After months of anticipation, on March 20 the U.S. Postal Service at last revealed its designs to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing on July 20, 1969—a pair of “1969 First Moon Landing stamps paying the Forever first-class mail rate (currently 55¢).
Designed by art director Antonio Alcalá, one stamp features a photograph of Apollo 11 astronaut Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin in his spacesuit on the surface of the moon, an image taken by astronaut Neil Armstrong whose reflected image appears on Aldrin’s visor. The second stamp features a photograph of the moon taken in 2010 by Gregory H. Revera of Huntsville, Alabama, showing the landing site of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module in the moon’s Sea of Tranquility indicated by a yellow dot. The selvage includes an image of the Lunar Module.
On March 29, the USPS advised that these stamps will be issued Friday, July 19, at 11 a.m. EDT at NASA’s John F. Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex on Space Commerce Way in Merritt Island, Florida. The stamp dedication ceremony is free and open to the public. However, ceremony attendees are required to RSVP at usps.com/moonlanding and news of the stamps is shared with the hashtags #MoonLandingStamps or #AstronautStamps.
As the USPS noted, “On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin achieved something that had long been confined to the realm of science fiction when they landed a spidery spacecraft named Eagle on the Moon. A worldwide audience watched and listened when Armstrong stepped onto the Moon’s surface and famously said, ‘That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.’
“On the 50th anniversary of this first Moon landing, two stamp designs commemorate that historic milestone. One stamp features Armstrong’s iconic photograph of Aldrin in his spacesuit on the surface of the Moon. The other stamp, a photograph of the moon taken in 2010 by Gregory H. Revera from his home in Madison, AL, shows the landing site of the lunar module, Eagle, in the Sea of Tranquility.”
Customers will have 120 days to obtain the first-day-of-issue postmark by mail. They may purchase new stamps at their post office or at usps.com/shop. They must affix the stamps to envelopes of their choice, address the envelopes to themselves or others, and place them in a larger envelope bearing sufficient postage and addressed to:
FDOI — Moon Landing Stamps
Stamp Fulfillment Services
8300 NE Underground Drive, Suite 300
Kansas City, MO 64144-9900
After applying the first-day-of-issue postmark, the USPS will return the envelopes through the mail. There is no charge for up to 50 postmarks, but there is a 5¢ charge for each additional postmark over 50. All orders must be postmarked by November 19, 2019.
