B is for Butterfly

For the letter B of the Sunday Stamps A to Z I chose butterfly.

Here is one on envelope 780 (scanned with envelope 782, which has a 150th anniversary of Louisiana Statehood stamp).

This particular butterfly is the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, and was issued by USPS as a non-denominational stamp bearing the mouthful 'Non-machinable surcharge'. It is the fifth in the series, and is square to give an indication that it is intended for 1 oz letters that are square or non-rectangular. This stamp can also be used to mail a 2 oz machinable letter.

To see what others chose of their letter B, head over to the links at Sunday Stamps.

Sunday Stamps - Sunrise/Sunset

Today's sunday stamps theme is the sun on or close to the horizon. I am featuring 2 stamps that I have in my possession, but have yet to use.

For the rest of today's Sunday Stamp Sunscenes, go here. 

USPS tends to release stamps that celebrate the existence of each state on their 50th, 100th, 150th etc anniversaries.

Louisiana was admitted to the Union on April 30, 1812, a mere 9 years after the land was bought from Napoleon as part of the Louisiana purchase. A stamp celebrating its bicentenary was issued in 2012 featuring a photograph of the sun setting at Flat Lake taken by C C Lockwood, a Louisiana photographer.

The cost of priority mail went up on January 17 from $5.75 to $6.45. This warranted the issue of a new stamp for this rate. The stamp features La Cueva del Indio, a cave on the north coast of Puerto Rico. The cave is famous for its many petroglyphs, and is part of a Natural Reserve. The stamp artist is Dan Cosgrove. It doesn't specify in the stamp info, but based on the cave's location this would have to be a sunset as well.

You can see here the relative size of these stamps. The state stamp is the standard commemorative size.

A tale of two of the envelopes

Nikki H, who sent me the great MMSA favorite book card inspired by Salem's Lot, wanted to exchange mail with me outside of the swaps.

I picked out envelope 488 and paired it with two American Glass stamps. Then I reread Niki's address and realized that she lives in Canada. Oops. So this one went to Currie S, who was next in my 'reply to' pile.

And then the hunt was on for something to send to Nikki. I really didn't want to send her one of the global stamps one her first envelope from me (they have their place, but they can be monotonous) so I chose envelope 683 and two stamps with complementary blue tones. (I guess they are not complementary in a color-wheel sense, but you know what I mean).