Anyone who’d like to get a special first-day-of-issue postmark for the new holiday stamps has 60 days from the stamp’s issue to request it. Requests for the first-day-o-fissue postmark for the Christmas stamp must be received by December 21, requests for the Winter Holidays stamps must be received by December 9 and requests for the Hanukkah and Kwanzaa stamps must be received by December 10.

To get the postmark, customers should affix the stamps to envelopes of their choice, address the envelopes to themselves or others, and place them in a larger envelope addressed to:

(Winter Holidays) (Hanukkah) (Kwanzaa) Stamp(s)
Postmaster
421 Eighth Ave., Rm. 2029B
New York, NY 10199-9998

After applying the first-day-of-issue postmark, the Postal Service will return the envelopes through the mail. There is no charge for this service.

They did it before and they’ve done it again.
 
Who are ‘they,’ and what did they do? ‘They’ is the United States Post Office and what they’ve done is airbrushed a cigarette out of Bette Davis’ hand on the new stamp issue bearing her likeness.
 
The commemorative issue is the fourteenth in the Legends of Hollywood series and honors the 100th anniversary of the screen legend’s birth. The stamp features Davis in an iconic pose, but without her iconic smoke. A look at the image reveals that her hand looks awkward and unnatural and it is easy to see that her fingers were originally holding a cigarette.

The Minnesota Statehood Sesquicentennial stamp is slated for release on May 11, 2008. The stamp, designed by Ethel Kessler of Bethesda, MD, honors Minnesota’s 150th anniversary as the thirty-second of the fifty United States. The photograph captures the view of the MN-43/WI-54 bridge spanning the main channel of the Mississippi River above Winona, in southeast Minnesota.

You may be wondering why an official New Year’s stamp won’t be issued until February. Is the USPS running behind schedule? Not at all! The new stamp commemorates the observance of the Chinese calendar and celebrates the brand spanking New Year of the Rat, which begins February 7, 2008 and ends January 25, 2009. It is the first of 12 new issues scheduled to be debuted annually through 2019.
 
Each new stamp will feature one of the 12 different animals in the Chinese calendar. 
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