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Philatelic Foreword by Jay Bigalke
Without an announcement, I nearly missed it. Right before the end of last year, the United States Postal Service placed its 2021 Stamp Yearbook for sale.
The website states that the yearbook went on sale Dec. 17, which is slightly later than is typical. For a number of years, it was made available on or near the issue date of the last stamp of the year.
Based on the Postal Service’s description of the new yearbook, it looks like the stories in it focus more on the stamp design process, as they also did in the 2020 yearbook.
“The 56-page hardcover book contains exclusive sketches, design explorations, and reference materials from the stamp creation process, along with insights from the stamp designers, fascinating facts about each stamp subject, beautiful imagery, and placeholders throughout the pages for affixing and preserving the stamps,” according to the USPS website.
The yearbook includes 68 stamps and matching mounts from what the Postal Service calls its “collectible program,” or what collectors typically call commemoratives. It sells for $95; an estimate of the face value of the stamps in it is around $38 (mount cost not estimated).
Last year, the yearbook was numbered, and 13,000 were produced. It must have been the right quantity because the 2020 book is no longer available for purchase on the website.
When I was growing up, the USPS Stamp Yearbook was an annual gift from my parents and something I always looked forward to.
And with the yearbook’s focus on preliminary designs and discussions around that process my interest is piqued further.
The USPS item number for the 2021 Stamp Yearbook is 992120. The Postal Service is also selling a separate packet of what it calls “mail use and high value” stamps that are not included with the yearbook. This packet is item No. 992104 at $61 (includes 62 stamps and mounts).
This year, the Postal Service combined the mail-use and high-value stamps into one packet, likely because there was only one high-value stamp issued in 2021: the $7.95 Castillo de San Marcos Priority Mail stamp (Scott 5554).
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