Alzheimer’s semipostal has raised almost $1 million

Philatelic Foreword by Jay Bigalke

The Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness semipostal stamp will be withdrawn from sale Nov. 30, according to an announcement from the United States Postal Service in its Nov. 7 Postal Bulletin.

This semipostal stamp (Scott B6) was issued Nov. 30, 2017, in a quantity of 500 million. As of September of this year, only 7.5 million had been sold, according to the Postal Service. That is only 2.7 million more since the Postal Service’s previous report of 4.8 million sold as of October 2018 (Linn’s Dec. 10, 2018).

On the plus side, the stamp has raised $991,000 for Alzheimer’s research, according to the USPS.

The notice in the Nov. 7 Postal Bulletin instructs post offices, stations, branches and contract postal units to withdraw its stocks of this semipostal from sale, but it also says: “Retain these items at the unit level until further notice. Do not prepare these items for destruction at this time.”

Reading that statement, you might think that there’s a possibility that the stamp could be placed on sale again. But a similar announcement appeared at the end of 2018 for the Save Vanishing Species semipostal stamp (Scott B4), and that stamp remains off sale. A bill was introduced in Congress in March to return it to sale, but no action has been taken on the legislation.

The Breast Cancer Awareness semipostal, originally issued in 1998, continues to be offered at post offices. As of September, 1.05 billion Breast Cancer Awareness stamps have been sold, raising $89.9 million.

The issuance of another U.S. semipostal stamp is anticipated in early December: the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) semipostal stamp.

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