WASHINGTON —The Postal Service is providing a preview of its 2016 stamp program that is sure to attract the interest of fans of Sarah Vaughan, Star Trek, NASA’s New Horizons mission, Trucks, Shirley Temple, flowers, soda fountain fans and the holidays — just to name a small handful.
“Our stamps articulate the American experience through miniature works of art,” said Acting Stamp Services Director Mary-Anne Penner. “Our diverse stamp topics for 2016 are sure to appeal to everyone, and with the New Year just around the corner, now is a perfect time to get started in stamp collecting. It’s an educational hobby the entire family can enjoy.”
The Postal Service is also previewing a number of new holiday stamps. A new holiday contemporary stamp is in development and will be previewed at a later date.
Star Trek
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the television premiere, the new Star Trek Forever stamps showcase four digital illustrations inspired by classic elements of the television program:
- the Starship Enterprise inside the outline of a Starfleet insignia against a gold background;
- the silhouette of a crewman in a transporter against a red background;
- the silhouette of the Enterprise from above against a green background; and,
- the Enterprise inside the outline of the Vulcan salute (Spock’s iconic hand gesture) against a blue background
The words “SPACE… THE FINAL FRONTIER,” from Captain Kirk’s famous voice-over appear beneath the stamps against a background of stars. The stamps were designed by Heads of State under the art direction of Antonio Alcalá.
Music Icon: Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Vaughan was one of America’s greatest singers, successful in both jazz and pop, with a talent for improvisation and skillful phrasing and a voice that ranged over several octaves.
The stamp art is an oil painting of Vaughan in performance based on a 1955 photograph by Hugh Bell. A few lines of selvage text explain her importance as a Music Icon. The cover side of the pane features a larger version of the stamp art, a list of some of Vaughan’s popular songs, and the Music Icons logo. Bart Forbes was the artist and Ethel Kessler was the art director. The 11 a.m. First-Day-of-Issue dedication ceremony will take place March 29 in Newark, NJ, at the Sarah Vaughan Concert Hall.
Legends of Hollywood: Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple becomes the 20th inductee into the Postal Service’s Legends of Hollywood series. As a child she was the most honored film star in the world. As an adult, Shirley Temple Black had a distinguished career in diplomacy, serving as delegate to the United Nations, U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia and U.S. Chief of Protocol. She received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1998 and a lifetime achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild in 2006.
The stamp art for this Forever stamp features a painting by Tim O’Brien based on a 1935 still image from Curly Top, one of her iconic rolls in movies. The selvage, or area outside of the stamps, features a publicity photo from the 1933 short film “Managed Money.” Ethel Kessler of Bethesda, MD, was the art director for the stamp.
Pickup Trucks
Celebrating the rugged and reliable work vehicles that Americans have driven for nearly a century, each of these four new Forever stamps features on of the following iconic models.
- The strong, sturdy, 1938 International Harvester D-2 had a distinct barrel-shaped grille and its elegant styling mirrored the look of luxury automobiles of the era.
- The 1953 Chevrolet featured large windshields and provided drivers with excellent visibility, a distinctive curvy grille that bulged in the middle and a six-cylinder engine.
- The 1948 Ford F-1 included features like the roomy “Million Dollar Cab,” a sharp horizontal five-bar grille and a six cylinder engine.
- The 1965 Ford F-100 had a new grille that featured 18 small rectangular openings. It also featured what Ford dubbed “Twin-I-Beam” independent front suspension.
Illustrator Chris Lyons created the artwork under the direction of Antonio Alcalá.
Pluto—Explored!
In 2006, NASA placed a 29-cent 1991 Pluto: Not Yet Explored stamp in the New Horizons spacecraft. In 2015 the spacecraft carried the stamp on its history-making mission to Pluto and beyond.
“The New Horizons project is proud to have such an important honor from the U.S. Postal Service,” said Alan Stern, New Horizons lead scientist from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, CO. “Since the early 1990s the old, ‘Pluto Not Yet Explored’ stamp served as a rallying cry for many who wanted to mount this historic mission of space exploration. Now that NASA’s New Horizons has accomplished that goal, it’s a wonderful feeling to see these new stamps join others commemorating first explorations of the planets.”
The souvenir sheet of four stamps contains two new stamps appearing twice. The first stamp shows an artists’ rendering of the New Horizons spacecraft and the second shows the spacecraft’s image of Pluto taken near its closest approach.
The view — which is color enhanced to highlight surface texture and composition — is a composite of four images from New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), combined with color data from the imaging instrument Ralph that clearly reveals the now-famous heart-shaped feature. Antonio Alcalá was the art director. The stamps will be dedicated between May 28 and June 4 at the World Stamp Show – NYC 2016 at the Jacob Javits Center.
Soda Fountain Favorites
The booklet of 20 stamps features five different illustrations: a double-spoon ice cream cone, an egg crème, a banana split, a root beer float and a hot fudge sundae.
The geometric silver-toned patterns in the selvage and on the booklet evoke a classic chrome-accented soda fountain. Illustrator Nancy Stahl of New York City worked under the art direction of Ethel Kessler of Bethesda, MD to create the stamps.
Pets
To celebrate America’s love for pets, the Postal Service will issue a booklet of 20 Forever stamps featuring photographs of 20 pets. Each photograph represents an animal we love from these groups: puppies, betta fish, iguanas, hamsters, goldfish, parrots, guinea pigs, tortoises, rabbits, kittens, corn snakes, mice, hermit crabs, chinchillas, gerbils, dogs, parakeets, horses, cats, and geckos. The photographs were taken by Eric Isselée and Derry Noyes was the art director.
Botanical Art
This issuance continues the Postal Service tradition of beautiful floral-themed stamps. The stamp art features 10 different floral designs, each a detail of an illustration that appeared in an American nursery catalog between 1891 and 1912. The design details are courtesy of The New York Botanical Garden; the catalogs are part of the NYBG’s Nursery and Seed Catalog Collection, one of the largest and most important collections in the U.S. The Jan. 29, 11 a.m. ET First-Day-of-Issue ceremony will take place in Atlanta at the American Philatelic Society’s AmeriStamp Expo at the Hilton Downtown Atlanta.
For more information about the Postal Service and a complete list of 2016 stamp issues go here.
