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

Other than the word "Stamp", how would anyone know it is supposed to be promoting a once every 10 years major stamp show???

As an American, a New Yorker and a collector, I actually find this issue insulting. It says nothing about the country, the city or the event. It's as if they are having a hard laugh over there on the stamp committee, having decided that no matter what they put in the design, collectors will buy it. It looks like a total amateur designed what he thought looked like a stamp.

I'm surprised that the selvage doesn't say From Me To You.

What's worse, as a 49ers fan, that blue star keeps reminding me of the Cowboys, and as the son of a Cold Warrior, the red star keeps reminding me of the Soviets.

What an utter disaster. They are playing us for fools.

I was expecting something more impressive. In spite of that I will probably buy it.

I can't believe the friendship without die cut sold out in preorder and no full press sheet hit ebay yet... I called today not knowing it sold out in pre order... :(

Rumor has it that due to the popularity of the issue, someone or some company decided to corner the market and buy as many Press Sheets as they could. A risky proposition at best, but someone with the financial resources to do it is speculating that they will have a desirable item to sell on the secondary market at a profit.

Seeing that it was a Joint Issue with Japan, the relatively inexpensive press sheet format, the small print run of press sheets without die cuts (1500), and the multiple designs contained within the Press Sheet are all factors, too.

Similarly, the Civil War (1865) Press Sheets without die cuts were also sold out in preorder.

Both of these announcements were published in a recent Linn's Stamp News article:

http://www.linns.com/news/us-stamps...-out-quickly

iamwayne: I actually anticipated that both the Civil War & the Gifts of Friendship press sheets without die-cuts would sell out. So I preordered them on March 10, well before the time they did sell out. I actually received an e-mail to the effect that my order had been receieved. But apparently there was a computer glitch & my order did not get properly transferred to where it needed to go. When I called yesterday to see why my order had not shipped (yes, I could still see the order on the usps web site), the folk who fill the orders could not find any record of it on their end. C'est la vie!

Here's an interesting marketing strategy where someone (with 5 Gifts of Friendship Without Die Cuts (Imperf) Press Sheets to sell) is asking $229 for what has a face value of only $35.28, potentially a 550% profit for the seller!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Gifts-of-Fr...em20fa873ca8

It will be interesting to see if they get any takers ... and at what price.

But they are providing free shipping. So that makes it worth it!

More on the NY2016 World Stamp Show issue:

http://www.linns.com/news/breaking-...d-Stamp-Show

Particularly note the following:




They are also confirming another issue for the show at a later date -- possibly using intaglio printing:

Should of had the show in Texas The Lone Star State. Texas underneath the star instead of New York... Could of made a killing on these stamps...

The 10K fern issue, that was issued on March 27 of this year is now available in "shorter" length. Order number 777315 will get you a strip of 500 unfolded coil stamps.

Peter

Interesting. When I called SFS a couple of weeks ago & asked if unfolded strips of ferns were available, I was told NO, that they were only available in full rolls. Of course, 500 is still more than I would have wanted.

This only happened in the past two days. It has been verified by PNC3.
And yes, 500 is kind of ridiculous. They must have too many of them?

Peter

Finally adding my own 2-cents in my own thread!

Regarding those World Stamp Show stamps... "The United States Postal Service has unveiled its first salute to next year's major, once-in-a-decade stamp show taking place in New York.

A sheet of 20 self-adhesive forever stamps was first shown to the public on April 17... The single design is rendered alternately in red and blue through the sheet. The stamps will be printed by offset."

In a perfect world, we would at least get intaglio stamps. Design is El Stinkola in my highly biased opinion...

BUT, I digress. I dropped by to say that I am impressed with the 2 "Tulip" issues. I had no idea they would be intaglios, and for that I am thankful to the USPS. PLEASE DO MORE!\

(again, highly biased...)

When I saw the pics of the World Stamp Show stamps on Linn's cover I nearly laughed out loud. For gosh sake- this is the best USPS can do for a once in a decade event? My first impression is that they look like something the USSR would have produced about 1940. Holy cow!