Times have certainly changed down at the post office. The Postal Service didn’t issue any special stamps to commemorate the turn of the last century, but rest assured that it has big plans for the coming of the next millennium. Collectible stamps, many of which are bought but never used, are a big money generator for the Postal Service. Of the 500 million Elvis stamps sold in 1993, officials estimate 124 million never saw the inside of a mailbox. It’s not surprising, then, that they’re planning not one but two millennially themed series, each to be shaped by public input.
Next week the Postal Service will announce what it is calling the Celebrate the Century program, in which Americans will vote to select 15 stamp subjects to represent the last five decades of the 20th century. Balloting for each decade will take place separately, with voters picking up to three stamp subjects in each of five categories: people and events, sports, arts and entertainment, science and technology, and lifestyle. Voting will be for subject matter only, not specific images, as with the Young Elvis vs. Old Elvis runoff. ““Purposefully, the ballot does not have any designs on it, because we don’t want people to vote for pretty pictures,’’ says Valoree Vargo, manager of stamp and product marketing for the Postal Service. The first decade to go to a vote will be the 1950s, beginning in February. Is the Hula Hoop more stampworthy than the drive-in movie theater? Start pondering.
If you’re too young to have an opinion on such matters, don’t worry about it. The Postal Service plans to distribute curriculum guides to participating grade-school teachers. Kids will study the decades, then vote on the stamps in class. To hear the Postal Service tell it, this is a great civics lesson. ““We’re not only teaching kids about the ’50s and about history, but we are teaching them to make informed voting decisions,’’ says Vargo. Any interest these kids might develop in stamp collecting would be strictly incidental, no doubt.
Youngsters will be even more directly involved in the post office’s other planned millennial initiative, in which kids will be invited to submit drawings representing their visions of the future. What do they think cars and houses will look like? What do they think they’ll wear? Judges will select four winners, and their drawings will be issued as stamps at the prevailing first-class rate, which by that time might claim a pretty big chunk of anybody’s allowance. At least 20 other countries, from France to Venezuela to Ireland, will host their own contests, and all the winning designs will be available in–you guessed it–a collectible book.
Stamp collectors must be thrilled, right? Well, not uniformly. ““Who in the world needs more stamps?’’ asks David G. Phillips, an auctioneer and postal historian from North Miami, Fla., who, like many in philately’s old school, objects to what he sees as a glut of frivolous stamp issues. The re- cent Bugs Bunny stamp, for example, is ““strictly souvenir stuff,’’ he says. ““It’s degrading the value of older stamps.’’ Others are more accepting. ““There’s nothing wrong with the traditionalists, but they’re always complaining there are too many stamps,’’ says Joseph Savarese, executive vice president of the American Stamp Dealers Association. ““I think it’s great you’ve got Marilyn Monroe on a stamp, and Humphrey Bogart, too. We can relate to them more than George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. We have to modernize.’’ After all, neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night can stop the passage of time.
CHARACTER SHOW AGE IN 2000 Bart Simpson The Simpsons 20 Arnold Diff’rent Strokes 33 Vinnie Barbarino Welcome Back, Kotter 40 Greg Brady The Brady Bunch 45 Beaver Cleaver Leave It to Beaver 51 Laura Ingalls Little House on the Prairie 140 Pebbles The Flintstones 4,000+
