Any Speculation On 2018 Issues?

Any chance there's going to be a stamp commemorating the bicentennial of the birth of Karl Marx?

Is Israel Putnam famous enough? It's the tricentennial of his birth. Does the USPS still recognize sesquicentennials? Scott Joplin and WEB DuBois were both born in 1868.They were recently honored, though, with Black Heritage issues, if my memory serves me correctly.

Here are my issues for 2018: Chinese New Year, MLK,Jr., Winter Olympics, Rush-Bagot Treaty 1818, four-stamp set of the bicentennial of Frederick Douglass's birth, Illinois statehood, sesquicentennial of the 14th Amendment, inauguration of U.S. Air Mail Service centennial, Nelson Mandela, Center for Disease Control stamp to commemorate the centennial of the flu epidemic 1918-1920, Bobby Kennedy, 4 stamp set of U.S participation in WWI OR Armistice Day stamp or both, and holiday stamps. What do you think?

Rush-Bagot Treaty of 1818 is not well enough known to likely appear on a stamp next year. I wonder how well a stamp of Bobby Kennedy is likely to fare post "Harveygate?" And I don't get the guess about a stamp for Nelson Mandela; he's not a notable American (foreigners on US stamps are extremely rare).

Though he's been on a couple of stamps, MLK Jr. is possible, though again backlash from "Harveygate" might make the CSAC think twice about proposing a stamp commemorating the 50th anniversary of his assassination.

And why a four stamp set for Douglass? He's been on two stamps already, one as recent as 1995; and while his date of birth is reckoned to be "about 1818" the first stamp for him was issued in 1967, not 1968.

I'd give more weight to a single stamp for Armistice day than for a set of stamps commemorating all of WWI.

In starting the thread I noted that I proposed a stamp commemorating the start of the US Airmail to the CSAC (I received confirmation that it was under consideration in February 2015).

Basil

Center for Disease Control stamp to commemorate the centennial of the flu epidemic 1918-1920

Yes - this should be a special scratch and sniff stamp

Not that rare to have foreigners on U.S. stamps. Dante, many Renaissance painters, Alexander Graham Bell, Gandhi, Ramon Magsaysay, Dag Hammarsjkold, Sun Yat-Sen, Christopher Columbus ad nauseum, Churchill, to name a very few off the top of my head. If Ramon Magsaysay can have a stamp, Nelson Mandela can have one.

150 years since the death of Thad Stevens - has either he or Charles Sumner been on a US stamp? You could have a se tenant of Martin Luther King with Bobby Kennedy authorising the wiretapping of his phone, I suppose.

WWI series hopefully will include stamps for the Doughboys, "Over There," Wilson's Fourteen Points, Women in the Armed Forces and US involvement in the Hundred Days Offensive under Pershing.

For Women, one great choice would be Opha May Johnson, the first Female US Marine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opha_May_Johnson

One stamp not issued in 2017 that was a major miss I think was the Centenary of US purchase of the Danish Virgin Islands, to become the US Virgin Islands. Probably too late to rectify, but American Samoa got an issue on its centenary in 1999 so would have been nice to give recognition to the USVI.

Plenty of 50th anniversary events from 1968: Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy assassinated, the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, Apollo 8 orbits the moon, the Boeing 747 introduced, and athletes protest racial discrimination at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City with raised fists.

I doubt the Tet Offensive would be on a US stamp.

I just wish there was a moratorium on Purple Heart, Chinese New Year, Wedding (not like many will get married two years in a row to want a new design), and Christmas stamps although this Holiday year's stamps were poor in my opinion. I have no issue with Black Heritage since the subject changes every year.

When I read threads like this one a few thoughts cross my mind…


In 1869 when these first pictorial US stamps came out, much of the public was not impressed or happy with them. The opinions were very much the same as we hear today about the issuing of stamps (i.e. needless, too many, issued just to make money).

Before 1900, the US had a number of years when they did not issue a single stamp.

If the PO stopped issuing stamps at all, I wonder if I would miss the years that the PO issued 'wallpaper'?
Don

That's a great idea Don, but you left out either #118 or #119. No discrimination is allowed. After all, the Philatelic Constabulary demands perfection in the collection.

To the best of my knowledge, Thad Stevens and Charles Sumner have never been honored on a U.S. postage stamp.

angore, I agree with both the moratorium on certain issues and continuing the Black Heritage series...there are many, many more black Americans who should be commemorated and many black history events as well.

300th anniversary of founding of La Nouvelle-Orléans (New Orleans) May 17, 1718