2013 USPS Issues... News? Thoughts? Opinions?

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how is anyone supposed to know they have anything to do with Florida???

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The U.S. Postal Service commemorates the 500th anniversary of the naming of Florida with the release of stamps that celebrate the state's floral abundance. During the Easter season of 1513, Spanish explorers first visited the state we now know as Florida. They named the land "La Florida" for Pascua Florida ("Feast of the Flowers"), Spain's Easter celebration, and for the verdant display of vegetation that they could see from their ship.

The four se tenant stamps contain a cascade of blossoms that evokes the feeling of a tropical garden. Each stamp shows a particular variety of flower: red and pink hibiscus; yellow cannas; morning glories in white, red, and shades of purple; and white and purple passionflowers. The stamp pane includes on the selvage an imagined scene of explorers traveling in a small boat along a river or channel surrounded by tropical foliage.

Flowers are a perennial favorite with collectors and the stamp-buying public, and La Florida's exquisite blossoms will be an elegant addition to the U.S. Postal Service's tradition of producing appealing and beautiful floral stamp art.

Art director Ethel Kessler designed the stamp, with floral art by Steve Buchanan. La Florida stamps are being issued as Forever® stamps. Forever stamps are always equal in value to the current First-Class Mail one-ounce rate.

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But then again, I suppose the USPS is not catering to stamp collectors with this issue but to the general public, since flower stamps are always quite popular.

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The War of 1812, sometimes called "the forgotten conflict," was a two-and-a-half-year confrontation with Great Britain that brought the United States to the verge of bankruptcy and disunion. With this 2013 issuance, the U.S. Postal Service continues its commemoration of the bicentennial of a war that ultimately helped forge our national identity and gave us our national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner."

The stamp's subject for the second year of the war is the Battle of Lake Erie, which took place on September 10, 1813. For the stamp design, the Postal Service selected William Henry Powell's famous painting, Battle of Lake Erie. The oil-on-canvas painting, completed in 1873, was commissioned by the U.S. Congress and placed at the head of the east stairway in the Senate wing of the Capitol. It depicts Oliver Hazard Perry in the small boat he used to transfer from his ruined flagship, the Lawrence, to the Niagara.

To evoke the times, the color and texture of a contemporary map of the war is used for the stamp sheet's background. A 19th-century engraving of Perry by William G. Jackman (after John Wesley Jarvis) appears in the margin of the verso text.

After boarding and taking command of the Niagara, Perry attacked and demolished the British ships Detroit and Queen Charlotte. He then penned one of the most memorable phrases of the war in a report to General William Henry Harrison: "We have met the enemy and they are ours."

Perry's triumph gave the U.S. control of Lake Erie and allowed the army to recover ground lost early in the war. The British and their Indian allies abandoned their outposts on the Detroit frontier and retreated up the Thames River deeper into Upper Canada. General Harrison pursued them and won the Battle of the Thames on October 5, 1813, less than a month after Perry's remarkable victory.

Art director Greg Breeding designed the stamp.

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I can imagine it'll only be available in a sheet of 20 again