Celebrating its 250th year of existence, the United States Postal Service has commissioned cartoonist Chris Ware for a special forever-stamp set.
Chris Ware is an expert at fitting little moments into the smallest of spaces, most notably via his excellent Building Stories (Pantheon) set, so it was probably a no brainer for USPS to get the meticulous cartoonist to do what he does best…in stamps. The outcome, entitled 250 Years of Delivering, features a mail worker doing their deliveries across a small town in different seasons. It is full of charm and highlights the vitality of the postal system to communities.
The twenty-stamp set which was co-designed with USPS art director Antonio Alcalá will release on July 23, just a few days before the official anniversary of the founding of the United States Post Office on July 26, 1775. 250 Years of Delivering will be available from the USPS store and can be preordered now. It will retail for $15.60. As a forever stamp, each will retain the current value of a first class stamp.
According to a USPS press release:
“Established in 1775, the postal system was so essential to winning American independence and creating a free nation that it is mentioned in the U.S. Constitution.
“For 250 years, the U.S. Postal Service has continued to serve the same ideals — connecting individuals, communities and businesses through an ongoing exchange of ideas, information and goods. Although the United States only makes up 4 percent of the world’s population, the U.S. Postal Service handles 44 percent of mail across the entire globe.
“In snow, rain, heat and gloom of night, USPS reliably reaches us where we live and work. Today, at nearly 169 million addresses nationwide, American communities near and far are connected by mail.”
Speaking specifically about the Chris Ware commission, USPS adds:
“The 250 Years of Delivering stamps are a meticulously illustrated pane of 20 interconnected stamps that offers a bird’s-eye view of a bustling town. Each stamp is a frame of sequential art that tells the story of a mail carrier’s daily journey as she walks her route. Laid out in four rows of five stamps, the story progresses through the four seasons, from top-left to bottom-right.”
Ware’s 250 Years of Delivering will be released alongside a special 32-page pamphlet called Putting a Stamp on the American Experience, which showcases the huge array of popular subjects that have become stamps, and comes with a special reframed modernised version of the 5-cent stamp of Benjamin Franklin from 1847.
