Colorful dahlias to blossom on 10 new U.S. stamps April 26 at Westpex show

By Charles Snee

Beautiful dahlia blossoms in a rainbow of colors will burst forth on 10 United States definitive forever stamps to be issued April 26 at the Westpex stamp show in Burlingame, Calif.

The show will take place April 25-27 at the San Francisco Airport Marriott Waterfront Hotel, 1800 Old Bayshore Highway in Burlingame.

A local first-day ceremony for the nondenominated (73¢) Dahlias stamps is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. Pacific Time, Saturday, April 26, in the Bayside I room of the hotel. An official U.S. Postal Service first-day ceremony is not planned, according to the USPS.

The stamps feature close-up photographs of dahlias that were taken by Denise Ippolito. Greg Breeding served as both art director and designer.

According to the Postal Service, the Dahlias stamps will be issued in three formats: a double-sided pane of 20 (which the USPS calls a booklet) and rolls of 3,000 and 10,000 coil stamps.

There likely will be gaps between each stamp in a roll, and the stamps will be on backing paper taller than the stamps. These features allow the use of automated equipment to affix the stamps to large quantities of mailpieces in a short period of time.

Based on the issue formats, it is likely that 20 Scott catalog numbers will be assigned to the Dahlias stamps: 10 for the stamps in double-sided panes of 20 and 10 for the coil stamps in rolls of 3,000 and 10,000.

A final catalog listing determination will not be made until Scott editors have examined the actual stamps.

The Dahlias coil stamps are horizontal in format, meaning they will have vertical serpentine die cuts at left and right and straight edges at top and bottom.

A plate number consisting of a “P” followed by four single digits will appear on every 15th Dahlias coil stamp below the stamp image, the USPS said. The “P” is shorthand for Ashton Potter (USA) Ltd., one of the Postal Service’s two contract printers, and each digit represents one of the four process colors — cyan, magenta, yellow and black — used to print the stamps.

Illustrated above is the Postal Service’s preliminary artwork for a block of 10 Dahlias stamps from a double-sided pane.

Each stamp is inscribed “usa forever” in the bottom left corner reading across. The diminutive size of the lettering allows Ippolito’s photos to capture the viewer’s eye.

On the coil stamps (not shown), the pictures are cropped more tightly to accommodate the stamps’ smaller image area.

Breeding shared with Linn’s Stamp News some fascinating insights while working on the Dahlias stamps.

He has a particular interest in Ippolito’s photography.

“Because flowers are so very popular with the public, I decided to research photographers with a little different approach to the subject matter,” Breeding said. “Denise’s photographs are beautiful but almost abstract and I had a hunch that this more detailed but soft style might be appealing. We’ll find out!”

“Denise’s work tends to be very tightly cropped so that the stamps themselves became little details of the flowers,” Breeding explained. “Because we’re evermore concerned about how images read at stamp size, I thought this tighter approach might be a fresh approach.”

When it came to deciding which flower to show on the stamps, Breeding said that ...

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