2015 USPS Issues... News? Thoughts? Opinions?

my advice if you can afford it, is to save the entire roll and see how collectors will mount it in the ablum. If you have the whole roll one can't go wrong.

Well, we will not be getting the engraved stamps we had hope. According to USPS the two Vintage Tulip forever stamps to be issued this year are NOT engraved stamps but rather a drawing from engraved
plates originally created by naturalist artist Maria Sibylla
Merian (1647–1717).

The Forever stamp is a Vintage Rose; the 70c second-ounce rate stamp is the Vintage Tulip.

The timing of the 70c Vintage Tulip Stamp is rather questionable, though, since a rate hike is proposed by the USPS that will potentially render the 70c Vintage Tulip Stamp obsolete in little more than 60 days after its issue.

It seems to me use of a 70c Vintage Tulip Stamp during the correct rate period will become something of a collectible because of the limited postal use it will see, not to mention the glut of 30 million stamps being printed for such a small period of use.

If the new postal rates are approved, I think we can look forward to a 71c Vintage Tulip Stamp reprint, as the USPS will need to have a second-ounce rate stamp to coordinate with the tremendous (150 million) quantity of Vintage Rose Forever Stamps being put on the market.

"Just to complicate things, it states that plate numbers will appear on every 27th stamp, which suggests to me the plate number will always wind up on the third stamp design in the trio, which makes PNC strip collecting a bit of a problem."

Unless there's more than one plate numbered column on the printing cylinder, the plate number always has to fall on the same stamp design. The plate number interval must be a multiple of the number of designs. It's not a given that the plate number will appear on the rightmost of the three designs, although it wouldn't surprise me if it was on either end. If Scott tradition holds, the stamp with the plate number will receive the second of the three Scott numbers to be assigned. But this is the first coil with three designs, and (sort of) a continuous design, so it remains to be seen what the printer and Scott will do. In any event, I don't see a problem for PNC collectors.

That was exactly my point.

As someone suggested earlier, save an entire coil roll (if you can afford it) and wait to see what the album printers decide to do. As a practical matter, I suspect collectors will be able to purchase strips of 25 stamps, as they typically can for high volume coils, and since the stamp value is only 10-cents each, it will cost a reasonable $2.50 to secure a strip for collecting purposes.

Of course, logic would suggest that you'd want to collect the three stamps in "design order" but since the stamps are spaced on backing paper, there's really no "continuous" design, so what the printer and Scott finally decide to do is still to be determined.

Frankly, I can see no purpose whatsoever in the USPS creating three designs out of a Standard Presort issue ... other than to just make it difficult for collectors. In fact, looking at the three stamps spaced apart, suggests that the center stamp is not depicting a US flag at all, since there are no red and white stripes of the flag visible on that stamp alone:

The specs in the Postal Bulletin for both stamps say:

Manufacturing Process: Intaglio, Offset

"Of course, logic would suggest that you'd want to collect the three stamps in "design order" but since the stamps are spaced on backing paper, there's really no "continuous" design, so what the printer and Scott finally decide to do is still to be determined."

To me, there does not appear to be an actual continuous design as you don't have stripes both to the left and the right of the stars. It is like it is parts of 2 flags, one flying to the right, one flying to te left.

"It's not a given that the plate number will appear on the rightmost of the three designs, although it wouldn't surprise me if it was on either end."

They often (usually?) put the plate number under the first subject on the plate/cylinder, but it is hard to say which of those 3 designs will be in that position.

More of the 2015 US Stamp Program announced today:

http://www.linns.com/news/breaking-...pan-in-April

Here are the images of the new stamp announcements:

What is the story behind the design of the Special Olympics stamp? Anyone know?

This was included in the above link to the Linn's Stamp News article and was part of the 02/20/2015 USPS announcement for the Special Olympics issue:

Thanks wt1, for doing my work for me. I am not sure that this improves on the standard logo for Special Olympics. I guess because that was used on the 2003 stamp, they felt obligated to come up with something new.

I understand that the "Gifts of Friendship" issue will be a pane of 12 stamps & be a joint issue with Japan ... and that it will contain 4 designs. Ten of the stamps in a pane will be represented by the two US designs and two of the stamps by two Japanese designs. All of the stamps in a USPS pane will, however, be US stamps. The American designs, as shown by wt1 in his post, are similar to the Cherry Blossom issue of 2012. But has anyone seen the Japanese designs? Are they available yet?

It was mentioned elsewhere that the Japanese designs have not been formally released yet, but could be published as soon as Monday, February 23rd.

There will be new fern coils in March ... this time by SSP instead of CCL ... in 3K & 10K rolls. And there's a new twist to this tale. One size roll will have a 2014 date while the other will have a 2015 date.

Understand that I am a HUGE Asimov fan but to be brutally honest, I rarely link him to sci-fi. Yes, I have read I,Robot, Foundation rilogy, and others. I always think of Asimov as a science FACT writer. His collections like Quasar, Quasar, Burning Bright and Asimov on Math, Asimov on the Bible, An Easy Introduction to the Slide Rule, this is where Asimov really shined. I wish they'd give the stamp to a different author.