Living Persons Appearing On Past US Postage Stamps

...or Joe Paterno...

...or Lance Armstrong...

The list can go on.

The bottom line is that the new leadership of the USPS Board of Governors had reservations about the idea and up to now, the USPS website has withdrawn all references to the idea of a living person on a US Stamp and has even put back the requirement that a person must be dead for at least five (5) years before being considered as an honoree for a stamp (the only exception being US Presidents):

More can be found here:

http://postalnews.com/postalnewsblo...e-on-stamps/

...and here:

http://www.beyondtheperf.com/stamp-...ect-criteria

The 1927 Lindbergh Airmail stamp maybe didn't actually picture Lindbergh, but it has his name right on it.

Matt

Here's one where the subject was dead before the stamp was issued but they must have been getting it ready before he died on July 14. It's obviously issued before the 5 year waiting period.

I don't think the 5 year waiting period was in place back in the 1960s. There were several commemorative stamps from that period that were issued within a year after the person's death, including Sam Rayburn, Dag Hammarskjold, Eleanor Roosevelt and Winston Churchill ... and there may be a few others.

[edit]

I tried to do some further research on this subject without much success other than to note that in addition to some political figures in the 1950s and early 1960s the last person to be commemorated on a postage stamp before the ten year (and later five year) rule was implemented, seems to be Walt Disney (he died in 1966 and had a stamp issued for him in 1968).

One or two websites further suggest that the rule must have been put in place around 1968 or 1969 (when a lot of other post office changes were taking place), or else there certainly would have been a memorial stamp for Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King long before they were actually depicted on a stamp years later.

Does anyone have information on when this ten year rule took effect? It seems to be a rather interesting piece of information that has almost been lost to history.

Hi,
This is my father and myself on a 1968 stamp.

Scott,

Very cool claim to fame!

BTW, My name is Marc. I am Scott1343 because the stamp I am on is catalog #1343 in The Scott catalogue of postage stamps, published by Scott Publishing Co, a subsidiary of Amos Press.

Welcome to the forum Scott. That is very cool!

Matt

The famous 1936 photograph "Migrant Mother" by Dorthea Lange shows two people who were still alive in 1998 when it became a stamp. The girl on the left is Katherine McIntosh, and the infant in the woman's arms is Norma Rydlewski (their original family name was Thompson).
The stamp connection isn't mentioned in the excellent Ken Burns film "The Dust Bowl" that aired this week on PBS, but the photo is briefly discussed.

I think the USPS Governors have pretty much overruled the CSAC idea to put living persons on stamps.

KirkS

It sounds like the CSAC gets overruled more than we think. Did you read the last Linn's Stamp News suggesting that the Postmaster General (along with other high placed figures) were the ones who made the Lady Bird Johnson souvenir sheet come to fruition even after the CSAC objected to it?

A certain Dorin on personalized stamps from USA. :)

Although this is an old thread, I came upon this recently and wanted to keep the information all in one place, so here's another old US stamp (Scott 1198) that we can add to the list of living persons depicted on past US Stamps:

Since many idols tend to have feet of clay, perhaps it is best to wait until after death to issue a stamp honoring someone.

That being said, I can think of no one whose life would not contain some details which are better not known.

I look at it a bit differently. IMO, no USA stamp honored a living individual. The people shown in the above examples were not honored as such, but as a group or a participant.

I believe the "rule" to not honor individual living folks is something may come up detrimental to their image in later life or in their passing. Lots of examples to this, but the one that comes to mind is O.J. Simpson.

Just my thought, don't mean nothing..............