The Postal Service’s planned stamp releases include, clockwise from top left, Black Heritage: Constance Baker Motley, Literary Arts: Saul Bellow, Love, Save Manatees, Bluegrass and Lunar New Year: Year of the Dragon.
The Postal Service has announced its stamp releases for 2024:
• Year of the Dragon, the fifth in the 12-stamp Lunar New Year series, featuring a three-dimensional mask depicting the face of a dragon;
• Love, a bird in flight carrying a message of love;
• U.S. Flags, four stamps depicting Old Glory waving at different times of day;
• Constance Baker Motley, the 47th Black Heritage stamp, honoring the first African American woman to argue a case before the Supreme Court;
• Floral Geometry, a $1 stamp joining the $2, $5 and $10 versions released in recent years;
• Pillars of Creation, a Priority Mail stamp featuring a high-definition infrared image captured by the James Webb Space Telescope;
• Cosmic Cliffs, a Priority Mail Express stamp featuring digitally colored bands of mid-infrared light captured by the Webb telescope;
• Low Denomination Flowers, stamps of 1, 2, 3, 5 and 10 cents graced by tulips, daffodils, peonies, poppies and coneflowers;
• Save Manatees, designed to raise awareness of the plight of the beloved marine mammal;
• Underground Railroad, sepia-toned portraits of 10 fighters in slavery’s resistance network;
• Radiant Star, a presorted standard stamp of a graphic blue star with radiating red and white stripes;
• Wedding Blooms, a vertical 2-ounce stamp that can accommodate the weight of heavy invitations;
• Celebration Blooms, a Forever stamp that can be used for the RSVPs accompanying heavy invitations;
• Garden Delights, four stamps depicting ruby-throated hummingbirds at four flower varieties;
• Saul Bellow, the 34th Literary Arts stamp, featuring a pen, ink and watercolor portrait of the prizewinning author superimposed on a Chicago street scene;
• Pinback Buttons, 10 stamps designed to look like whimsical retro pinback buttons;
• Protect Sea Turtles, close-up photos of six species that depend on U.S. coastal waters for foraging and migratory habitats;
• Shaker Design, a tribute to the simple, utilitarian aesthetic of the religious sect on the 250th anniversary of their arrival on U.S. shores;
• Horses, five stamps featuring photos of beautiful equines in profile, with a sixth in the selvage;
• Bluegrass, a tribute to the uniquely American music style;
• First Continental Congress, 1774, commemorating the 250th anniversary of the meeting of 12 of the 13 Colonies in 1774;
• Autumn Colors, 10 stamps depicting brilliant and radiant displays of the season;
• Christmas Madonna and Child, a traditional Christmas stamp with art from the Workshop of Sassoferrato;
• Hanukkah, a graphic stamp in blue and white, common colors of the Jewish holiday, depicting a hanukiah with all its candles lighted;
• Kwanzaa, a stamp celebrating the pan-African holiday in vivid hues depicting a drummer and two dancers; and
• Winter Whimsy, four graphic illustrations of lacy, symmetrical snowflakes.
“The 2024 stamps were designed to offer the American public a broad array of choices for those looking to collect stamps or send a special message,” said USPS Stamp Services Director Lisa Bobb-Semple.
The Postal Service announced the stamps on Oct. 23. The designs are preliminary and subject to change.
All of the releases will be Forever stamps, unless otherwise noted.
Additional 2024 stamps will be announced later.
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The fifth of 12 stamps in the latest Lunar New Year stamp series will celebrate the Year of the Dragon and feature original art by Camille Chew.
The 2024 Love stamp will feature an original digital illustration by Katie Kirk of a stylized bird in flight bearing a message of love in its beak.
While the shapes and colors of the clouds will change in the four new U.S. Flags stamps, each one will show the sun shining on Old Glory.
The 47th stamp in the Black Heritage series will honor Constance Baker Motley (1921-2005), the first African American woman known to have argued a case before the U.S. Supreme Court and the first to serve as a federal judge. The stamp features a portrait of Motley created by Charly Palmer.
The $1 Floral Geometry stamp, to be issued in panes of 10, was designed and created by the firm Spaeth Hill.
The Pillars of Creation Priority Mail stamp will feature an extremely high-definition infrared image captured by the James Webb Space Telescope.
Another remarkable image from the Webb telescope — this one showing a digitally colored depiction of the invisible bands of mid-infrared light — will appear on the Cosmic Cliffs Priority Mail Express stamp.
