stamp.  With a letter to a station about their programs and a dime, a listener could get a handsome stamp with the station’s call sign, made for the EKKO Company.  The EKKO Company made an album to put the stamps in, and the hobby blossomed into a craze in 1924. For an excellent guide to EKKO stamps by czelbst, go here.

Radio verification stamps fall into three categories: EKKO stamps, Bryant stamps and stamps produced for individual stations.  Most EKKOs are relatively common, as are many of the individual stamps (though a few are quite rare).  Bryants, on the other hand, generally are uncommon.  Here’s why.

EKKO stamps were selling like hotcakes in 1925 when the PM Bryant Company decided to compete with the EKKO Company.  Bryant, based in the Wrigley Building in Chicago, decided to issue its own stamps and stamp album.  Bryant's stamps and first album appeared in the spring of 1925; a second edition appeared in September.  The callsigns on first edition stamps were red; the second edition stamps had black callsigns.  The Bryant stamp was smaller then the EKKO version, and required only two print passes to manufacture (EKKOs required three).  The stamp album for Bryants was smaller and less expensive to produce as well.  Those advantages were offset by the fact that the EKKO Company already had radio stations giving out their stamps.  Although there is some limited evidence that a few smaller stations gave out Bryant stamps,  most if not all Bryants were purchased directly from the Bryant Company.  Bryant, in fact, advertised the sale of their albums for $1.00, with a complete set of stamps.  Collectors were told to paste stamps into the album when they heard a particular station.  This may be one of the reasons the EKKO Company decided to sell directly to the public as well.  

Though the EKKO Company decision probably spelled doom for the Bryant Company, there's also the fact that anyone could claim to hear a station, and paste a Bryant stamp it in their album-- no effort -- unlike EKKO stamps, which required effort to acquire.  At any rate, the Bryant Company issued at least two different albums and just over 600 different stamps, but was gone before 1927. Here is the cover of one of the albums:



These are the major issue differences between the Bryants and the EKKOs:

• There’s no record of later issues of Bryants; although blank Bryants do exist, it appears that they were sent with the other stamps, so a listener could add stations that were licensed later.  EKKOs were issued well into the 1950s on a casual (some would say counterfeit) basis.
• EKKOs were issued for the United States, Canada, Mexico, Cuba and a handful of other countries during the international reception tests in 1926 and 1927.  The Bryant Company album came with stamps for Great Britain and The Philippines.  
• Bryant stamps may have flaws that rarely show up in EKKOs, such as misalignment of the first printing pass, double perforations and the like.  The American Bank Note Company (which printed EKKOs as well as US postage stamps) had better quality control.

Here are Bryants from each country in the program:







WLTS  Chicago, Illinois
CFCU  Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
CZF   Chihuahua, Mexico
KZKZ  Manila, Philippines
PWX   Havana, Cuba
6FL   Sheffield, England

Happy collecting and 73s!