Welcome readers to todays offering from The Philatelist. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, have your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. We have an interesting story to tell. A story of natural beauty captured well on a stamp and a stamp permanently stuck to an envelope.
Being a new stamp, it is a good time to talk of some of the changes that have befallen stamps issued today. In this case, we are talking about an American stamp, Such changes spread out over time.
The first thing to notice is the stamp has no denomination. Instead, we are signaled with the code Forever/USA. This is not an estimate on the staying power of America as a country. Forever means that the stamp is okay for first class postage in the future no matter how high rates get. I suspect the postal service hoped to get a rush of sales before the next scheduled increase. The second feature was hoped to be less resistance to rate increases. The savvy being well supplied with forever stamps. I doubt it had much impact on either score.
The other change from older issues is that the stamps are self sticking. These do not require licking, they stick very well to the envelope. They are also easier for the post office to print and handle. The issue for the stamp collector is that they are very difficult to remove from the envelope without damaging the stamp. The soaking time is much longer which is in itself a challenge to the collector. There is also the issue that when a stamp has to spend a lot of time in the soaking water, staining is likely.
The stamp today is too new to be cataloged. It is an American 49 cent issue from 2016 showing a cave view from the Carlsbad Cavern National Park. It is part of a 16 stamp issue celebrating the centennial of the National Park Service. The Carlsbad Cavern stamp is from a photograph. The vivid colors of the stamp do much to show off the natural wonders of the park and the skills of the photographer. The rest of the 16 stamp issue feature other national parks and a few reproduce paintings by such notable artists as Bierstadt and Naumer. The Postal Service has a lot to be proud of in the beauty conveyed by these stamps. That beauty had a big helping hand from nature.
Carlsbad Cavern National Park, then known as Carlsbad Cave National Monument, was proclaimed by President Calvin Coolidge in 1923 and was expanded with nearby wilderness by President Herbert Hoover in 1930. The caverns were famously, (mythically?) explored by a small boy with a homemade wire ladder. This is where the fanciful names of the rooms of the cavern came from.
The advent of the national park made the cavern much easier to visit. There is now an elevator in the welcome center to take you down into the cavern. There is also an amphitheatre where one can view the bats taking flight at sunset. The park welcomes over 400,000 visitors a year.
The nearest city to Carlsbad Cavern National Park is Carlsbad, New Mexico. It was originally named for it’s founder, but changed it’s name to Carlsbad to promote the warm springs found there. Carlsbad being the American spelling of Karlsbad, Germany, a famous spa town. Interestingly the German town in now the Czech town of Karlovy Vary. The borders having changed after World War I and the German people forced to move after World War II. Perhaps not the place to market a forever stamp.
Well my drink is empty so it is time to open up the conversation in the below comment section. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.