The U.S. Postal Service typically issues a stamp for former presidents on their first birthday after their death. That would put a stamp for the 39th President on or about October 1. It has not yet been confirmed by the USPS.
[press release] [click on any of the pictures for larger versions]
Canada Post to restart operations on December 17 and welcome back employees
Postal service is focused on stabilizing operations to return reliable service to Canadians and businesses
OTTAWA, ON, Dec. 16, 2024 /CNW/ – Canada Post will restart operations tomorrow and begin the process of safely ramping up and stabilizing operations across the country. With 
a large, integrated network of processing plants, depots and post offices, stabilizing operations will take time and the company asks Canadians for their patience.
Canada Post will continue to keep Canadians updated with information posted on canadapost.ca.
Parcels, Lettermail and Direct Marketing mail
Post office hours of operation may vary as the company works to stabilize operations.International mail and parcels
Announced by the USPS on December 16, 2024:
Marking the 250th anniversary of the start of the Revolutionary War, this pane of 15 stamps invites us to witness and remember five turning points in the fight for American independence. Watercolor paintings depicting scenes of five battles appear alongside photographs of sites involved in each battle. Derry Noyes, an art director for USPS, designed the stamps with art by Greg Harlin and photographs by Jon Bilous, Richard Lewis, Tom Morris, Gregory J. Parker and Kevin Stewart.
Additional information will be posted below the line, with the most recent informaton at the top.
Full name of the issue: “Powwows: Celebrating Native American Culture.” Announced by the USPS on December 16, 2024:
The Postal Service strives to tell the stories of all Americans on its stamps, and issuing stamps that honor the living culture and heritage of Indigenous people is an important part of that goal. These stamps celebrate powwows, Native American social and ceremonial gatherings that feature music, dance and festive regalia. For this issuance, Cochiti Pueblo artist Mateo Romero created original paintings of four powwow dancers performing their craft against brightly colored backgrounds that highlight each dancer’s movement and traditional dress. Antonio Alcalá, an art director for USPS, designed the stamps.
Additional information will be posted below the line, with the most recent informaton at the top.
Announced by the USPS on December 16, 2024:
Recreational fishing attracts more than 55 million anglers to America’s lakes, rivers, and oceans each year — and lure designs for different environments are part of its growing appeal. These stamps feature brightly detailed photographs by Sarah Cramer Shields showing five lures considered icons of the sport. Greg Breeding, an art director for USPS, designed the stamps.
In addition, the USPS says these stamps will be issued March 13, 2025, in Springfield, MO.
Additional information will appear below the line, with the newest information at the top.
The Washington Post reports that President-elect Trump has been talking to advisors about privatizing the U.S. Postal Service. The newspaper says people with knowledge of 
the subject have said that Trump feels the government should not subsidize the mail carrier, especially in light of its financial losses.
“There’s a lot of [other] carrier services that became legal in the ’70s that are doing things so much better with increased volumes and reduced costs,” Casey Mulligan, who served as a top economist in the first Trump administration, told the Post.
The paper points out that Trump “feuded with the nation’s mail carrier as president in 2019, trying to force it to hand over key functions — including rate-setting, personnel decisions, labor relations and managing relationships with its largest clients — to the Treasury Department.” He also opposed voting by mail.
The USPS says it processed more than 99 million ballots last month, “In 2024, the Postal Service once again admirably performed our role of efficiently and effectively delivering the 
nation’s ballots,” said Postmaster General Louis DeJoy in a press release.
The Post warns that changes to the USPS could have a major impact on the e-commerce industry. Cuts in its service could also have a backlash from voters (and members of Congress) in rural areas that are only served by the USPS, which pledges six-day-a-week delivery to every address in the U.S.
How would privatization affect stamp collectors? Would we see more issues for toys like Hot Wheels (2018) and movie releases like “Lightyear” (2022)?
Note: You may need a subscription to read the entire Washington Post article.
[press release]
AFDCS Honors Tom Mueller with Holiday Cachet
The American First Day Cover Society in 2024 is honoring cachet artist Tom Mueller as its Court of Honor cachetmaker. The Santa Claus cachet is taken from a 1991 cover for the Holiday Celebrations issue with Santa in a chimney (Sc. 2579).
