American Scientists Stamps Issued 06/16/2011

Anyone have a chance to pickup these stamps at a post office? Today is the first day of issue.

An interesting piece of trivia: These stamps are being issued in a quantity of 30 million; all other US Forever Stamps from 2011 have been issued in quantities of 100 million or more, so the printing for this issue is less that one-third of the others for this year. Scarce? Probably never will be even with that quantity, but I suspect the USPS is carefully monitoring the printing costs for new issues.

Also, these stamps have plate blocks in the lower left and lower right positions only with an "S" followed by eight digits (as in S11111111).



Each of the stamps has a mini biography printed on the reverse backing sheet:

Yep, got mine yesterday. Are you aware that there is also a 64 cent stamp with a dolphin on it. The postmaster showed it to me, but I only took enough cash for the scientists sheetlet.

I asked what the 64 center was for. It is for a first class letter over an ounce up to 2 ounces. In other words, 44 cents fofor the first ounce and 20 cents for the second.

I haven't paid attention to new U.S. issues as I stopped acquiring them in the mid-1980s.

Could these be the beginning of a new "Famous Americans" series?

I doubt it, as the commemorative format is not typical. Usually, a "Famous Americans" series would be a regular issue format; not a commemorative.

Interestingly, I looked up the biographies of the four Scientists depicted and while they have no doubt made important and significant contributions to their field, the names are rather obscure to most Americans not familiar with the sciences; two were born outside the US but later became citizens; and all but Asa Gray were awarded Nobel Prizes.

As I said in my initial post, the printing of 30 million stamps is less than 1/3rd the printing of other "Forever" stamps and that, too, would be indication that they are not intended to be an on-going series of stamps.

Earlier stamps in the same format have been issued for American scientists.

The latest issue of Beyond the Perf has a slideshow for all of the American Scientists issues since 2005 (the 2011 issue was the third in the series) so apparently it seems as though they will be an on-going series, but are apparently scheduled every three years (2005, 2008 and 2011, thus far):

http://www.beyondtheperf.com/conten...es-slideshow

I must say that even with the theme, the USPS has not kept with a consistent apperance of the stamps, which is what led to my confusion as to whether the 2011 was intended to be part of this series or not. (For example, the 2005 issue has white borders, the 2008 issue does not, etc.).