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By Scott Tiffney
With spring around the corner, the United States Postal Service will issue a nondenominated (78¢) forever stamp picturing sunflowers on March 14 at the Garfield-Perry Stamp Club March Party stamp show in Strongsville, Ohio. The new stamp will be available in a double-sided pane of 20 (a format that the Postal Service describes as a booklet), which has eight stamps and a label on the cover side, and 12 stamps on the other side.
The stamp was designed by USPS art director Greg Breeding from original artwork by illustrator Nancy Stahl. The design features four stemmed sunflowers, one pair above the other, each facing in a different direction. The illustration is rendered with gold and yellow petals, a brown center disk and stems in two shades of green all on a light-yellow background. Uppercase “forever USA” in a brown Times New Roman font appears at the bottom of the design.
“Prized by both gardeners and pollinators, the sunflower (Helianthus annuus) takes its scientific name from the Greek word ‘helios,’ meaning sun, and ‘anthus,’ meaning flower’” the Postal Service said. “Aside from common sunflowers, more than 50 distinct species of annual and perennial sunflowers grow within North America.”
Stahl was a natural choice for Breeding when deciding on an artist for the project because she has created original artwork for more than 40 U.S. stamps. Stahl’s rendering of the four sunflowers, first sketched in ink then using a drawing application to apply color, has each bloom facing in a different direction to indicate the heliotropic properties of young sunflowers, which follow the sun’s trajectory from east to west throughout the day.
A first-day ceremony for the Sunflowers stamp hosted by the Postal Service will take place at 11 a.m. on March 14, the second day of the 2026 March Party stamp show. The ceremony is being held at the show venue, the Best Western Plus Hotel, 15471 Royalton Road in Strongsville. The event is free and open to the public. …
Two first-day cancels for the new Sunflowers stamp are being offered by the Postal Service, one in black and the other in color. The black postmark is applied free, up to a quantity of 50, to most collector-submitted covers. There is a 5¢ charge for each additional postmark over 50.
The black postmark is a standard circular datestamp and four-bar killer with the words “FIRST DAY OF ISSUE” between the second and third bars. The color postmark pictures two sunflowers with stems and leaves in the same style as those on the stamp to the right of the word “Sunflowers” in a Baskerville font in the same shade of green as the stems and leaves. First-day details in the same font appear on either side of the sunflowers in gold and a lighter shade of green.
The color postmark can be obtained by collectors on envelopes made from laser-safe paper. There is an order minimum of 10 envelopes with a fee of 50¢ per postmark.
Both postmarks are also applied to first-day covers manufactured and sold by the Postal Service. All requests for Sunflowers first-day cancels must be postmarked by July 14, 2026, and sent to: FDOI – Sunflowers Stamp, USPS Stamp Fulfillment Services, 8300 NE Underground Drive, Suite 300, Kansas City, MO 64144-9900.
Additional Sunflowers issue products are available at the online USPS shop at https://store.usps.com/store/home.
Technical details for the 2026 Sunflowers forever stamp were not available at the time of publication and will be presented in a future issue of Linn’s.
To read the full story about the new Sunflowers stamp, subscribe to Linn’s Stamp News.
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