Former PMG Resigns From Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee

Yet another article from the Washington Post -- this one features a little more of the heated disagreement aspect of the resignation.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...general-says

Kirk

To be or not to be -- in full agreement with each other of what constitutes proper topics for US postage stamps ain't gonna happen -- ever. Actually I am perfectly OK with non-US topics on US stamps, Harry Potter included. However, the primary topics on US stamps should be about US people, places, events, things, etc. And after reading KirkS link to another article about former PMG Bailar that also has comments about pop-culture topics, there are plenty for US stamps: hairdos of the 60s and 70s; fast food burger chains; famous American yuppies and how about going back to lick n stick stamps with pictures of foods and corresponding adhesive flavors. Especially chocolate.

I don't collect US but I use a lot of current commemoratives on mail. Am currently going through an imperf, no die cut press sheet of 1864 Civil War stamps on mailings. Heck, the wackier, the better, in my opinion. I'd love to see some massive art stamps like some of the old Iron Curtain countries. That would certainly be an attention grabber.

The guy who resigned from the CSAC said the stamp program lacks "gravitas". We as collectors think that's important, and I agree that stamps can be an important way to honor someone or something. But the other 99% of the population just wants a sticker to put on an envelope so they can drop it in a box. They never think about that stamp again and couldn't care less what happened to it on the other end. Most of them would likely think that collectors are silly to get in such an uproar over what goes on those stickers. Yes, the stamp program probably shouldn't cross over into utter ridiculousness (when we start honoring celebrities in Equitorial Guinea, I'll know we're there), but at the end of the day, what gets depicted on our stamps ain't all that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. If a few completely frivolous issues end up slipping through here or there, it's not like it's going to cause the Earth to spin off its axis. Worse case is we hold our noses and buy them and we're out a few more dollars.

Once again, so many great comments in the forum. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

I am a stamp collector so there are very few stamps I dislike, including most of the modern stamp program.

I am bothered by the Harry Potter stamps in that they are for a British movie, which would be OK, but there are way too many of them and more importantly, there are so many many American movies that could deserve a stamp.

And yes, the early engraved stamps of the US are lovely. But they also showed NO diversity or depth of our country and all its splendor (do we really need more heads of these old politicians on stamps?)

That said, just looking at this year's US program,it seems to have done a good job. We have history (Civil War, Lincoln, Ft. McHenry), nature (songbirds, hummingbird, butterflies), important personalities (Harvey Milk, Ralph Ellison, Chief Anderson and Shirley Chisholm), those incredibly attractive Circus Poster stamps (kind of history and culture together), pop culture (Joplin and Hendrix), state tribute (Nevada), patriotism (flags), etc. etc. Might be lacking in science and engineering a bit, but people say those areas are dull.

Given how young the country was from 1847-1890, they actually showed a considerable depth of social and political diversity in those years. Politicians and military leaders were really all we had at the time to celebrate. Most historic events either hadn't happened yet or hadn't really come of age. And need still dominated the release of new issues and values. That didn't change until the Columbians.

Back in the mid-1800s, the City of Berkeley was just a thin coastal strip on the bay and, once the state decided to build a university up in the hills, the city council met to decide what the growing in-between city should look like.

They brought-in America's then-leading city planner (the guy who did the Boston Commons, if memory serves) and decided, a la Washington DC, on a hub-and-spoke layout; one set of streets/avenues would radiate out from the university like spokes of a wheel, and another set of streets/avenues would radiate out as concentric circles around the campus.

To fit the spirit of the times, one set would be named for Great American Men of Science, and the other set would be named for Great American Men of Letters.

The city fire department testified that the curved streets and non-90-degree corners would make their horses dizzy, so out went the hubs'n'spokes, and in came a north-south east-west grid.

But they kept the names.

Sadly, of course, there *were* no Great American(-born) Men of either gender, which is why no one knows who the east-west Bancroft, Durant, Channing, Dwight, et al, were or might have been.

Hint: the easty-westy Great American Men were "letters", not "science"; does that help?

Actually, if memory serves, Bancroft was the silly twit who popularized the thought that one key cause of the 1776 revolt was the Navigation Act, as this required that all traffic between Great Britain & her North American colonies travel on British bottoms, thereby threatening to hobble the nascent American ship-building industry, and making for an economic casus belli.

He forgot that, at the time the Act was passed, WE WERE BRITISH, TOO, so the Act was aimed at the French, the Dutch, the Spanish ... but not the American colonists.

The north-south Shattuck, I was told, was a chemist who died in his lab ... the hard way.

And you wonder why the USPOD stuck to Dead Presidents for a hundred years?

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

They didn't "stick to dead presidents". The very first stamp issued had Franklin on it. A great and well deserving man, but never president. The 1869's were hated, in part because they were so different from everything issued before, including several patriotic scenes. They also had centering issues, but......and there were plenty of others, Clay, Webster, Stanton, Hamilton, and military men like Scott, Perry, Sherman. Plus a few military men who became president later and wear both hats. And once the Columbians came out they expanded subjects greatly within about a decade.