Philosateleia
Kevin Blackston
PO Box 217
Floresville TX 78114-0217
United States of America

Blog archives (September 2019)

Boys Town holiday mailing features four stamp-sized designs

Boys Town has begun their holiday fundraising for the year, and the business reply envelope included in a packet that I received last week has four more preprinted “faux” stamp designs with Christmas themes.

The designs include a wreath and angel (faith), a child at a window (hope), two children in front of a mantel (love), and two children walking along a snowy path (believe).

Boys Town business reply envelope bearing four pre-printed stamp-sized designs
Boys Town business reply envelope with faux Christmas stamp designs

I think the images used for these particular designs are perhaps a bit busy for the size at which they were printed, but they are colorful and might catch the eye of an average recipient.

Update (2019-10-28)

Upon returning home from a couple of weeks out of town, I found a new Boys Town mailing in my post office box, and inside was another business reply envelope. This cover reuses three of the four preprinted designs from the previous BRE that I received in September, but they are carefully aligned instead of slightly rotated as on the first envelope.

Boys Town business reply envelope bearing three pre-printed stamp-sized designs
Boys Town business reply envelope with faux Christmas stamp designs

This is the first time that I’ve seen Boys Town reuse any of their faux stamp designs. We’ll have to wait and see if it happens again.

Purgatory Post celebrates 50th anniversary of Abbey Road

On September 3, New Hampshire-based Purgatory Post issued two new stamps celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ Abbey Road. One of the stamps features the iconic photo of the band’s four members walking across Abbey Road in London, which was used for the album cover, while the second stamp features an alternate shot that was not used.

Purgatory Post 4-sola stamps picturing The Beatles
Purgatory Post Abbey Road stamps

The stamps are printed in miniature sheets of four using a slightly shiny silver-colored paper. The miniature sheet’s design means it is possible to identify singles as coming from the top pair or bottom pair of stamps based on slight differences in the colors of the corners of each of the four stamps, but as the differences are very minor and there are equal numbers of each variety, that is likely of interest only to specialists.

Purgatory Post miniature sheet containing four 4-sola stamps picturing The Beatles
Purgatory Post Abbey Road miniature sheet

Purgatory Post’s operator, Scott Abbot, notes that although Let It Be was the last album released by The Beatles, Abbey Road was actually the last recorded by the group before they disbanded.

Fall 2019 update for The Philosateleian

It’s Labor Day weekend here in the United States, and with an extra day off work, I’ve uploaded the Fall 2019 Supplement (73.1 KB, 1 file, 7 pages) for The Philosateleian U.S. Stamp Album. It’s available as of today for you to download and print at your convenience.

The United States Postal Service has issued more than three dozen stamps in the past three months, so this is a fairly significant update. Based on the release schedule announced for the remainder of this year, at least to this point, I doubt The Philosateleian’s winter supplement will have to add quite so many spaces.

Thank you as always for your interest in my project, and happy collecting!