New 1794 Compass Rose stamp carries U.S. international mail globally

By Scott Tiffney

On Jan. 24 at the Southeastern Stamp Expo in Peachtree Corners, Ga., the United States Postal Service will issue a nondenominated ($1.65) global forever stamp in panes of 10 that pictures a compass rose and can be used to mail a 1-ounce letter to any country for which first-class international mail service is available.

Global forever stamps are always valid for the current first-class international letter rate for machineable mail weighing 1 ounce or less.

The round 32-point compass rose image — pictured on the new issue with brightly colored directional points in blue, red, yellow, and green — is from the collections of the Maine Historical Society. It was drawn by Lucia Wadsworth, the aunt of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in her school geography notebook in 1794, when she was 10 years old.

USPS art director Greg Breeding designed the stamp and said the choice of Wadsworth’s illustration was due to the image’s visual appeal.

“When we research existing imagery, we do our best to honor the color palette in the original artwork,” Breeding said. “One constraint with this project was most of the historic compasses were not very colorful. The 1794 Compass Rose has just a touch of color which makes it a little more special than the rest.”

As with previous stamps in the global forever series, a circular format served as the canvas for the 2025 stamp. Given this shape, the series initially pictures heavenly bodies and planets such as the Earth (Scott 4740), Earth’s sea surface temperatures (4893), the moon (5058), and then later plants with rounded shapes like the green succulent (5198), poinsettia (5311), chrysanthemum (5460) and the previous global forever stamp (5680), issued March 14, 2022, illustrating an African daisy. Even the 2013 Wreath issue (4814) shows foliage carefully arranged in a circle.

The choice of a compass rose for the 2025 issue marks a visual departure for the series but not a thematic one. “We were intrigued by the 1794 Compass Rose because it is quite elegant — almost delicate — and holds up to stamp size,” Breeding said. “In this way we felt the choice of imagery was not just beautiful but also speaks to the global aspect of the mail delivery.”

A compass rose, also known as a wind rose, rose of the winds or compass star, is a round figure on a compass, map, nautical chart or monument that indicates the cardinal directions orienting users by showing the direction of north and other points of the compass. The cardinal directions are the main compass points — north, south, east and west.

The term “compass rose” comes from the resemblance of the navigational tool’s directional points to the petals of a rose.

The earliest known compass rose was drawn in the 1300s and was used to ...

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