May 2, 2012
Hitler postcard found at roadshow
from The Independent
by Rosa Silverman
Adolf Hitler was surprisingly keen to return to the front line after being injured in the First World War, a recently-discovered postcard suggests.
The rare card surfaced at a family history roadshow almost a century after being sent by the future dictator to his comrade Karl Lanzhammer.
Recovering in the German city of Munich in December 1916 after suffering a leg wound in the Battle of the Somme, the then 27-year-old soldier wrote of his intention to "report voluntarily for the field immediately".
Historians say this demonstrates his attachment to his new network of army friends as much as his militaristic zeal.
Dr Thomas Weber, an expert on the period from the University of Aberdeen, said: "What's clear is Hitler desperately wants to return to the front and that's rather unusual, even for soldiers who were generally willing to fight in the war and thought Germany's cause was a just one.
CONTINUE>>>
_________________________________________________________________
April 20, 2012
The Civil War: New Forever stamps commemorate two important battles
from The Washington Times
VIENNA, Va., April 19, 2012 — A new “forever stamp” will be issued on April 24, the second in the sesquicentennial series of postage stamps by the U. S. Postal Service in connection with the 150 year anniversary of the 1861-1865 conflict.
These two stamps, which will be issued in the same format as the previous ones in sheets of 12, feature two significant battles of the war. The first set of stamps commemorate the naval assault, which was at the heart of the Battle of New Orleans, started on April 25 and finally ending on May 1 when Union General Benjamin “Beast” Butler took over the besieged city.
The attack was part of Gen. Winfield Scott’s “Anaconda Plan,” whereby various ports and cities were to be seized, leaving the Southern cities defenseless. With the all the forts captured, the area was ripe for being overrun and the end of trade, finance, and shipbuilding.
The naval battle pictured on the stamp is from an 1862 lithograph by Currier and Ives, which (depending on one’s point of view) was entitled “The Splendid Naval Triumph on the Mississippi, April 24, 1862.” According to the Post Office, the capture “cost Farragut a mere 37 killed and 149 wounded.” Men were definitely disposable.
CONTINUE>>>
_______________________________________________________________
April 16, 2012
Resolutions aim to make postage count toward fight against Alzheimer's
from knoxnews.com
by Kristi L. Nelson
When she's purchasing postage, Lynda Everman nearly always buys the Breast Cancer Research stamps.The "semipostal" stamp costs a little more than a regular first-class stamp, but the extra money goes to fund the fight against the disease that's affected one of Everman's dear friends.
"It takes so little on my behalf," Everman said.
Yet she wishes she had another option: the semipostal Alzheimer's Awareness stamp issued by the U.S. Postal Service in October 2008. Designed by Maryland art director Ethel Kessler, who designed the Breast Cancer Research stamp, and illustrator Matt Mahurin, the stamp pays tribute to some 11 million American caregivers, featuring an elderly woman in silhouette, a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"Sadly the stamp is unavailable for purchase," said Everman, whose own husband, Richard, died from Alzheimer's last month. "Even more tragically, legislation was never passed and signed into law to make this a new fundraising, or 'semipostal,' stamp. What a wasted opportunity."
CONTINUE>>>
_______________________________________________________________
April 5, 2012
New Deal Post Office Murals Paint Depression Ideals
from American History
by Melissa Roberts
Explore the history and controversy behind public murals in U.S. Post Offices funded by Roosevelt's New Deal.
Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal legislation helped reform American industry, society, and economy during the Great Depression. While public works programs, such as the Tennessee Valley Authority, are widely known, the government also funded public arts programs. The New Deal's Post Office murals still greet postal customers today as reminders of the ideals of Depression-era artists, communities, and, indeed, the government.
The New Deal and the Arts
Several New Deal agencies, including the famous Works Progress Administration, supervised public arts programs. The most successful, however, was the Federal Arts Program (FAP). This agency employed over 10,000 artists between 1935 and 1943 who produced tens of thousands of murals, sculptures, posters, and other forms of art displayed in public buildings (Brown and Shannon 174).
Post offices had a special connection with the New Deal public arts movement. The New Deal expanded postal services and built new post office buildings across the nation. Each new post office was adorned with public art. The Treasury Department carefully selected and screened the art for the post offices to ensure each would be pleasing to the local community. Today, murals remain in towns and cities all over the United States as a reminder of New Deal arts funding.
CONTINUE>>>
_______________________________________________________________
April 4, 2012
Historic railroad postal car moves from Cannery Row to Salinas
from The Herald
by Dennis Taylor
An 88-year-old railroad car was transported Wednesday from Monterey to Salinas, where it will be fully restored as a permanent exhibit at a museum next to the Amtrak station.
The green, 50-ton postal car, built in 1924, was the primary means of transport for mail in the 1920s and 1930s before it was retired from duty in the late 1960s.
In retirement, the car served as a post office until 1990, then became a restaurant and a welcome center for Monterey on Cannery Row.
"When Amtrak came on the scene in 1971, all of the other railroads in the country ended their passenger service. That's when they retired this car, which was the first car behind the locomotive on passenger trains," said Mike Howell, 63, a volunteer for the Monterey-Salinas Valley Railroad Historical Society Museum who will restore the car to its original condition.
"When they'd roll into a town, one guy would put the hooks out and grab the mail bags as they went by. Another guy would toss out the mail bags that were being delivered to that city. They wouldn't even have to stop the train," he said.