AFDCS Court of Honor No. 44 (an example of which is shown on the right) was serviced with singles of all the U.S. holiday issues, including Kwanzaa and Hanukkah, and with all of this year’s holiday first-day postmarks. They are available for sale in the Marketplace section of the AFDCS website, www.afdcs.net/AFDCS-Marketplace
Mueller, a self-taught Midwestern artist, began producing his hand-painted “Silverwing” cachets in 1990 (Dwight Eisenhower, Sc. 2513), and continued designing for new issues until 2006, concentrating then on add-on cachets. Most are one of a kind. His 1991 
cachet for the Basketball stamp (Sc. 2560) won the top award in the AFDCS Cachet Contest and his work was featured in a gold-medal exhibit by Anthony Dewey shown at St. Louis Stamp Expo this past March. Nearly three dozen of his family members attended the show to celebrate his philatelic career. (photo left. Dewey is second from the left in the back row)
An article on Mueller by Patrick Morgan (on the left in the blue polo shirt) appeared in the November-December 2021 issue of First Days, the official journal of the AFDCS.
The Court of Honor series commemorates cachet artists who have, over the years, contributed so much to the hobby through the beauty of their art. It began in 1981 and the
The original 1991 FDC
first artist honored was Ralph Dyer. There has been a new Court of Honor FDC every year since then. Stamps with Christmas themes are used because the U.S. issues new ones every year. A different artist is selected each year.
Many of the earlier years’ covers are also available.
The AFDCS is the largest not-for-profit first day cover society in the world, with members in more than a dozen countries. In addition to publishing First Days and handbooks, catalogues and You-Tube videos, the society is a co-sponsor of the annual Great American Stamp Show. It holds an annual cachetmaking contest and two mail auctions a year, and encourages philatelic exhibiting and writing about FDCs.
For more information about the AFDCS, visit www.afdcs.org, e-mail afdcs@afdcs.org or write the AFDCS at Post Office Box 57, Somerset, WI 54025-0057
Only 14 issues have been announced, many of them “mail-use” or “definitive” stamps. Undoubtedly, more issues will be announced.
What do you think will be in the program? What do you think should be in the program for 
2025?
We’ll start: 2025 will be the 250th anniversary (“semiquincentennial” if you want to be fancy) of the Battle of Lexington & Concord, of the Second Continental Congress, and other American Revolution milestones. It will also be the centennial of a Great American Novel, The Great Gatsby. The radio program Grand Ole Opry went on the air in 1925, too.
American entertainers born that year include Gwen Verdon, Paul Newman, Elaine Stritch, Jack Lemmon, Kim Stanley, Hal Holbrook, George Kennedy, Rod Steiger, Tony Curtis, Maureen Stepleton, June Lockhart, Merv Griffin, Donald O’Connor, Mel Torme, B.B. King, Lenny Bruce, Angela Lansbury, Johnny Carson, Rock Hudson, Jonathan Winters, and Sammy Davis Jr. (Me, I’d put my money on Davis and — if they can figure out which wife has the rights — Carson.) Dick Van Dyke will turn 100 in 2025 but he’s still with us.
Remember that the U.S. Postal Service doesn’t like to commemorate disasters and other unpleasantness, so a stamp for the massive 1925 Ku Klux Klan rally in Washington is unlikely.
We used Wikipedia’s pages for 1925 and there are similar pages for toher years. The oft-ignored guidelines say anniversary increments of 50 years, not 25 or 75, and no corporations or organizations, which could seem to eliminate the Chrysler Corporation.
So what do you think?
5948 (73¢) Winter Whimsy – Snowflake with dark blue background
5949 (73¢) Winter Whimsy – Snowflake with aquamarine background
5950 (73¢) Winter Whimsy – Snowflake with pale gray background
5951 (73¢) Winter Whimsy – Snowflake with dark green background
a. Block of 4, #5948-5951
b. Convertible booklet pane of 20, 5 each #5948-5951
As predicted by VSC, the USPS announced a new Priority Mail stamp on December 16th:
USPS celebrates the continued exploration of deep space with an extremely high-definition image of a spiral galaxy 32 million light-years from Earth. The image, captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, helps researchers update their models of star formation and allows them to better understand the origins of our universe. Greg Breeding, an art director for USPS, designed the stamp with an image from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the European Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency, the Space Telescope Science Institute, Janice Lee (Space Telescope Science Institute), Thomas Williams (Oxford) and the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS Team. Upon favorable review by the Postal Regulatory Commission, the stamp will be denominated at the new Priority Mail Flat Rate Envelope rate.
The stamp will be issued January 21 in Big Sky, Montana, with a “local ceremony.” Additional information will be posted below the line, with the most recent information at the top.
