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First Half of U.S. 2014 Stamp Program
— and a Few Hints — Revealed
by Lloyd A. de Vries
October 10, 2013
Updates
That's more than last year, when Steve Kearney held her position, but is still only part of the picture for the year. And we were told at the meeting at the American Stamp Dealers Association show in New York City that there is still a blockbuster issue coming out early in 2014 about which we weren't told.
Of the revealed subjects, the headliner is Charlton Heston in the Legends of Hollywood series. The eighteenth stamp in the series is a Drew Struzan painting based on a photograph taken by Heston's wife. The selvage for the issue's pane will feature a scene from the movie "Ben-Hur."
Although Heston appeared in dozens of blockbuster films over six decades, he was also a political activist — present at the March on Washington and later president of the National Rifle Association. I asked if there was any political pressure to move Heston to the head of the list for the Legends of Hollywood series; I was told there was not.
Also of note is next year's Black Heritage subject: Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman elected to Congress. What's also notable is that the series will again be available for Black History Month (February). 2013's Althea GIbson stamp was issued in August, 2011's Barbara Jordan was in September. The Chisholm stamp is a portrait by artist Robert Shetterly.
Black History will also be represented by the Literary Arts denominated stamp for the three-ounce rate, honoring Ralph Ellison, author of Invisible Man. The photograph on which the design is based was taken by famed African-American photograph Gordon Parks, and used on the dust jacket for the first edition of the book.
Another definitive — and also for the two-ounce rate — is for aviator C. Alfred "Chief" Anderson, who trained many black aviators in World War II, including the Tuskegee Airmen. It's part of the Distinguished Americans series.
Flowers figure big in the first half of the 2014 stamp program: A block of four Winter Flowers booklet stamps is due early in the year. The "Floral Wedding" stamps feature line drawings. And flowers are also prominent in the designs for Lunar New Year and songbirds. "Jean Greco designed the stamps using elaborate floral line-drawings to create two elegant and perfectly matched Weddings stamps," says the USPS.
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2014 will be the Year of the Horse, but as with the other six stamps in this series by Kam Mak, the design shows artifacts associated with Lunar New Year celebrations, as well as peonies, traditional symbols of prosperity. In this case, it's Chinese drums used by revelers to welcome the new year.The first day ceremony is likely to be in San Francisco — again.Winter Flowers will be a block of four with dark blue backgrounds in booklet format. Says the USPS, "Each of four stamps depicts a close-up view of one plant — Christmas cactus, amaryllis, cyclamen, or paperwhite — with detailed and colorful renderings of its blossom and foliage.
"The stamps feature digital paintings in PhotoShop. Using a cordless pen or stylus, [artist William Low] 'painted' his brushstrokes on a pressure sensitive screen, adding dabs of color and weaving layers of texture into the paintings." He used actual potted plants as his models. He also designed the 2013 Poinsettia stamp.
Although not flower stamps per se, flowers figure prominently in the designs for the ten Songbirds stamps. Each bird is shown perching on a fence post or branch embellished with vines, pinecones, leaves, or flowers. The ten species are:
- the western meadowlark
- the mountain bluebird
- the western tanager
- the painted bunting
- the Baltimore oriole
- the evening grosbeak
- the scarlet tanager
- the rose-breasted grosbeak
- the American goldfinch
- the white-throated sparrow
There will be another souvenir sheet in the Civil War series, this one commemorating the 1864 battles of Petersburg and Mobile Bay. The two stamps will be issued on the anniversary of the Petersburg battle, possibly June 15-18, in Petersburg, Va., but McGowan wouldn't rule out a same-day first day ceremony in Mobile, Alabama. The reverse of the sheet shows a cannon crew.
We weren't shown the design for the Wqr of 1812 stamp, but the subject will be the Battle of Fort McHenry. It includes soldiers manning a cannon, the "Star-Spangled Banner" in the background, colored by "the rockets' red glare. A portrait of the fort's commander by Rembrandt Peale is on the back.
"Star-Spangled Banner" will also be commemorated by a mail-use stamp early in the year when the Postal Service expects to have new rates. This definitive-size Forever design is based on a photograph by Gary Clark of a replica of the flag flying over Fort McHenry with fireworks bursts int he background. Clark says getting the photograph with the flag unfurled and the firworks in the bakcground was a challenge, because here was a stiff wind that night.
There will be a new Love stamp, a heart in the center of art deco-like swirls. We were told it's a cut-paper heart, although I don't see how you would be able to tell.
Two more stamps featuring the Medal of Honor — this time for the Korean War — will be issued, likely around Medal of Honor Day (March 25th).
Details for the Pioneers of Graphic Design sheet of 12 stamps are still not set, since there are rights issues. The sheet will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the American Institute of Graphic Arts, and the first day ceremony will be tied into an AIGA event, probably in New York City in April. April. One of the designers whose work was shown was Bradbury Thompson, a major stamp designer of the mid-20th century (although, surprisingly, Wikipedia doesn't mention that). The consensus among the reporters present was that Thompson should be a lock for whatever the final choices are.
You can count on a Nevada Statehood commemorative, but the design wasn't available to show us. The Silver State was admitted to the Union on October 31, 1864.
There will be two different sets of coil stamps intended for volume mailers, issued in rolls of 3,000 and 10,000 stamps. One has four similar designs of stylized flags, the other features ferns.
A second-ounce denominated definitive in February will feature Abraham Lincoln, based on a black-and-white photo of the head of the Daniel Chester French statue in the Lincoln Memorial. The format is still not determined. McGowan thinks this stamp will be produced even if the second-ounce rate does not change (as has happened in the last two rate cases), because stocks of the 20-cent George Washington stamp are running low.
The Priority Mail design is a digital image of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York City. Artist Dan Cosgrove created the picture looking up at the bridge, at the time right before sunset, which he called the most interesting time: still fully lit but with the great colors of sunset. This will be issued in the spring.
So will a Priority Express stamp featuring the USS Airzona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, which is in the shape of a bridge (thus continuing, however tenuously, the recent theme of this series). Dan Cosgrove was also the artist for this.
The round Global Forever stamp will be issued in sheets of 10 rather than this year's 20, because customers commented that a pane of 20 was too expensive. It looked to me like a thermal image of North America, with a little of South America. We'll probably see it in the third quarter of 2014.
The greetings cards butterfly stamp ("surcharged") will show the Great Spangled Fritillary.
No subjects were announced for the Music Icons series, but we were told there will be at least two.
Someone asked about the Ingrid Bergman and Science Fiction Writers stamps that were supposed to be issued in 2013 and then pushed off to 2014. "There's a whole other half you haven't seen yet," was the answer, with a smile.
Are there any cars in the program, as Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe indicated in an interview with Jay Bigalke of Linn's Stamp News? "There could be one this year," we were told.
When will we hear the rest of the program? Possible at next spring's ASDA stamp show in New York City, or possibly via a telephone/Internet conference. And, of course, there are still those "blockbusters" waiting to be announced.
Updates:
We too have now confirmed there will be stamp next year for gay rights activist and icon Harvey Milk. Linn's Stamp News says May or June. There is a Harvey Milk Day each May 22nd (in 2014, it's a Thursday), but USPS spokesman Mark Saunders doesn't know if the stamp is tied to that date. This will be a stand-alone issue, not part of a group of four or five subjects.The latest news about the U.S. 2014 issues is here.