Monday Morning Brief | New stamp subjects revealed

Welcome to the Monday Morning Brief for April 11, 2016.

Over the course of the past week, both the United States Postal Service and Canada Post have revealed new subjects that will appear on postage stamps this year.

Several U.S. stamps will be issued during World Stamp Show New York 2016, which is taking place May 28 to June 4 at the Javits Center in New York City.

Postal Service officials say they will issue new stamps on each of the first seven days of the eight-day show. We’ve pictured a few of those stamp designs before, but here is a peek at some of the brand new ones.

A set of four forever stamps that the Postal Service is calling Honoring Extraordinary Heroism will be issued May 30 in a pane of 12. The stamps show four medals awarded for valor in combat: the Army’s Distinguished Service Cross, the Navy Cross for the Navy and Marine Corps, the Air Force Cross, and the Coast Guard Cross.

On June 1 there will be a souvenir sheet of six stamps called Classics Forever that reproduce the designs of six classic U.S. stamps from the 19th century. You can tell by the black printing lettered across the preliminary design shown here that the work on this issue is not yet complete. When I asked the Postal Service if these designs would be engraved like the original stamps, I was told that the printing method that will be used hasn’t been determined.

Sixteen different stamps honoring National Parks will be issued June 2, marking the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service. There have been a lot of requests for a National Parks anniversary set, so the Postal Service has been listening. Over the next couple of weeks the Postal Service is revealing one stamp each day, and you can see these designs as we post them on Linns.com.

On June 3, a set of 10 different stamps called Colorful Celebrations will show intricate patterns with elements such as birds and flowers in a double-sided pane of 20 called a convertible booklet.

Another new U.S. stamp that will be issued honors American author Henry James. This forever stamp in the Literary Arts series isn’t planned for the New York stamp show, and the date hasn’t yet been determined.

From Canada Post comes news of new Star Trek stamps revealed in a YouTube video on April 6. The issue date was not announced in the video, but the designs shown on YouTube and on Canada Post’s website picture one stamp with a portrait of Canadian actor William Shatner in his role as Captain James T. Kirk on the original Star Trek series, and a single coil stamp picturing the Starship Enterprise.

For Linn’s Stamp News and the Scott catalogs, I’m Michael Baadke.