On January 29, the Star Ribbon Forever stamp was one of five early 2019 releases announced by the U.S. Postal Service, which set the first-day dedication for March 22 in Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois. The venue was the opening day of the American Stamp Dealers Association (ASDA) Midwest Stamp Show at the Holiday Inn Chicago Oakbrook, located at 17 W 350 22nd Street in Oakbrook Terrace. The dedicating USPS official at the dedication Acting Secretary Michael Elston of the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors.
Presented as “a stamp designed to meet the needs of business mailers,” the artwork is described as featuring a digital star of red, white and blue ribbon, with the white space in the middle of the ribbon creating a second smaller star. “The tricolored ribbon, folded into a patriotic symbol,” said a USPS press release, “is intended to evoke the connectedness of the American people.”
“Forever Priced at the First-Class Mail Rate” (55¢ on the date of issue), the stamps will be sold in coil rolls of 3,000 and 10,000 for use in high-speed mailing machines used by commercial mailers, and in panes of 20 formatted for personal and household use. Greg Breeding was the art director and typographer for the stamp, and Aaron Draplin of the Draplin Design Co. in Portland, Oregon, designed the stamp and created the artwork.
Even aside from their frequent symbolic appearances on U.S. Flag and Holiday postage, stars have long had an important place in American stamps. Their first prominent philatelic appearance may have been in the headpiece on the 1923 carmine & blue bust of the Freedom Statue from the Capitol Dome, the only bicolored stamp in the 1922–25 Fourth Bureau Issue definitives (Scott 573), an image revived on $1, $2 and $5 Statue of Freedom high values in 2018 (Scott 5295–97). Even the 1923 stamp was prefigured by a similar appearance on black Newspaper & Periodical stamps of 1875 and 1885 (Scott PR9–15 & PR81).
More recently, red, white and blue stars have been prominent on 8¢ stamps issued for the bicentennial of the American Revolution in 1971 (Scott 1432), 3¢ make-up rate stamps issued to ease the mid-2002 rate increase (Scott 3613–15), a 46¢ Patriotic Star coil designed by Greg Breeding in 2013 (Scott 4749) and a self-adhesive non-denominated (5¢) USA Red Star coil released in 2017 (Scott 5172).
Even so, stars also have been used on U.S. stamps for non-patriotic commemoration. Few stamps are as star-studded as the red, white and blue 15-star 45¢ stamp, Scott 3339, that had its first day of issue in Bejing, China, to celebrate the Universal Postal Union in 1999.
Stars in one form or another have appeared on U.S. postal stationery since 1860 (Scott W18B–U32). It first featured as a central element of the design starting with a “Volunteer Yourself” envelope that paid the 1.8¢ Authorized Non-Profit Organization rate in 1974 (Scott U568). Between then and 2002, a large star or as many as 13 smaller stars have appeared on about a dozen stamped envelopes, most recently the 37¢ Ribbon Star stamped envelope printed on recycled paper in 2002 (Scott U649).
Customers will have 120 days to obtain the first-day-of-issue postmark by mail. They may purchase new stamps at their local Post Office or the usps.com/shop website, and must affix the stamps to envelopes of their choice, address the envelopes, and place them in a larger envelope addressed with adequate postage addressed as follows:
FDOI — Star Ribbon Stamp
USPS Stamp Fulfillment Services
8300 NE Underground Drive, Suite 300
Kansas City, MO 64144-9900
After applying the first-day-of-issue postmark, the U.S. Postal Service will return the envelopes through the mail. There is no charge for the postmark up to a quantity of 50, but there is a 5¢ charge for each additional postmark after 50. All orders must be postmarked by July 22, 2019.