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For broadcast on CBS Radio Network stations, May 1-2, 2004:

Exploring Lewis and Clark

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

If there's a major event on U-S stamps this year, it's not Disney, it's not the World War 
Two Memorial, <or the various artists and intellectuals being featured,> it's the 
bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Exhibition. The explorers mapped and documented the 
interior of the newly-expanded United States, <leading to further and faster westward 
growth.>

To mark the anniversary, the Postal Service is issuing three stamps next month: One of 
Meriwether Lewis, one of William Clark, and another of the two explorers overlooking the 
plains.

The two portrait stamps are in what's called a "prestige booklet," with not just the 
stamps but also extra pages of text and full-color pictures. It's something other countries 
have been doing and collectors have been asking for.

But, unlike the two previous U-S prestige booklets, these will cost a dollar-fifty more 
than the price of the stamps...and that has some collectors up in arms. They say it's a 
tax on collectors....and it will keep non-collectors from using the stamps on their mail.

And that's Stamp Collecting this week. 

I'm Lloyd de Vries, CBS News. 

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