Breaking News: US Stamp With Love Ribbon Available Now!

This stamp was scheduled for issue on February 14, 2012, but according to USPS Facebook this afternoon, the stamp is being released early and will be available at local post offices over the next week or may be ordered by phoning 1-800-STAMP-24:



It sounds like the USPS was getting a lot of negative feedback for not releasing a stamp like this in advance of Valentine's Day.

Since the above post suggests that there is still a February 14th "ceremony" scheduled, I wonder if this means that we will see a First Day of Issue Postmark on February 14, 2012, but that stamps will be postmarked earlier than that when used for regular first class mail?

An interesting development, but very frustrating that the USPS can't make a major decision like this earlier in order to give collectors ample time to react.

The "official" USPS news release is at this link:

http://about.usps.com/news/national...pr12_022.pdf

I'll have to check tomorrow to see if my post office already has them. Sometimes he gets things in a week or two in advance and shows them to me. If get some, I'll start using them Saturday.

So they finally figured it out ....

If you want people to mail their Valentines using a new stamp, you MUST release the new stamp BEFORE February 14

KirkS

I was able to get two sheets of the new Love stamp today so they are showing up at some post offices.

They don't give a hoot about us collectors in that regard they only want us to buy their stamps and they know that they will sell more for the holiday it reflects.

I picked up a sheet of the Love Ribbons stamps today and was just wondering about the imprint of the characters in "Forever" and "2012". This is a direct scan of one stamp from the sheet. It looks as if "Forever" and "2012" are very blurred -- almost looks like it was overinked -- is this typical of all of the stamps or is mine somewhat of a "freak" (color misregistration?):



It certainly looks much different than the high resolution image posted on the USPS web site.

Comments?

[edit] I blew up the questionable lettering at 1200 dpi resolution and it does look as if it could be a color misregistration. I don't know exactly how difficult it was to have a color misregistration when only two colors are present, but it looks as though it happened:

Mine looks the same as yours as far as I can tell.

Thanks for the confirmation. It sure doesn't look as sharp as the image the USPS posts for this stamp, though:

I found it interesting that the USPS News Release about the Love Stamp, has termed the stamp "dedicated" today (February 14, 2012):

http://about.usps.com/news/national...pr12_027.pdf

Since the stamp was released early on February 2, 2012, but "officially" today, I suspect the USPS was looking for a term that would accommodate the unusual events surrounding the release of this issue.

I think this is the first time I've ever heard of the US Postal Servicde having "dedicated" a stamp, so it may be a "first" of sorts.

Here is one I received today, dated Feb 13th, and canceled with a spray cancel of an ekg readout. Love your heart!

That spray on cancel would look great with the "Heart Health" stamp, too!

(I still wish we could get decent legible dates on those spray on cancels, though.)