If presale demand for the new Adopt a Shelter Pet stamps is high, the United States Postal Service will order a second printing, according to information in the March 25 Postal Bulletin published by the Postal Service.
The 10 44¢ stamps picturing dogs and cats will be issued April 30 at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, 5200 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood,
Calif. The stamps will go on sale nationwide on the same day.
The first-day ceremony will start at 2 p.m., and the doors will open at noon. The ceremony is free and open to the public with no tickets required. The auditorium seats 600.
Talk-show host, comedian and American Idol judge Ellen DeGeneres and Postmaster General John E. “Jack” Potter unveiled the stamps March 17 on The
Ellen DeGeneres Show (Linn’s, April 5, page 14). Both DeGeneres and Potter are scheduled to speak at the first-day ceremony.
The Postal Service is working with DeGeneres and Halo, Purely for Pets, a natural pet care company she co-owns, to promote the campaign to adopt pets from shelters and also to promote the sale of the stamps.
The initial print quantity of the stamps is 300 million stamps, or 15 million panes of 20. According to the Postal Service, the print run for commemorative stamps averages 65 million.
So far in 2010, the quantities printed of new 44¢ commemorative stamps have been lower: 40 million of the four Cowboys of the Silver Screen stamps, 25 million of the four Distinguished Sailors stamps; and 20 million of the single Bill Mauldin stamp.
Unlike definitives (regular-issue) stamps, commemorative stamps traditionally do not go back to press for additional printings.
But, in a break with this tradition, the Postal Service states in the Postal Bulletin that if its se...
... middle of paper ...
...sue donation; philanthropy; physical fitness; volunteering and many other subjects. The aforementioned Neuter and Spay stamps also are part of this series of social awareness stamps.
To promote the campaign to save the lives of shelter pets, a cancellation featuring the face of a dog and a cat will run on mail-processing equipment from April 30 through May 14. The address of the web site is included as part of the slogan.
Four first-day-of-issue postmarks will be available. The two black postmarks feature the images of a dog and cat, respectively. The digital color postmarks, available on first-day covers from the Postal Service, show paw prints, with a cat inside a paw print in red and a dog inside a paw print in olive green.
Technical specifications and first-day cancel ordering information for the Adopt a Shelter Pets stamps can be found in the box on page 20.