CONTINUE>>>
_______________________________________________________________
April 2, 2012
Rare U.S. Airmail error nets $718,750 at auction
from Examiner
by Mark Kellner
One of the rarest United States postage stamps ever issued -- a 24-cent airmail rate stamp with the center illustration of a Curtiss JN-4H bi-plane inverted -- brought a high-flying price at a New York City stamp auction on March 29. The "Inverted 'Jenny,'" as the stamp is known among collectors, sold for $718,750, including a 15-percent buyers' commission.
Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries, a New York firm noted for its sales of some of the world's great rarities, handled the item as part of its sale of the collection of former Congressman Peter H. B. Frelinghuysen Jr., who died in 2011. Born in 1916, the late Rep. Frelinghuysen, who served in the House of Representatives from 1953 to 1975, was a lifelong stamp collector. The stamp itself has an interesting history.
According to the Siegel firm, "Only one [pane] of 100 'Inverted Jenny' error stamps was ever sold" over a post office counter. William T. Robey bought the pane at a Washington D.C. post office in May 1918. The Frelinghuysen example is from Position 74 in the original pane.
CONTINUE>>>
_______________________________________________________________
April 2, 2012
Philatelic libraries to join forces in global alliance
from Examiner
by Mark Kellner
One of the most important aspects of philately – beyond the mere accumulation of postage stamps, covers (unstamped or stamped envelopes that have passed through the mail) and postal history (defined by the International Philatelic Federation as a collection “based on the study and the classification of postal and philatelic items which are directly relevant to the methods, routing and condition of dispatch of postal communication of all periods” – beyond all that, is the accumulation of the knowledge to make those items into a comprehensible collection or exhibit. In so doing, a collector demonstrates having done more than accumulated items; they’ve formed a true collection.
Now, some of the world’s leading philatelic organizations are joining forces to make the finding of that specialized knowledge easier.
According to an announcement from the Royal Philatelic Society London, or RPSL, the groups will “provide a centralized gateway to the greatest philatelic research in existence.”
CONTINUE>>>
_______________________________________________________________
March 29, 2012
A Stamp Collection With Rare Delights Leaves a Family’s Holdings for Auction
from The New York Times
by Matthew Healey
Many families have some treasures in the attic. Fred Frelinghuysen knew he had something, too, but he realized its significance only when the time came to let it go.
The Frelinghuysens are among New Jersey’s oldest and most distinguished political families, with roots stretching to 1720 and a roster in public service that includes senators, congressmen, a vice presidential candidate and a secretary of state. Schools, streets, a township and even an arboretum are named after them.
There is also, until recently unknown to any but a few family members, a Frelinghuysen stamp collection. It is not your uncle Pete’s schoolboy album replete with five-and-dime commemoratives, but a large and expertly curated holding, put together by Peter H. B. Frelinghuysen Jr., a former congressman who died last year at age 95, that includes rarities from the earliest days of American postal history.
Now Peter Frelinghuysen’s five children, including Fred and his brother Rodney, who is serving his ninth term representing New Jersey’s 11th Congressional district, are putting the collection under the hammer in a two-day auction that began Wednesday in Manhattan.
“It was a passion for him for many years,” said Fred Frelinghuysen, 58, discussing the difficult decision to sell his father’s stamps in order to settle his estate. “We were always aware of the collection. It was something we would bring out when we were on vacation or had time to relax.”
CONTINUE>>>
_______________________________________________________________
March 20, 2012
Einstein’s letters to lovers, fan mail to go online
Hitler postcard found at roadshow
from The Independent
by Rosa Silverman
Adolf Hitler was surprisingly keen to return to the front line after being injured in the First World War, a recently-discovered postcard suggests.
The rare card surfaced at a family history roadshow almost a century after being sent by the future dictator to his comrade Karl Lanzhammer.
Recovering in the German city of Munich in December 1916 after suffering a leg wound in the Battle of the Somme, the then 27-year-old soldier wrote of his intention to "report voluntarily for the field immediately".
Historians say this demonstrates his attachment to his new network of army friends as much as his militaristic zeal.
Dr Thomas Weber, an expert on the period from the University of Aberdeen, said: "What's clear is Hitler desperately wants to return to the front and that's rather unusual, even for soldiers who were generally willing to fight in the war and thought Germany's cause was a just one.
CONTINUE>>>
_________________________________________________________________
April 20, 2012
The Civil War: New Forever stamps commemorate two important battles
from The Washington Times
VIENNA, Va., April 19, 2012 — A new “forever stamp” will be issued on April 24, the second in the sesquicentennial series of postage stamps by the U. S. Postal Service in connection with the 150 year anniversary of the 1861-1865 conflict.
These two stamps, which will be issued in the same format as the previous ones in sheets of 12, feature two significant battles of the war. The first set of stamps commemorate the naval assault, which was at the heart of the Battle of New Orleans, started on April 25 and finally ending on May 1 when Union General Benjamin “Beast” Butler took over the besieged city.
The attack was part of Gen. Winfield Scott’s “Anaconda Plan,” whereby various ports and cities were to be seized, leaving the Southern cities defenseless. With the all the forts captured, the area was ripe for being overrun and the end of trade, finance, and shipbuilding.
The naval battle pictured on the stamp is from an 1862 lithograph by Currier and Ives, which (depending on one’s point of view) was entitled “The Splendid Naval Triumph on the Mississippi, April 24, 1862.” According to the Post Office, the capture “cost Farragut a mere 37 killed and 149 wounded.” Men were definitely disposable.
CONTINUE>>>
_______________________________________________________________
April 16, 2012
Resolutions aim to make postage count toward fight against Alzheimer's
from knoxnews.com
by Kristi L. Nelson
When she's purchasing postage, Lynda Everman nearly always buys the Breast Cancer Research stamps.The "semipostal" stamp costs a little more than a regular first-class stamp, but the extra money goes to fund the fight against the disease that's affected one of Everman's dear friends.
