Cool stuff: Shopping USPS for NPS philatelic schwag

One of sixteen stamps commemorating the National Park Service's centennial. This stamp features Administration Building, Frijoles Canyon Helmuth Naumer Sr. Bandelier National Monument, BAND 1409. ©2016 USPS. Image credit: USPS.

The National Park Service (NPS) will turn 100 on August 25, 2016, and one of the many ways they are celebrating the centennial is by issuing a set of sixteen commemorative U.S. Postal Service (USPS) Forever stamps that feature a few of the over 400 areas in the NPS system.

The sixteen stamps were arranged on the sheet geographically by Ethel Kessler, with Alaska's Glacier Bay National Park in the upper left corner and Florida's and Mississippi's Gulf Island National Seashore on the bottom right. The center background image of the panel is artwork from the one-cent Yosemite stamp issued in 1934. Read more about these stamps on the NPS website and on the USPS website, where they are available for purchase.

Other stamps currently available include their stylized Coastal Birds postcard stamp set, Botanical Art Forever stamps that feature illustrations from nursery catalogs printed between 1891 and 1912 courtesy of the New York Botanical Garden, and the Columbia River Gorge Priority Mail Express stamp. Besides stamps, the USPS also has a reusable tote bag in the Botanical Art print and a whole lot more.

Speaking of landscapes and the USPS, a couple of years ago, USPS offered a Forever stamp booklet of four landscape paintings by Hudson River School artists (links to available stock from a seller on EBay).

What have you been up to philately?


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About "Cool stuff":

A great botanical print or the convergence of aesthetics, function, and quality in a product can be hard to find. When I make such a discovery, I'll share it on the blog, but there is no affiliation between this blog and any of the products. I just think they're cool. Have you crossed paths with something noteworthy recently? Please do tell.