USPS Previews Alzheimer’s Stamp

The U.S. Postal Service previewed the image of the Alzheimer’s Semipostal fundraising stamp.

Available nationwide Nov. 30, the Alzheimer’s Semipostal stamp will be sold for 60 cents. The price includes the First-Class single-piece postage rate in effect at the time of purchase plus an amount to fund Alzheimer’s research. By law, revenue from sales of the Alzheimer’s Semipostal stamp — minus the postage paid and the reimbursement of reasonable costs incurred by the Postal Service — will be distributed to the National Institutes of Health, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 

Postmaster General and Chief Executive Officer Megan J. Brennan will dedicate the stamp. The artwork is an illustration that first appeared on the 2008 42-cent Alzheimer’s Awareness stamp. It shows an older woman in profile with a caring hand on her shoulder with the suggestion of sunlight behind her and clouds in front of and below her. On the 2008 stamp, she was facing left; the artwork for this stamp shows her facing right to help differentiate between the two stamps. Stamp artist Matt Mahurin of Topanga Canyon, CA, worked under the direction of art director Ethel Kessler of Bethesda, MD.

The Semipostal Authorization Act, Pub. L. 106–253, grants the U.S. Postal Service discretionary authority to issue and sell semipostal fundraising stamps to advance such causes as it considers to be ‘‘in the national public interest and appropriate.’’ Under the program, the Postal Service intends to issue five semipostal fundraising stamps over a 10-year period, with each stamp to be sold for no more than two years. The Alzheimer’s Semipostal stamp is the first and will be followed by a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) semipostal stamp to be issued in 2019. The next three discretionary semipostal stamps have not yet been determined. 

Under the Act, the Postal Service will consider proposals for future semipostals until May 20, 2023. The Federal Register notice outlining this program can be found at the following url:  https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-04-20/pdf/2016-09081.pdf.