"It takes so little on my behalf," Everman said.
Yet she wishes she had another option: the semipostal Alzheimer's Awareness stamp issued by the U.S. Postal Service in October 2008. Designed by Maryland art director Ethel Kessler, who designed the Breast Cancer Research stamp, and illustrator Matt Mahurin, the stamp pays tribute to some 11 million American caregivers, featuring an elderly woman in silhouette, a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"Sadly the stamp is unavailable for purchase," said Everman, whose own husband, Richard, died from Alzheimer's last month. "Even more tragically, legislation was never passed and signed into law to make this a new fundraising, or 'semipostal,' stamp. What a wasted opportunity."
CONTINUE>>>
_______________________________________________________________
April 5, 2012
New Deal Post Office Murals Paint Depression Ideals
from American History
by Melissa Roberts
Explore the history and controversy behind public murals in U.S. Post Offices funded by Roosevelt's New Deal.
Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal legislation helped reform American industry, society, and economy during the Great Depression. While public works programs, such as the Tennessee Valley Authority, are widely known, the government also funded public arts programs. The New Deal's Post Office murals still greet postal customers today as reminders of the ideals of Depression-era artists, communities, and, indeed, the government.
The New Deal and the Arts
Several New Deal agencies, including the famous Works Progress Administration, supervised public arts programs. The most successful, however, was the Federal Arts Program (FAP). This agency employed over 10,000 artists between 1935 and 1943 who produced tens of thousands of murals, sculptures, posters, and other forms of art displayed in public buildings (Brown and Shannon 174).
Post offices had a special connection with the New Deal public arts movement. The New Deal expanded postal services and built new post office buildings across the nation. Each new post office was adorned with public art. The Treasury Department carefully selected and screened the art for the post offices to ensure each would be pleasing to the local community. Today, murals remain in towns and cities all over the United States as a reminder of New Deal arts funding.
CONTINUE>>>
_______________________________________________________________
April 4, 2012
Historic railroad postal car moves from Cannery Row to Salinas
from The Herald
by Dennis Taylor
An 88-year-old railroad car was transported Wednesday from Monterey to Salinas, where it will be fully restored as a permanent exhibit at a museum next to the Amtrak station.
The green, 50-ton postal car, built in 1924, was the primary means of transport for mail in the 1920s and 1930s before it was retired from duty in the late 1960s.
In retirement, the car served as a post office until 1990, then became a restaurant and a welcome center for Monterey on Cannery Row.
"When Amtrak came on the scene in 1971, all of the other railroads in the country ended their passenger service. That's when they retired this car, which was the first car behind the locomotive on passenger trains," said Mike Howell, 63, a volunteer for the Monterey-Salinas Valley Railroad Historical Society Museum who will restore the car to its original condition.
"When they'd roll into a town, one guy would put the hooks out and grab the mail bags as they went by. Another guy would toss out the mail bags that were being delivered to that city. They wouldn't even have to stop the train," he said.
CONTINUE>>>
_______________________________________________________________
April 2, 2012
Rare U.S. Airmail error nets $718,750 at auction
from Examiner
by Mark Kellner
One of the rarest United States postage stamps ever issued -- a 24-cent airmail rate stamp with the center illustration of a Curtiss JN-4H bi-plane inverted -- brought a high-flying price at a New York City stamp auction on March 29. The "Inverted 'Jenny,'" as the stamp is known among collectors, sold for $718,750, including a 15-percent buyers' commission.
Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries, a New York firm noted for its sales of some of the world's great rarities, handled the item as part of its sale of the collection of former Congressman Peter H. B. Frelinghuysen Jr., who died in 2011. Born in 1916, the late Rep. Frelinghuysen, who served in the House of Representatives from 1953 to 1975, was a lifelong stamp collector. The stamp itself has an interesting history.
According to the Siegel firm, "Only one [pane] of 100 'Inverted Jenny' error stamps was ever sold" over a post office counter. William T. Robey bought the pane at a Washington D.C. post office in May 1918. The Frelinghuysen example is from Position 74 in the original pane.
CONTINUE>>>
_______________________________________________________________
April 2, 2012
Philatelic libraries to join forces in global alliance
from Examiner
by Mark Kellner
One of the most important aspects of philately – beyond the mere accumulation of postage stamps, covers (unstamped or stamped envelopes that have passed through the mail) and postal history (defined by the International Philatelic Federation as a collection “based on the study and the classification of postal and philatelic items which are directly relevant to the methods, routing and condition of dispatch of postal communication of all periods” – beyond all that, is the accumulation of the knowledge to make those items into a comprehensible collection or exhibit. In so doing, a collector demonstrates having done more than accumulated items; they’ve formed a true collection.
Now, some of the world’s leading philatelic organizations are joining forces to make the finding of that specialized knowledge easier.
According to an announcement from the Royal Philatelic Society London, or RPSL, the groups will “provide a centralized gateway to the greatest philatelic research in existence.”
CONTINUE>>>
_______________________________________________________________
March 29, 2012
A Stamp Collection With Rare Delights Leaves a Family’s Holdings for Auction
from The New York Times
by Matthew Healey
Many families have some treasures in the attic. Fred Frelinghuysen knew he had something, too, but he realized its significance only when the time came to let it go.
The Frelinghuysens are among New Jersey’s oldest and most distinguished political families, with roots stretching to 1720 and a roster in public service that includes senators, congressmen, a vice presidential candidate and a secretary of state. Schools, streets, a township and even an arboretum are named after them.
