A new set of four United States forever stamps with a floral theme will go on sale Aug. 16 in a double-sided pane of 20 and in large coils.
The four designs show red camellias and yellow forsythia in a yellow pitcher; white peonies and pink tree peonies in a clear vase; blue hydrangeas in a blue pot; and white hydrangeas, white and pink roses, green hypericum berries, and purple lisianthus in a white pitcher.
The still-life paintings that illustrate the stamps are by artist Elizabeth Brandon.
According to the U.S. Postal Service, the paintings were “inspired by floral still lifes created by Dutch and Flemish artists of the 17th and 18th centuries.”
The Flowers from the Garden Stamps will be issued Aug. 16, with a 4 p.m. first-day ceremony at Mary Jo Wegner Arboretum and East Sioux Falls Historic Site, 1900 S. Perry Place, in Sioux Falls, S.D.
The first-day ceremony is free and open to the public, but the Postal Service requests that those planning to attend RSVP online.
Ceremony participants will include South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard, Sioux Falls Mayor Mike Huether, Sioux Falls city council member Michelle Erpenbach, U.S. Postal Service Employee Resource Management Vice President Simon Storey, stamp artist Elizabeth Brandon, and plant scientist Sarah Stowers.
Stamps with a floral theme are popular with the mailing public. This new stamp set comes a little more than a year and a half after a set of 10 Botanical Art stamps was issued in a double-sided pane of 20 on Jan. 29, 2016.
The new Flowers from the Garden stamps were offset-printed and processed by Banknote Corporation of America in Browns Summit, N.C.
The coil stamps in rolls of 3,000 and 10,000 are printed using the same process and on the same press, so all indications are that the coil stamps from the two roll sizes will be indistinguishable.
However, it will be easy to tell the coil stamps from those in the double-sided pane of 20. As usual, the coil stamps have straight edges at the top and bottom, while the stamps in the double-sided pane of 20 are likely to have straight edges either on one side only, or on two adjoining sides.
However, the coil stamps also are smaller than those from the double-sided pane, and as a result, the artwork is cropped differently on all four stamps.
As an example, on the coil stamp showing the white hydrangeas and other flowers in a white pitcher, the handle on the right side of the pitcher is fully shown.
On the stamp showing the same illustration from the double-sided pane, the handle of the white pitcher is not visible at all.
The cropping of the images and the difference in sizes also affect the placement of the “USA Forever” inscription on the two varieties of these stamps.
Forever stamps will always be equal in value to the current First-Class Mail one-ounce price.
Shipping:
Free standard shipping with delivery typically within 3-8 business days.
Order now to brighten your mailings with the timeless beauty of garden flowers!
