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Fewer Subjects, More Designs In 2002 Stamp Program

Although the number of subjects slated for commemorative stamps during 2002 is considerably less than those so honored this year - 22, versus the 28 scheduled for 2001 - the number of face-different issues will rise by nearly 50 percent.

At an Aug. 24 meeting for members of the philatelic media, Stamp Services Manager Terry McCaffrey provided the following breakdown for the number of commemoratives stamps released over the previous four years: 1998: 51 subjects, 166 designs 1999: 58 subjects, 183 designs 2000: 30 subjects, 147 designs 2001: 28 subjects, 78 designs

While the 2002 stamp program has pared down the number of subjects to just 22, it will contain 118 designs. McCaffrey pointed out that 50 of those are part of the Greetings from America pane, leaving a total of 68 designs for the remaining 21 subjects.

Contrary to speculation circulating in the philatelic press, McCaffrey confirmed that the 2002 commemorative program will not comprise only self-adhesive issues. There will be one gummed pane and possibly a second gummed issue.

These numbers, and the announced designs, apply only to the commemorative program. McCaffrey said no commemorative postcards were planned for 2002, but no information was available on postal stationery, Love and other Special issues or definitive stamps.

Listed below are the planned 2002 commemorative subjects, in the order of their announced release, along with a brief description of the preliminary design. Subjects with no announced release date appear last. Except where noted, the stamps will be self-adhesive.

Winter Sports: Four horizontally formatted designs, featuring figure skating, ice hockey, snowboarding and ski jumping, are planned for an early January release in Salt Lake City, Utah, the host city for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. A black-and-white vertical image of each athlete appears along the outside edge of each stamp, next to a field of blue containing a line illustration. The USPS is still in negotiation with the U.S. Olympic Committee over whether Olympic rings will be incorporated into the design.

Mentoring a Child: Similar in style to the 1997 32¢ Helping Children Learn commemorative (Minkus CM1886 / Scott 3125) but horizontally formatted, this stamp features a bearded man and child at far right. The man has his hand on the child's shoulder and is pointing left towards a light. The pane of 20 features black selvage. McCaffrey said the issue started out as an anti-violence stamp, but the subject became a 'violence prevention' issue.

Year of the Horse: The 10th release in the Lunar New Year series is similar to previous designs but will be the first self-adhesive installment. Featuring a cut paper image of a horse on a bluish-purple background, the horizontal stamp will be issued in January on the West Coast. McCaffrey said that images of the remaining two stamps in the series, for the Year of the Ram and Year of the Monkey, may be released for licensing purposes, so that designs of all 12 can be used on merchandise.

Langston Hughes: Scheduled for a Feb. 1 release in Hughes' hometown of Joplin, Mo., this Black Heritage stamp celebrates the 100th anniversary of the poet's birth. The light brown-toned vertical issue features an image of Hughes taken in his later years by renowned photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson.

West Point: Based on a photo that appeared on the cover of the institution's magazine, a stamp marking the 200th anniversary of the United States Military Academy will be released on March 16 in West Point, N.Y. The design features an eagle atop a shield bearing a golden helmet, with a red banner trailing off either side, on a field of gray.

Happy Birthday: Another March issue will be the Happy Birthday stamp. According to McCaffrey, the design - featuring multicolored block letters on a field of white, surrounded by confetti - has been in the USPS vaults for a decade. Although the Postal Service has issued Greetings stamps in the past, the Happy Birthday issue is expected to be more popular due to its single theme. Categorized as a Special stamp, similar to the Love issues and Holiday Celebrations series, it will be reissued with new denominations following rate changes. Its designer was Harry Zelenko, whose previous work includes the 1988 Special Occasions booklet.

Long Leaf Pine Forest: Fourth in the Nature of America series, this pane of 10 stamps will be issued sometime in April. A first-day location has not yet been chosen, but McCaffrey mentioned that there are many possibilities since the range for this type of forest runs from southeast Virginia into eastern Texas. Although I was not able to identify the specific flora and fauna depicted, illustrator John Dawson has maintained the standard set by his Sonoran Desert, Pacific Coast Rain Forest and Great Plains Prairie panes.

Irving Berlin: A portrait of the composer, combined with an original manuscript of 'God Bless America' and his signature, will grace this vertical commemorative scheduled for a May 11 issue, most likely at Berlin's Music Box theater in Manhattan. Tiny text tipped on its side, reading 'USA 34,' runs at a 90-degree angle along the inside right-hand frame at center. One attendee raised concerns that this text was difficult to read even on the enlarged slide, so it will be interesting to see if the finished stamp features larger print.