There is also, until recently unknown to any but a few family members, a Frelinghuysen stamp collection. It is not your uncle Pete’s schoolboy album replete with five-and-dime commemoratives, but a large and expertly curated holding, put together by Peter H. B. Frelinghuysen Jr., a former congressman who died last year at age 95, that includes rarities from the earliest days of American postal history.
Now Peter Frelinghuysen’s five children, including Fred and his brother Rodney, who is serving his ninth term representing New Jersey’s 11th Congressional district, are putting the collection under the hammer in a two-day auction that began Wednesday in Manhattan.
“It was a passion for him for many years,” said Fred Frelinghuysen, 58, discussing the difficult decision to sell his father’s stamps in order to settle his estate. “We were always aware of the collection. It was something we would bring out when we were on vacation or had time to relax.”
CONTINUE>>>
_______________________________________________________________
March 20, 2012
Einstein’s letters to lovers, fan mail to go online
from The Globe and Mail
by Daniel Estrin
Albert Einstein’s complete archives – from personal correspondence with half a dozen lovers to notebooks scribbled with his groundbreaking scientific research – are going online for the first time.
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which owns the German Jewish physicist’s papers, is pulling never-before seen items from its climate-controlled safe, photographing them in high resolution and posting them on the Internet — offering the public a nuanced and fuller portrait of the man behind the scientific genius.
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which owns the German Jewish physicist’s papers, is pulling never-before seen items from its climate-controlled safe, photographing them in high resolution and posting them on the Internet — offering the public a nuanced and fuller portrait of the man behind the scientific genius.
Only 900 manuscript images, and an incomplete catalogue listing just half of the archive’s contents, had been posted online since 2003. Now, with a grant from the Polonsky Foundation U.K., which previously helped digitize Isaac Newton’s papers, all 80,000 items from the Einstein collection have been catalogued and enhanced with cross referencing technology.
The updated web portal, unveiled Monday, features the full inventory of the Einstein archives, publicizing for the first time the entirety of what’s inside the collection and giving scholars a chance to request access to items they previously never knew existed.
“Knowledge is not about hiding. It’s about openness,” said Menachem Ben-Sasson, president of the Hebrew University.
The archives also include lesser-known papers, including a postcard to his ailing mother, private correspondence with his lovers and a pile of fan mail Einstein received about his wild hairdo.
The updated web portal, unveiled Monday, features the full inventory of the Einstein archives, publicizing for the first time the entirety of what’s inside the collection and giving scholars a chance to request access to items they previously never knew existed.
“Knowledge is not about hiding. It’s about openness,” said Menachem Ben-Sasson, president of the Hebrew University.
The archives also include lesser-known papers, including a postcard to his ailing mother, private correspondence with his lovers and a pile of fan mail Einstein received about his wild hairdo.
CONTINUE>>>
_______________________________________________________________
March 13, 2012
Final push for Pluto's postage stamp
from MSNBC
by Adam Boyle
More than 11,000 people have signed an online petition to honor NASA's mission to Pluto and other denizens of the solar system's icy rim with a commemorative U.S. postage stamp — which is a fine way to celebrate the 82nd anniversary of Pluto's planetary coming-out party.
"I'm pretty happy," said Alan Stern, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute who is the principal investigator for NASA's New Horizons mission. New Horizons is due to fly by the dwarf planet in 2015, and Stern is among the leading supporters of the stamp campaign.
"A lot of stamps get 1,000 petition names, and they're very happy with that," Stern told me. "Still, I'd rather have 12,000 than 11,000."
Tuesday marks the 82nd anniversary of the announcement of Pluto's discovery by Clyde Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona, and it also marks a turning point for the petition drive. Stern said he and his colleagues are now turning their attention to the preparation of a formal proposal that will be submitted to the Citizen Stamp Advisory Committee next month.
CONTINUE>>>
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February 21, 2012
Search continues for secret stamp honoring John Glenn's historic spaceflight
from collectSPACE
_______________________________________________________________
March 13, 2012
Final push for Pluto's postage stamp
from MSNBC
by Adam Boyle
More than 11,000 people have signed an online petition to honor NASA's mission to Pluto and other denizens of the solar system's icy rim with a commemorative U.S. postage stamp — which is a fine way to celebrate the 82nd anniversary of Pluto's planetary coming-out party.
"I'm pretty happy," said Alan Stern, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute who is the principal investigator for NASA's New Horizons mission. New Horizons is due to fly by the dwarf planet in 2015, and Stern is among the leading supporters of the stamp campaign.
"A lot of stamps get 1,000 petition names, and they're very happy with that," Stern told me. "Still, I'd rather have 12,000 than 11,000."
Tuesday marks the 82nd anniversary of the announcement of Pluto's discovery by Clyde Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona, and it also marks a turning point for the petition drive. Stern said he and his colleagues are now turning their attention to the preparation of a formal proposal that will be submitted to the Citizen Stamp Advisory Committee next month.
CONTINUE>>>
_______________________________________________________________
February 21, 2012
Search continues for secret stamp honoring John Glenn's historic spaceflight
from collectSPACE
February 20, 2012 – Fifty years ago Monday (Feb. 20), John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, relied on ground stations located across the planet to communicate with his control team. But after his Mercury spacecraft, Friendship 7, safely splashed down, it was another type of station that took over tracking his historic mission: U.S. post offices.For the first and only time in the country's postal history, the United States Post Office Department — since 1971, the U.S. Postal Service — surprised the public with the release of a secret stamp celebrating Glenn's successful mission. The 4-cent "Project Mercury" postage stamp was revealed and immediately put on sale in 305 post offices within an hour of Glenn's triumphant return to Earth at 2:43 p.m. EST (1943 GMT) on Feb. 20, 1962.
