Greetings from America

I collected first day covers on cachet envelopes when I was a kid and I remember especially liking the 50 states pane. This morning I went by the post office and noticed that the USPS is issuing the first 50-stamp pane in 10 years, the Greetings From America series.

The stamps are in the large letter postcard style from the 1940s and each will have state-specific information on the back of the pane such as capital and date of incorporation. Massachussetts has Motif #1, Missouri features the Gateway Arch and Montana has a bucking bronco that caused Wyoming to grumble a bit. New York displays Niagara Falls instead of 2 smoking towers and Utah just has sandstone instead of a mormon temple or a guy with 5 wives. I miss the wacky postcards with a sense of humour here. :)

You can purchase everything from mugs to mouse pads with each of the state designs on them from the postal service and enter the sweepstakes to win a dream vacation in the US. The USPS is also allowing 60 days instead of the usual 30 for first day cover requests so if you want to be sure to get yours you can pre-order the stamps by calling 1.800.782.6724 as the web site isn't being completely honest about the 'pre-order' option.

The postal service has one heck of a bad year so I'm happy to see them issue such a fine set of stamps that has rekindled my interest in philately.

26 Mar 2002 at 16:41, Helsinki