USPS screws the pooch again. No wonder dogs dislike postmen.
Collectors Discover Flag Stamp Has 14 StripesWednesday, August 06, 2008
By Sara Bonisteel
Fox NewsNEW YORK — The devil, as they say, is in the details.
So when an astute stamp collector recently discovered that one of the Old Glorys in the U.S. Postal Service's "Flags 24/7" series appears to have 14 stripes, it was bound to send a wave of excitement through the philatelic community.
"Is there any icon better-known to Americans than their own flag?" said Fred Baumann, a spokesman for the American Philatelic Society. "This is something somebody should have caught along the way."
Er. No kidding. But at least the artist doesn't appear to be at fault:
David E. Failor, a manager of Stamp Services for the Postal Service, said the extra stripe came from a design flaw. A white line, he said, was added to provide definition to the flag."It was not part of the original artwork," Failor said. "Normally we would send the change back through our fact-checking process. In the case of this change we didn't do that so the mistake was not recognized. It was brought to our attention after the stamps were issued."
(...)
The Postal Service plans to let the "Flags 24/7" series stay on the market, extra stripe and all, and will continue to be printed until the next stamp-price increase.
"They will remain on sale as is," Betts said. "But we acknowledge the error."
Well, that's good. I'd hate to see all those stamps go to waste and the price of postage have to go up AGAIN.