John James Audubon: Categorized as the second installment in the new American Treasures series, the John James Audubon pane of 20 will be issued June 27 at the Santa Clara Mega Show in Santa Clara, Calif. The stamp shows the scarlet and red tanager on a background of white. McCaffrey acknowledged that the pane features only one design and has no tie to the previous American Treasures issue (the 2001 Amish Quilts), saying that the USPS 'is not wedded to crafts' but instead wants to feature many different forms of art and provide an attractive mail-use stamp.

Masters of American Photography: A June release in Washington, D.C., coinciding with a major photography exhibition at the Smithsonian Institute, is planned for this pane of 20. It will be the final installment in the Classic Collections series, a decision McCaffrey attributed to the objective of reducing the size of the commemorative program. The horizontal pane features black-and-white photographs by Ansel Adams, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Imogen Cunningham, Walker Evans, Lewis Hine, Gertrude Kasebier, Andre Kertesz, Dorothea Lange, Timothy O'Sullivan, Man Ray, W. Eugene Smith, Albert Sands, Southworth & Josiah Jones Hawes, Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, James Van Der Zee, Carleton Watkins, Edward Weston, Minor White and Garry Winogrand. The selvage header photo, which appears at far left rather than across the top of the pane, is attributed to William Henry Jackson. Several highly influential photographers, such as Edward S. Curtis, are missing from the pane, but McCaffrey noted the pane is supposed to represent a balance of artists, time periods and locale.

Harry Houdini: Scheduled for July 3 in New York City, the release of this vertically formatted stamp will take place in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the Society of American Magicians. Houdini was president of this society from 1917 until his death in 1926. The portrait of the master magician used on the stamp was taken from a 1911 lithograph poster promoting his appearances. McCaffrey confirmed that the issue will also feature scrambled indicia but declined to describe the hidden images. It has not yet been determined whether this issue will be self-adhesive or gummed.

Andy Warhol: On Aug. 6, the famed artist's birthday, a stamp featuring his self-portrait of 1964 will be released at The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pa. This portrait is reportedly based on a photo booth image, and Warhol's actual silkscreen image exists with numerous background colors. To hold down the number of stamps in next year's program, the USPS chose a single version, with a turquoise background, for the stamp. The stamp frame and pane selvage are black, and the pane itself has a horizontal format. The repeating rows of stamps within the pane are somewhat reminiscent of Warhol's signature style.

Teddy Bears: A quartet of Teddy Bear stamps, featuring photographic images of four different bears, will be released on Aug. 15 in Atlantic City, N.J., during Stampshow 2002. The specially commissioned images were taken of bears from different private collections and show a Gund bear (circa 1948), a Bruin bear (1907), an Ideal Bear (1907) and a 'stick' bear (1920s). Full images of all four bear photos appear in the top selvage, while the individual stamps feature a cropped version of one bear each. McCaffrey said this issue is due to the immense popularity of the 32¢ 'Teddy' Bear Created stamp (CM1967k / 3182k) issued in 1998 as part of the 1900s Celebrate the Century pane.

Ogden Nash: Marking the 100th anniversary of his birth, a horizontally formatted Ogden Nash stamp, the 18th installment in the Literary Arts series, will be released on Aug. 19 in the author's hometown of Rye, N.Y. A portrait of Nash appears at center on a white background, with complete text from six of his poems - 'The Turtle,' 'The Cow,' 'Crossing the Border,' 'The Kitten,' 'Limerick One' and 'The Camel' - in the background. McCaffrey said he expects to receive some complaints, as the word 'sex' appears within 'The Turtle.'

Duke Kahanamoku: Known as the 'father of surfing' and the winner of several Olympic gold medals for swimming, Duke Kahanamoku will be the subject of an Aug. 24 stamp, to be issued on his birthday in his hometown of Honolulu, Hawaii. The portrait of Kahanamoku was painted by Michael Deas, well known for his work on the Legends of Hollywood and Literary Arts series. McCaffrey mentioned that this stamp was a last-minute addition to the 2002 commemorative program.

Women in Journalism: On Sept. 12, in conjunction with a journalism conference to be held there, the city of Columbus, Ohio, will host the first-day ceremony for a set of four stamps paying tribute to female writers: war correspondent Marguerite Higgins, investigative journalist Ida M. Tarbell, black press correspondent Ethel Payne and adventure reporter Nellie Bly. The designs, featuring black-and-white photographs of each journalist and images of newspaper mastheads in the background, were done by Fred Otnes, illustrator for the 1996 32¢ Pioneers of Communication quartet (CM1802-05 / 3061-64).

Neuter and Spay: Photographs of a puppy and a kitten grace a pair of Neuter and Spay commemoratives, scheduled for release during the month of September. McCaffrey said the issue is in response to nearly 200,000 letters requesting a stamp on this subject, along with daily telephone calls from members of the Prevent a Litter Coalition. The stamp was originally planned for February, in conjunction with National Spay Day, but concerns about a rate change later in the year pushed the date back. No location has been set, but the USPS hopes to involve Bob Barker, host of 'The Price is Right' game show, who ends each episode with a reminder to spay and neu-ter pets.