Half a century later, collectors are still searching for those first-day-of-issue stamps.
CONTINUE>>>
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Although millions of Penny Reds were printed between 1841 and 1879, a number of plates were never used due to technical faults.
_______________________________________________________________
February 16, 2012
'The holy grail of stamp collecting': Penny Red with rare imperfections set to sell for £550,000 at auction
from The Daily Mail
by Katie Silver
One of the rarest and most sought after stamps ever produced is up for sale and expected to fetch over half a million pounds.
The plate 77 Penny Red has been dubbed the ‘Holy Grail of philately’ and is one of just nine examples of the stamp ever recorded.
'The holy grail of stamp collecting': Penny Red with rare imperfections set to sell for £550,000 at auction
from The Daily Mail
by Katie Silver
The plate 77 Penny Red has been dubbed the ‘Holy Grail of philately’ and is one of just nine examples of the stamp ever recorded.
Although millions of Penny Reds were printed between 1841 and 1879, a number of plates were never used due to technical faults.
Flaws in plate number 77 meant the stamp’s perforations were lined up incorrectly, so all of the test sheets were destroyed.
But at least one sheet was released into circulation by mistake - making the 77 every stamp collector’s dream.
Dealer Stanley Gibbons heralds it as the 'most valuable single stamp' the company has ever had for sale in their 156 year history, with a value of around £550,000.
But at least one sheet was released into circulation by mistake - making the 77 every stamp collector’s dream.
Dealer Stanley Gibbons heralds it as the 'most valuable single stamp' the company has ever had for sale in their 156 year history, with a value of around £550,000.
CONTINUE>>>
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February 1, 2012
Petition pushes Pluto probe postage stamp
from collectSPACE
February 1, 2012 – Twenty-one (21) years ago, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) issued a stamp depicting the now on-again, off-again planet Pluto with the inscription "Not Yet Explored." Now, the team behind NASA's first mission to the last planet wants to correct that record with a stamp of their own.
Launched in January 2006, NASA's New Horizons robotic spacecraft is set to flyby Pluto and its moons in 2015. It is now more than two billion miles (3.2 billion kilometers) from Earth — beyond the planet Uranus' orbit — and since December, has been the closest probe to come near the icy dwarf planet.
"We're now in new territory as the closest any spacecraft has ever gotten to Pluto, and getting closer every day by over a million kilometers," said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute.
Woken from hibernation last month for a battery of system and experiment tests, New Horizons is in the "late cruise" phase of its journey. The team working at John Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland are preparing the probe for its final stages leading up to the flyby and closest approach to Pluto.
Timed accordingly, the mission team launched a petition campaign Wednesday (Feb. 1) for the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to commemorate the New Horizons on a stamp.
Sign the petition: Honor New Horizons and the Exploration of Pluto with a USPS Stamp
CONTINUE>>>
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January 24, 2012
Purple Martin Flies On Forever Stamped Envelopes
from The Chattanoogan
Bird lovers are expected to flock to their Post Offices now that the Postal Service is celebrating North America’s largest swallow by issuing the Purple Martin First-Class Mail Forever Stamped envelope Monday that sells for 56-cents (45-cents for postage and 11-cents for the envelope). The stamped envelope is now available at Post Offices nationwide, online at usps.com/shop and by phone at 800/782-6724.
“Bird lovers across America will be enamored with this stamped envelope,” said U.S. Postal Service Acting Manager of Post Office Operations John Rhoden in dedicating the stamps at the Mulberry Civic Center.
CONTINUE>>>
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January 23, 2012
Syracuse University professor's artwork featured on stamps
from Syracuse.com
by Sarah Moses
Syracuse, NY -- The artwork of a Syracuse University art professor is featured on four 65-cent stamps released today by the United States Postal Service.
John Thompson created the artwork behind the Dogs at Work stamp, which is featured in four different designs. Thompson said he was thrilled to have his work featured on stamps.
“It was really fun to create and I’m very proud of the outcome,” he said.
Thompson, 71, has worked for Syracuse University since 1994 and is an award-winning freelance illustrator. His work has been featured in children’s books, advertising campaigns and several other projects.
“This is something that I hadn’t done yet,” Thompson said about creating the original artwork for the stamps. “And now I have.”
CONTINUE>>>
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January 18, 2012
Four raptors to grace USPS stamps
____________________________________________________________
January 17, 2012
Reliance's history intertwined with Vaughn-Webb family post office
_______________________________________________________________
January 10, 2012
78 years later, recipient still has first mail sent from Sacramento post office
from The Sacramento Bee
by Carlos Alcalá
Dexter "Dex" Rivett is 89 and says there are many things he doesn't recall.
Although he is otherwise sharp, he can be excused for not remembering a plain postcard he got from his grandfather in 1933, when Dex was 11 years old.
What is unusual about the card is that it was the documented first mail sent from the then-new Sacramento post office on I Street.
Even more surprising is that Rivett still has it.
U.S. Postal Service officials have been working for more than a year to move operations from that site to another downtown location, but negotiations with a new landlord have not been finalized.
The closure may occur this year, but 78 years ago, a Sacramento Bee reporter and photographer were on hand to document the opening on Nov. 6, 1933.
CONTINUE>>>
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January 5, 2012
Archaeologist aids stamp design
from The Monterey Herald
by Claudia Melendez Salinas
On a field trip to San Juan Bautista as a fourth grader, Ruben Mendoza was smitten. "I remember falling in love with that place, like I belonged there," said Mendoza, 55, a professor of archaeology at CSU Monterey Bay. "I remember marveling at those old buildings, wondering about their history. I saw men on horseback and for me it was like the Old West."
