no agreement on what is the "classic period" for stamps of Mexico. In 1926, Samuel Chapman in his The Postage Stamps of Mexico, referred to the "provisional period" as running from 1856 to 1868. In 1983, Schatzkès & Schimmer published a study of the Cancellations of Mexico from 1856-1874, but they did not specifically call that the "classic period." Pulver in his Introduction to the Stamps of Mexico (1992) included a chapter entitled "Classic Era 1856-1883." Including 1883 as the end of the classic period apparently is based on the fact that the district overprints continued to that year. However, the only stamps Pulver actually discussed in his "classics" chapter were issued before 1874, which year marked a fundamental change in the appearance of Mexico's stamps. Others view the classic period as extending to 1900 or even later. How to define the "classic" period thus necessarily is subjective. This article will treat the classic period as running from 1856 to 1874. Before 1874, most of the stamps were locally designed and produced, often with crude or "primitive" workmanship and imperforate or poorly perforated, characteristics that make the stamps charming and popular with philatelists. In May 1874, Mexico issued a group of stamps designed and printed by the American Bank Note Company in New York, which were professionally designed and printed using steel engraving, and issued with perforations. These stamps were closely similar in appearance to the contemporary stamps of other countries also manufactured by bank note companies in the United States. Subsequent issues of Mexico, although usually manufactured domestically, were in a similar "modern" style. District overprints Virtually all the early stamps of Mexico have district overprints, which were added as an anti-theft device. These overprints came into use in 1856, with the first stamps of Mexico, and continued officially until the end of 1883. The Mexican postal system divided the country into about 50 "districts", each of which had a main office and a number of suboffices. The district office ordered stamps from Mexico City, they would be shipped by stagecoach unoverprinted, and then the district office would handstamp each stamp with the name of the district. The overprinted stamps would then both be sold directly to postal customers, and shipped to suboffices. In theory, only overprinted stamps were valid for postage, but given the error potential of applying the marking to each individual stamp, a small number of