American Bats: Kicking off National Stamp Collecting Month on Oct. 1 will be a quartet of commemoratives featuring photographs of the Red Bat, Pallid Bat, Spotted Bat and Leaf-nosed Bat on black backgrounds. The first-day location may be Austin, Texas, where a colony of nearly 1.5 million Mexican Freetail bats comes to roost under the Congress Avenue bridge each summer.

Hawaiian Missionary Stamps of 1851-1853: The centerpiece of the 2002 U.S. commemorative stamp program will be a gummed sheet featuring a quartet of engraved stamps showing images of the Hawaiian Missionary issues of the 1850s. This sheet is scheduled for a November release at the Fall Postage Stamp Mega Event in New York City. A mock-up of the sheet - which features a black-and-white image of Diamondhead at the top, descriptive text and the Dawson cover at center, and images of the 2¢, 5¢, 13¢ Hawaiian and 13¢ Hawaiian and U.S. postage stamps at bottom - appears on page 1.

McCaffrey said making the stamps international-rate values to offset production costs for the sheet was considered, but neither the USPS nor the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee wanted to create confusion on whether mail to Hawaii required foreign postage. One meeting attendee questioned the the sheet's release at the Fall Mega Event, saying that such a prominent issue should have been slated for issue during Stampshow 2002. McCaffrey and Cathy Caggiano, Executive Director of Stamp Services, stated that a Stampshow release was considered first but 'a matter of timing' required a later release.

Snowmen: The 2002 Holiday Contemporary stamps, to be issued in October, feature photographs of four small, hand-crafted snowmen on a background of red. In a follow-up telephone call after the meeting, McCaffrey confirmed that no Holiday Traditional stamp is planned for 2002. The Madonna and Child design from 2001 will be reused, and unless a rate change occurs, new designs will now be released every two years, not every year.

Legends of Hollywood: Although the subject and release date for 2002 has not been announced, McCaffrey did dispel reports that John Wayne's estate is 'not interested' in a stamp. He did not confirm that Wayne will be honored with a Legends of Hollywood stamp in 2002 but also did not deny the possibility.

Greetings from America: In answer to the long-awaited questions of whether the USPS would put out a 50-stamp issue and what format it would take, McCaffrey concluded the meeting by unveiling the Greetings from America pane.

The self-adhesive sheet features 10 rows of five stamps each, appearing in alphabetical order by state name. The basis for the finished designs, he said, are large-letter linen postcards from the 1930s. Featuring state or other location names in large letters across the image side, each letter on the original postcards also contain photographs of the area.

'Our goal was to create bold, colorful, exciting images,' McCaffrey explained. 'We did not go to any governor, senator, state travel bureau or any other source to determine what should be on each stamp.'

Due to the need for image clarity at postage stamp size, illustrations were not placed within the state names. Rather, scenes representative of each state frame the letters, either above and below or in opposite top and bottom corners.

The axis or slant of the text varies from stamp to stamp, with state names alternating from straight horizontal and vertical lines to having a diagonal, curved and circular appearance. The words 'Greetings from' appear on each stamp, along with 'USA 34,' although their positions vary.

McCaffrey's slide show included images of each individual state stamp. Alabama, the first shown, features a scene of the state capitol in the upper left corner and a view of the U.S.S. Alabama at lower right.

Other designs include the Charles W. Morgan whaling ship on the Connecticut stamp (done both in 1971 and 1988); a peach for Georgia; the St. Louis arch for Missouri; Chimney Rock for Nebraska; an Indian pueblo for New Mexico; the Manhattan skyline and Niagara Falls for New York; the Cincinnati skyline for Ohio; and a white barn and cows for Wisconsin.

Interesting visual effects include a transparent sail on the Maryland stamp, through which a portion of the state name is visible. For Mississippi, the letters are visible behind a ship's mast and rigging.

McCaffrey explained that the Greetings from America issue has been a three-year project, with immense amounts of time expended on research and acquiring rights to, or the permission to use, each image.

Although concept art for a few of the designs have been in the USPS vault since 1990, McCaffrey said that artist Lon Busch created completely new designs for all 50 states. Some scenes were based on actual photographs but had colors and other details altered.

No issue date or location has been announced for the Greetings from America pane. McCaffrey and Caggiano both stated that these decisions, along with the quantity to be released, are dependent upon the timing of a rate change.

Caggiano also said the USPS would like to issue the stamps early in the year rather than later, and reissuing them with a new denomination is a definite possibility.