On today's date in 1957 the very first meeting of the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee met for the first time. The stamp advisory committee "shall advise the post office department on any matters pertaining to the subject matter, design, production and issuance of postage stamps." This committee is made up of up to 15 members who were appointed by the Postmaster General. They are experts in many subjects including history, science and art.
The committee meets 4 times a year to review suggestions for postage stamp subjects. The postal service receives 50,000 suggestions for stamp subjects each year and according to their own website, each subject is reviewed. That means that each meeting of the committee they are reviewing an average of 12,500 subjects. Can you imagine that? I can't imagine being able to review that many subjects let alone being one of the members of a committee that gets to select the stamp subjects. Ultimately the decision of whether a subject will be used on US postage is up to the Postmaster General.
If you would like to write to them with a suggestion the address is as follows:
Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee
c/o Stamp Development
U.S. Postal Service
475 L'Enfant Plaza SW, Room 3300
Washington, DC 20260-3501
One of the neat things about suggesting subjects for stamps is that they will only accept suggestions by mail. You can't even hand deliver a suggestion! I think that is very neat and quite rare in today's world.
Have you ever sent in a submission? I haven't but I am adding it to my to-do list!
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