My dad recently ran across a batch of pictures and notes I made for my mother when I was a little kid. It has been nearly six years since we lost my mom to cancer, but seeing these old papers certainly made me feel wistful; I wish she could have lived longer and seen my daughter (her only grandchild) grow up. There’s also a bit of a sense of wonder at a mother’s love for her child that she would bother to save any of this stuff at all. I was certainly not a talented young artist!
Anyway, the reason I mention this here at all is that in the packet my dad sent to me were two notes that I apparently intended to look like envelopes.
Notes to mom and dad
Both “covers” bear hand-drawn 25¢ Love stamps, which dates them to somewhere in the 1988–1990 range. I’m intrigued that I was even aware of the postage rate; after all, I was a wee lad during that time frame, and I didn’t begin collecting stamps until 1992 or so.
At any rate, I feel confident in saying that these were my very first attempts at designing “stamps.” I’m still no artist, but thankfully my local post stamp design skills have improved!
APDA distributes snowflake BRE in December mailing
I wrote Wednesday about a Navigators business reply envelope with preprinted stamp-sized images of snowflakes. It seems that may be a popular theme this time of year as a mailing that arrived yesterday from the American Parkinson Disease Association contained a BRE that also had snowflake designs printed on it.
American Parkinson Disease Association business reply envelope with stamp-sized snowflake designs
Unlike the previous envelope I mentioned, which had only one design, this example has three, two oriented vertically and one horizontally, and each of the designs is surrounded by simulated printed perforations. That’s a nice touch; I think it makes the images look a little bit more like stamps.
Navigators business reply envelope decorated with snowflakes
Today’s incoming mail was unremarkable for the most part, but one piece addressed to my wife did contain an item of vague philatelic interest. It’s the latest business reply envelope variant from the nonprofit group Navigators.
The front of this envelope, which is made of light blue paper, has three roughly stamp-sized preprinted designs picturing a white snowflake against a dark blue background.
Navigators business reply envelope with stamp-sized snowflake designs
As you an see, the envelope has a vertical crease running through its center. That’s because it was folded for mailing.
The note in the upper left corner of the envelope states, “Postage has been paid for you!” That wording is probably intended to reinforce the impression that the designs are stamps, even though you and I know that’s not really the case.
Navigators updates stamp-sized designs used on envelope
Not quite a year ago, I wrote about an oversized Navigators envelope that both had three stamp-sized designs printed on it and contained a business reply envelope bearing additional stamp-sized designs. The nonprofit in late November sent a similar envelope, but unlike last year’s, which pictured a train, the one my family received last month pictures a church.
Navigators envelopeStamp-sized designs of a church on Navigators envelope
Although Navigators updated the artwork used on the container envelope, the BRE inside looked just like the one mailed last year.
Any cover of this size tends to get banged up traveling through the mail, and as you can see from the scan, that was certainly the case for this one. And it’t not exactly something that would be easy to store, either, but it’s an interesting example of modern nonprofit mail.
The United States Postal Service has finished issuing stamps for 2024, and it’s time for the final quarterly update of the year for The Philosateleian U.S. Stamp Album. The Winter 2024 Supplement (136 KB, 3 files, 7 pages) has spaces for the United States postage stamps issued in September and October plus the Philosateleian Post stamps I released in 2024, and you can download and print the pages at your convenience.
If you’ve previously switched to The Philosateleian’s annual update track where you print an update only once a year, my 2024 annual page set should be available in early January.