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December 27, 2011
The Philatelic Sherlock Holmes
from The Stamp Collecting Round-up
This past week the new film Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law was released.
The Detective Fiction on Stamps website says Sherlock Holmes is a popular topic on stamps. In fact, they proclaim him "the champion," with a page of his own.
According to the site, "Over a dozen countries have produced Sherlock Holmes-related postal offerings, beginning in 1972 with Nicaragua's 50th Anniversary of Interpol issue,'The Twelve Most Famous Fictional Detectives,' in which Holmes was on the high value, and continuing through the 2009 Monaco issue commemorating the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle."
CONTINUE>>>
_______________________________________________________________
November 28, 2011
Artist's son is pleased to find Paw Paw Post Office mural well-preserved
The Paw Paw mural was one of more than 1,000 art works commissioned by the United States Treasury Department's Painting and Sculpture Section between 1934 and 1943, as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA).
One of the WPA programs, the Section of Fine Arts, held competitions for artists throughout the country to obtain commissions for decorating new government buildings.
Competitions for large buildings attracted artists from around the country. As the number of artists greatly outweighed the number of large buildings, Treasury art officials kept a file of talented artists who would do other, smaller buildings.
That's when Lopez, a resident of Ann Arbor at the time, was selected in 1939, to do the mural for the new post office under construction in Paw Paw.
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November 25, 2011
Old postage stamps boost Illinois Audubon Society
_______________________________________________________________
November 23, 2011
Not Licked Yet
from The Republic
by Naomi Nix
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February 1, 2012
Petition pushes Pluto probe postage stamp
from collectSPACE
February 1, 2012 – Twenty-one (21) years ago, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) issued a stamp depicting the now on-again, off-again planet Pluto with the inscription "Not Yet Explored." Now, the team behind NASA's first mission to the last planet wants to correct that record with a stamp of their own.
Launched in January 2006, NASA's New Horizons robotic spacecraft is set to flyby Pluto and its moons in 2015. It is now more than two billion miles (3.2 billion kilometers) from Earth — beyond the planet Uranus' orbit — and since December, has been the closest probe to come near the icy dwarf planet.
"We're now in new territory as the closest any spacecraft has ever gotten to Pluto, and getting closer every day by over a million kilometers," said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute.
Woken from hibernation last month for a battery of system and experiment tests, New Horizons is in the "late cruise" phase of its journey. The team working at John Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland are preparing the probe for its final stages leading up to the flyby and closest approach to Pluto.
Timed accordingly, the mission team launched a petition campaign Wednesday (Feb. 1) for the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to commemorate the New Horizons on a stamp.
Sign the petition: Honor New Horizons and the Exploration of Pluto with a USPS Stamp
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January 24, 2012
Purple Martin Flies On Forever Stamped Envelopes
from The Chattanoogan
Bird lovers are expected to flock to their Post Offices now that the Postal Service is celebrating North America’s largest swallow by issuing the Purple Martin First-Class Mail Forever Stamped envelope Monday that sells for 56-cents (45-cents for postage and 11-cents for the envelope). The stamped envelope is now available at Post Offices nationwide, online at usps.com/shop and by phone at 800/782-6724.
“Bird lovers across America will be enamored with this stamped envelope,” said U.S. Postal Service Acting Manager of Post Office Operations John Rhoden in dedicating the stamps at the Mulberry Civic Center.
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January 23, 2012
Syracuse University professor's artwork featured on stamps
from Syracuse.com
by Sarah Moses
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| Michelle Gabel / The Post-Standard |
John Thompson created the artwork behind the Dogs at Work stamp, which is featured in four different designs. Thompson said he was thrilled to have his work featured on stamps.
“It was really fun to create and I’m very proud of the outcome,” he said.
Thompson, 71, has worked for Syracuse University since 1994 and is an award-winning freelance illustrator. His work has been featured in children’s books, advertising campaigns and several other projects.
“This is something that I hadn’t done yet,” Thompson said about creating the original artwork for the stamps. “And now I have.”
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January 18, 2012
Four raptors to grace USPS stamps
from The Shreveport Times
by Jimmy Watson
Robert Giusti has created art for a wide variety of businesses, product manufacturers and publications around the world, so it wasn't surprising when the United States Postal Service commissioned him to develop a stamp series dealing with birds.
A noted illustrator, who has designed Time magazine covers, art for Celestial Seasonings products and album covers for Capitol Records and Universal Studios, Giusti settled on five birds native to America to depict on an upcoming USPS stamp release.
Coming soon to a post office near you are the Birds of Prey, "the five kings of the sky," including the northern goshawk (Accipiter gentilis), peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus), golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos), osprey (Pandion haliaetus) and northern harrier (Circus cyaneus).
"When we originally began the project (about two years ago), I came up with four categories of birds for consideration," said Giusti, who lives on a Connecticut farm about 75 miles north of New York City. "I did a group of owls, shore birds and ducks, I believe, but we settled on the birds of prey."
Robert Giusti has created art for a wide variety of businesses, product manufacturers and publications around the world, so it wasn't surprising when the United States Postal Service commissioned him to develop a stamp series dealing with birds.
A noted illustrator, who has designed Time magazine covers, art for Celestial Seasonings products and album covers for Capitol Records and Universal Studios, Giusti settled on five birds native to America to depict on an upcoming USPS stamp release.
Coming soon to a post office near you are the Birds of Prey, "the five kings of the sky," including the northern goshawk (Accipiter gentilis), peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus), golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos), osprey (Pandion haliaetus) and northern harrier (Circus cyaneus).
"When we originally began the project (about two years ago), I came up with four categories of birds for consideration," said Giusti, who lives on a Connecticut farm about 75 miles north of New York City. "I did a group of owls, shore birds and ducks, I believe, but we settled on the birds of prey."
