Does This Stamp Look Familiar?

To kick off National Stamp Collecting Month on October 1, the Postal Service will issue the Earthscapes Forever stamps at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center near Washington DC.

Miami motorists may recognize one of the “Earthscapes” stamps, although they never may have seen it like this before.  The image shows where Highways 95 and 395 converge in a carefully-engineered, multi-level interchange.  It’s an aerial view of one of America’s urban crossroads.

This stamp pane presents examples of three categories of earthscapes: natural, agricultural, and urban. The photographs all were created high above the planet’s surface, either snapped by “eyes in the sky” — satellites orbiting the Earth — or carefully composed by photographers in aircraft.

In the top row, one flies over America’s stunning wilderness. While a volcanic eruption scars the forests of Washington State, fog drifts over the timeless sandstone towers of Utah’s Monument Valley.  In Alaska, a wide stripe that looks like a highway is actually a glacier, a conveyor belt of ice.  At its base, jagged white shards resembling broken glass are really icebergs, bobbing in a lake.

The stamps in the center row may look like abstract art, but they show five products being gathered, grown, or harvested: salt, timber, grain, cherries, and cranberries.  Center-pivot irrigation systems create geometric shapes in the middle stamp — although bystanders on the ground might see only sprinklers in fields of wheat, alfalfa, corn, and soybeans. 

In the bottom row, urban life takes center stage.  Highways corkscrew around themselves and neat subdivisions sport tiny blue pools. It’s our familiar world, shrunken into miniature — with a fresh perspective.

How to Obtain First-Day-of-Issue Postmarks

Customers have 60 days to obtain the First-Day-Of-Issue postmark by mail. They may purchase new stamps at a South Florida Post Office beginning Monday, October 1.  They should affix the stamps to envelopes of their choice, address the envelopes to themselves or others, and place them in larger envelopes addressed to:

Earthscapes Stamps Special Cancellations

PO Box 92282

Washington DC 20090-2282

(The above address is for requests for all of the Earthscapes stamps.  Below address is for the Highway Interchange stamp only.)

Highway Interchange Stamp Special Cancellation

Postmaster, Miami

PO Box 52-4004

Miami FL  33152-4004

After applying the First-Day-Of-Issue postmark, the Postal Service will return the envelopes through the mail. There is no charge for the postmark. All orders must be postmarked by December 2, 2012.