Director Stamp Services
Another Great Year of Commemorative Stamps
It’s an exciting time here at Stamp Services as we release the first of our 2025 commemorative stamp collection. Working with the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee (CSAC), my team has yet again come up with an exciting range of subjects that celebrate the very best of our nation in some truly beautiful, creative and thoughtful pieces of artwork.
A sneak peek at our first releases shows that there will be something for everyone in our 2025 collection, with fresh additions to popular series like Love, Lunar New Year and Black Heritage, as well as some brand-new, eye-catching designs. And, as always, we’ve included a few works that will thrill stamp collectors and enthusiasts.
One stamp for 2025 that I know many will appreciate is our commemoration of television icon, comedy legend and animal rights advocate Betty White. This stamp embodies everything I love about this job. We are celebrating a wonderful American in a way that distills her energy while retaining the whimsy that made White so endearing. I’d like to think this is the stamp she would have picked if given the opportunity.
The breadth of this year’s collection is impressive. We have dedicated the 48th stamp in our Black Heritage series to Allen Toussaint in recognition of his outsize contribution to multiple genres of American music. And Cochiti Pueblo artist Mateo Romero has created original paintings of four powwow dancers performing their craft for a dynamic collection celebrating Native American culture.
An impressive pane of 15 stamps also marks the 250th anniversary of the start of the Revolutionary War, with watercolor paintings and photographs of battle sites vividly bringing to life five pivotal moments in the fight for American independence.
This year, our popular Lunar New Year series features an innovative three-dimensional snake mask made of hand-printed paper, which was then cut, scored and folded into shape origami-style, and the latest in our Love series embraces the bold, vibrant and instantly recognizable graffiti art of Keith Haring.
Modern scanning technology was pivotal to the creation of the composite image used for our luna moth stamp, and we used high-definition images captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope for two impressive space-related stamps. Our global First-Class International Mail stamp traces its artwork back to a 1794 drawing of a 32-point compass rose made by Lucia Wadsworth — aunt of famed poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Nature features heavily in this year’s collection, too, with dahlias, autumnal leaves, winter landscapes, freshwater angling and a state-by-state celebration of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail. For animal lovers, we have created a visually stunning set of 10 stamps featuring baby animals indigenous to the United States.
These stamps are a great starting point for a 2025 collection that will include more than 30 issues. Please keep an eye out for more updates over the coming months and, as always, store.usps.com/store/stamps is home to commemorative collections, old and new. In addition, many of our first-day-of-issue ceremonies are free and open to the public, so if you want to be part of these delightful celebrations, watch out for announcements in the USPS newsroom.
We have also launched a website, stampsforever.com, where you can learn more about the stories behind the stamps and get lots of great information about stamps and stamp-inspired products. I encourage you to check out this site.
We are always on the lookout for the next great suggestion. The CSAC page at usps.com explains the process for submitting one.
Lisa Bobb-Semple
Director Stamp Services