January 17, 2012
Reliance's history intertwined with Vaughn-Webb family post office
from The Times Free Press
by Ben Benton
RELIANCE, Tenn. -- Echoes of a time long past, of trading with the Cherokees and mail carried by horseback and rail, live on in a tiny post office nestled in the steep, mountainous terrain of western Polk County.
The office hasn't operated for eight years now, but the old U.S. post office sign still hangs outside where the postmaster had shared space with Webb Bros. Texaco and General Store since 1936.
But for most of the 124 years that Reliance had a post office, a member of the Vaughn-Webb family stood behind the counter, dutifully sorting mail and lending an ear or a hand when needed.
Sandra Webb Hyder, the fourth generation of the family to serve as Reliance postmaster, turned out to be the last.
Her retirement marks a watershed moment in the history of this community.
January 10, 2012
78 years later, recipient still has first mail sent from Sacramento post office
from The Sacramento Bee
by Carlos Alcalá
Dexter "Dex" Rivett is 89 and says there are many things he doesn't recall.
Although he is otherwise sharp, he can be excused for not remembering a plain postcard he got from his grandfather in 1933, when Dex was 11 years old.
What is unusual about the card is that it was the documented first mail sent from the then-new Sacramento post office on I Street.
Even more surprising is that Rivett still has it.
U.S. Postal Service officials have been working for more than a year to move operations from that site to another downtown location, but negotiations with a new landlord have not been finalized.
The closure may occur this year, but 78 years ago, a Sacramento Bee reporter and photographer were on hand to document the opening on Nov. 6, 1933.
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January 5, 2012
Archaeologist aids stamp design
from The Monterey Herald
by Claudia Melendez Salinas
On a field trip to San Juan Bautista as a fourth grader, Ruben Mendoza was smitten. "I remember falling in love with that place, like I belonged there," said Mendoza, 55, a professor of archaeology at CSU Monterey Bay. "I remember marveling at those old buildings, wondering about their history. I saw men on horseback and for me it was like the Old West."
Mendoza's fascination with old buildings resulted in an archaeological career in Monterey County, where he has led projects that have unearthed layers of history. Most recently, his research helped produce a United States Postal Service stamp that honors 250 years of California history with the image of Carmel Mission.
The stamp depicts the famed mission against a backdrop of clouds and will cost $18.95.
Mendoza let the artist borrow photos he took and historic photos. He also lent his expertise about the mission's history.
The gesture by USPS "is indicative of the importance they attribute to the mission among the earliest settlements on this northern part of the continent," said Knox Mellon, executive director of the Carmel-based California Missions Foundation.
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December 27, 2011
The Philatelic Sherlock Holmes
from The Stamp Collecting Round-up
This past week the new film Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law was released.
The Detective Fiction on Stamps website says Sherlock Holmes is a popular topic on stamps. In fact, they proclaim him "the champion," with a page of his own.
According to the site, "Over a dozen countries have produced Sherlock Holmes-related postal offerings, beginning in 1972 with Nicaragua's 50th Anniversary of Interpol issue,'The Twelve Most Famous Fictional Detectives,' in which Holmes was on the high value, and continuing through the 2009 Monaco issue commemorating the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle."
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November 28, 2011
Artist's son is pleased to find Paw Paw Post Office mural well-preserved
from Zwire.com
PAW PAW - Marking the first time he has seen the mural painted in 1940 by his father on the walls of the Paw Paw Post Office, Jon Lopez commented "Bounty" has been preserved beautifully.
Carlos Lopez completed the 9' by 14' mural above the Postmaster's office door in a year, for which he was paid $850.
The younger Lopez said he is aware of three other towns across America in which his father had done murals - Dwight, Ill., Plymouth Mich., and Birmingham, Mich. He did scenes of industry and war for other government agencies, his son said.
Carlos Lopez completed the 9' by 14' mural above the Postmaster's office door in a year, for which he was paid $850.
The younger Lopez said he is aware of three other towns across America in which his father had done murals - Dwight, Ill., Plymouth Mich., and Birmingham, Mich. He did scenes of industry and war for other government agencies, his son said.
The Paw Paw mural was one of more than 1,000 art works commissioned by the United States Treasury Department's Painting and Sculpture Section between 1934 and 1943, as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA).One of the WPA programs, the Section of Fine Arts, held competitions for artists throughout the country to obtain commissions for decorating new government buildings.
Competitions for large buildings attracted artists from around the country. As the number of artists greatly outweighed the number of large buildings, Treasury art officials kept a file of talented artists who would do other, smaller buildings.
That's when Lopez, a resident of Ann Arbor at the time, was selected in 1939, to do the mural for the new post office under construction in Paw Paw.
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November 25, 2011
Old postage stamps boost Illinois Audubon Society
from SJ-R.com
by Chris Young
Try to visualize 500 pounds of used postage stamps.
Retired ornithologist and stamp collector Vern Kleen sees those stamps turned into land where prairie chickens show off, owls hoot and warblers flit through the treetops.
Since 1984, Kleen has been capitalizing on his stamp collecting experience to market donated U.S. commemorative and foreign stamps, picture postcards and other collectible stamps as a way to raise money for the Illinois Audubon Society’s land acquisition fund.
The program has raised nearly $58,000 in the past quarter century.
Recently, Kleen sent 500 pounds of stamps to an East Coast dealer.
That’s a quarter ton of stamps, meticulously clipped from envelopes, sorted by type and packed into 26 boxes and shipped at a cost of $538.
