San Diego first-day event and Postcrossing meetup a success

By Trevor Bills

The San Diego Stamp Show opened Feb. 21 with a first-day ceremony unveiling the two new United States American Vistas presorted standard coil stamps.

A ceremony program was produced by Linn’s Stamp News and distributed to attendees. John E. Peterson, secretary and treasurer of the American Ceremony Program Society, served as the master of ceremonies and spoke about how excited he was that the U.S. Postal Service had selected the show to be the dedication venue for this issue.

Mark Banchik, co-chairman of the San Diego Stamp Show, welcomed attendees before introducing vocal coach Jae Anne Flores who performed the national anthem.

John Hotchner, author of the U.S. Stamp Notes column in Linn’s, provided opening remarks, including an explanation of how the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee plays a role in selecting artwork for required stamps, such as those issued for the presorted standard rate.

San Diego postmaster Tanya Toedt Fitzharris served as the dedicating official for the ceremony. Fitzharris has been with the USPS in San Diego for 37 years, starting her career as a letter carrier, eventually being appointed postmaster in October 2024.

After unveiling the stamp, additional remarks were provided by Josh Lazarus, a member of the Postal Customer Council and vice president of Action Mail, a marketing and direct mail agency in San Diego. Lazarus explained to the audience that he “recommends using stamps on mass mailings as much as possible” to his clients because his agency has found that mass mailings that include stamps have a higher response rate due to the feeling that these mailings seem more personal and important to the recipient.

Next, Nathan Goldman, a partner at DKNG Studios, spoke about the design process for this issue. He explained that DKNG Studios has worked with the USPS previously when designing artwork for the 2019 nondenominated (55¢) Military Working Dogs stamps (Scott 5405-5408) and the Kudos Pinback Button stamp (5923) from the 2024 nondenominated (73¢) Pinback Buttons set of 10 (5919-5928), which involved a lengthy process of creating the artwork used on the stamps.

Goldman explained that the process went much faster for the American Vistas stamps because the artwork was already created and only needed to be optimized for the smaller area of a stamp. This optimization included centering the horizon as the focal point of each stamp to provide space for the text at the bottom, and increasing the contrast of the colors so that the smaller scale stamp image would look better.

Nathan Goldman explained that he took inspiration from vintage travel posters and the scenery he saw while growing up in San Diego, but that the artwork is meant to represent scenery that many people across the United States can relate to.

Goldman finished by giving a piece of advice to aspiring artists and designers: “Make work that inspires you and someday it could end up on a postage stamp.”

Master of ceremonies Peterson concluded by inviting attendees to have their ceremony programs autographed and welcoming everyone to explore the exhibits and dealer bourse at the show.

The Postcrossing meetup began after the stamp dedication ceremony. About 30 people were in attendance, most of whom were local to San Diego with some visiting from other parts of California.

Attendees signed meetup cards that were generously provided by Linn’s and were excited to use the new American Vistas stamps on their outgoing postcards.

Several attendees mentioned that they were unaware of the San Diego Stamp Show until they learned of the scheduled Postcrossing meetup, but they were excited to shop the dealer bourse for stamps to use on their postcards.

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