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Added Perspective.

The Stamp Collecting Report, I'm Lloyd de Vries. 

Unless you're a former president, you won't be honored on a U-S stamp until ten years 
after your death. It's not a law, but something adopted by the Citizen Stamp Advisory 
Committee, the panel that screens subjects.

"It's a self-imposed rule by the Committee to avoid being forced to put people on stamps 
that may not necessarily stand the test of time."
RUNS: :09

Chief stamp developer Terry McCaffrey says the ten-year rule came about because of 
pressure from politicians to quickly put someone on a stamp. 

Look through the issues from the 19-50s and 60s, and some of the people honored 
were....forgettable.

But McCaffrey admits it's not always easy to stick to the rule.

"For instance, with Bob Hope, we all know that Bob Hope - and Katharine Hepburn, and 
Gregory Peck - all are certainly deserving of stamps and will probably end up on a stamp 
on their tenth anniversary, or shortly after that."
RUNS: :13

Other countries have their own rules, but in the U-S, it's a decade.

"Once we break that rule, we'll never be able to go back again."
RUNS: :03

And that's Stamp Collecting this week. I'm Lloyd de Vries, CBS News.
 
<I'm Lloyd de Vries of the Virtual Stamp Club for APS StampTalk>

<KNLS/AITM: The stamps honoring ex-presidents are issued on their next birthdays following 
their deaths. In fact, it's believed, although the Postal Service has never confirmed it, 
that there's even a design ready for George W. Bush...just in case.>

<I'm Lloyd de Vries>



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