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November 23, 2011
Not Licked Yet
from The Republic
by Naomi Nix
CHICAGO — When a bout of measles kept 6-year-old Charles Berg home from school, his grandfather did the one thing medicine can’t do for a sick kid: distract him. He shared his personal stamp collection with Charles, teaching him how to identify, catalogue, and store collectible stamps. Inspired by his grandfather, Berg’s interest in the hobby would last a lifetime.
“I tell people I caught the measles and stamp collecting when I was 6 (years old) and only the measles went away,” said Berg, now 69.
But while his passion for the hobby eventually led to owning his own stamp store, he couldn’t get his daughter to collect beyond her childhood.
By many accounts, the century-old tradition of stamp collecting may appear to have lost its foothold on American leisure time. Newspapers like the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times no longer carry weekly stamp columns. Most of the 20 or so brick-and-mortar stamp shops that populated the Chicago Loop in the decades between the 1950s and the 1980s are gone.
Add to that the increasing disappearance of the letter: the U.S. Post Office announced last year a ten-year strategy to account for the projected $238 billion dollar shortfall it will face over the next decade because of decreased mail volume.
But as Chicago hosted the 125th annual Chicagopex this weekend — one of the biggest stamp shows in the country — enthusiasts say technological advances have transformed the hobby, one they still hope will catch on with younger generations.
November 16, 2011
Mr. Zip and the Brand-New ZIP Code
from Smithsonian
One of the most important breakthroughs in modern communication lies in an overlooked place. It’s printed onto envelopes, just below the address. Although we think nothing of the ZIP Code these days, when it was rolled out in the 1960s, it was a novel and challenging concept for many Americans. And so, to help sell the ZIP Code, the Post Office Department introduced a friendly new mascot for the public campaign: the grinning, lanky Mr. Zip.
The National Postal Museum has now launched a new site, created by museum curator Nancy Pope and intern Abby Curtin, that celebrates the history of the ZIP Code campaign and its speedy mascot.
That history begins, Pope says, in the early 1960s, when growing mail volume and suburbanization had strained the mail system. Postmaster General J. Edward Day and others were convinced of the need to automate the sorting process. “They wanted to move to a mechanized process,” Pope says. “The ZIP Code system was essential in getting the machines to work.”
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November 10, 2011
Normal Post Office event to mark 150th anniversary
from Pantagraph
by Mary Ann Ford
NORMAL — The U.S. Postal Service may be struggling with the popularity of email and online bill paying, but it was so important 150 years ago that Normal got a post office before the town was even incorporated.
When Mary Lynn Edwards learned of the sesquicentennial, she decided to celebrate the occasion at the Corn Belt Philatelic Society’s annual postage stamp and antique postcard show this weekend. Edwards coordinates the show.
A special ceremony will take place at 12:30 p.m. Friday in the lobby at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts.
Edwards’ daughter, Mary Edwards of Stanford, designed an envelope featuring a picture of the Normal Post Office, 200 W. North St., and three former postmasters: Jesse Fell, Edward J. Lewis and Thomas B. Raycraft.
Show coordinators also worked with Normal Postmaster Jennifer Kanta and Heyworth Postmaster Janet Hedrick to have a special stamp cancellation made for the occasion.
The cancel will read: Normal, IL Post Office 150th Anniversary Station November 11, 2011 1861-2011 Normal IL 61761.
“The envelope is very unique, that’s why we made the cancel so simple,” Hedrick said.
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November 1, 2011
The ZIP Code challenge: Response of the American Public
Challenge
Persuading the American public to accept and use ZIP Codes was noted by former postal employees as the Department’s most significant challenge over the course of the ZIP Code campaign.(1) The launch of ZIP Code in 1962 came at a time when Americans were already struggling to accept the use of new area code digits being added to the front of telephone numbers; therefore, they were especially annoyed that they had yet another set of numbers to memorize. A column from humorist Art Buchwald of the Washington Post, Times Herald on July 30, 1963, entitled, “The Numbers Racket,” offers insight into this fact.(2) Appearing only about one month after ZIP Code’s implementation, “The Numbers Racket” conveys the attitude held by many Americans early on in the ZIP Code campaign – that numbers only make life more complicated. On top of having to remember their own ZIP Code, Americans would also have to know the codes for everyone they wished to send mail to. This made for more hassle than most were willing to accept. Though ZIP Code directories were made available by the Post Office Department early in the campaign, many people seemed not know how to obtain them. Americans were told to contact their local post offices in order to obtain the codes they needed, but again, this seemed to be extra work, and many Americans chose not to put forth the effort. Many Americans also did not understand howthe ZIP Code system operated, and doubted that the system would speed up their mail.
With fear of Communism still strong in Cold War America, some people feared that the creation of ZIP Code was a conspiracy to depersonalize or dehumanize them.(3) Personality and individuality were at the heart of American identity; being assigned an identification number was not. Thus, at the time of their implementation, ZIP Codes were seen by some as distinctly un-American and even possibly part of a Communist plot to undermine American culture!
Response of Americans
Postal Employees:
Some postal workers had issues with the new ZIP code system and its cheery representative. They voiced their opinions in Postal Record, a monthly publication of the National Association of Letter Carriers. An employee from Medford, Oregon wrote in to the publication in September, 1963 stating, “I believe our Postal Department has goofed, and this may well bury Mr. Zip amid jeers and laughter from those who do not understand the reason for this…The public should be better informed. They should know the reasons for Mr. Zip and the expected results.”(4) A Fort Worth, Texas employee declared in the August, 1967 Postal Record, “I am tired of the image of the American Letter Carrier being held up to public ridicule. No Letter Carrier that I have ever seen looks as absurd as Mr. Zip.”(5)