Each Low Denomination Flowers stamp will showcase a different flower design: 1-cent fringed tulip, 2-cent daffodils, 3-cent peonies, 5-cent red tulips and 10-cent poppies and coneflowers. Photographer Harold Davis created the images.
Each Low Denomination Flowers stamp will showcase a different flower design: 1-cent fringed tulip, 2-cent daffodils, 3-cent peonies, 5-cent red tulips and 10-cent poppies and coneflowers. Photographer Harold Davis created the images.
Each Low Denomination Flowers stamp will showcase a different flower design: 1-cent fringed tulip, 2-cent daffodils, 3-cent peonies, 5-cent red tulips and 10-cent poppies and coneflowers. Photographer Harold Davis created the images.
Each Low Denomination Flowers stamp will showcase a different flower design: 1-cent fringed tulip, 2-cent daffodils, 3-cent peonies, 5-cent red tulips and 10-cent poppies and coneflowers. Photographer Harold Davis created the images.
Each Low Denomination Flowers stamp will showcase a different flower design: 1-cent fringed tulip, 2-cent daffodils, 3-cent peonies, 5-cent red tulips and 10-cent poppies and coneflowers. Photographer Harold Davis created the images.
The Save Manatees stamp — featuring illustrator Nancy Stahl’s original graphic design — will be issued to raise awareness of the threats posed to the beloved marine mammal.
The pane of 20 Underground Railroad stamps will feature 10 sepia-toned portraits of men and women who escaped slavery or helped others escape: Catharine Coffin, Frederick Douglass, Thomas Garrett, Laura Haviland, Lewis Hayden, Harriet Jacobs, William Lambert, Jermain Loguen, William Still and Harriet Tubman.
Radiant Star, a presorted standard stamp intended for business mailers, will show red and white stripes radiating from a blue star in two shades of blue to give it a three-dimensional look.
The 2-ounce Wedding Blooms floral stamp will feature artist Kim Parker’s graphic illustration of brilliantly colored flowers rendered in ink and gouache paint.
Celebration Blooms, a Forever stamp, will feature Parker’s horizontal graphic illustration of brilliantly colored flowers rendered in ink and gouache paint.
In each of the four Garden Delights stamps, which will feature photographs by Ben King, a different female ruby-throated hummingbird hovers next to either a zinnia, cigar flower, spotted touch-me-not or sunflower.
The 34th issuance in the Literary Arts series will honor novelist Saul Bellow (1915-2005). The stamp will show artist Joe Ciardiello’s portrait of Bellow in pen, ink and watercolor, based on photographs from 1982.
The pane of 20 Pinback Buttons stamps will feature 10 typographic designs by 10 different artists in their unique styles, each with a single word as the prominent element. The back of the pane will feature an illustration of a round silver button back with pin fastener repeated 20 times, one for each pinback button stamp shown on the front.
The pane of 18 Protect Sea Turtles stamps will show close-up photographs of six species — the loggerhead, leatherback, hawksbill, Kemp’s ridley, olive ridley and green sea turtle — that depend on U.S. coastal waters for foraging and migratory habitats during various stages of their life.
The pane of 12 Shaker Design stamps will feature Michael Freeman’s photographs of items that highlight the core elements of Shaker design: simplicity and utility.
The pane of 20 Horses stamps will feature five photographs of beautiful equines, each in profile.
The Bluegrass stamp art showcases a graphic design by Heather Moulder that includes four of the string instruments typically used by bluegrass bands: guitar, fiddle, five-string banjo and mandolin.
The First Continental Congress stamp will feature a quote from a protest letter to the king of Great Britain.
Autumn Colors, 10 new stamps in a pane of 20, will showcase a portfolio of brilliant photographs by Allen Rokach (1941-2021) taken in a variety of locations around the United States.
The 2024 traditional Christmas stamp will feature art from the workshop of Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato (1609-1685), who gained popularity for his modestly scaled depictions of the Madonna and Child.
The new stamp celebrating the joyous Jewish holiday of Hanukkah will show a graphic depiction of a hanukiah, the nine-branch candelabra used only at Hanukkah.
The artwork for the Postal Service’s 10th colorful Kwanzaa stamp will feature a digital collage by Ekua Holmes depicting three figures: a male drummer and two female dancers.
Each stamp in the Winter Whimsy block of four stamps will include a unique design by Bailey Sullivan in white against a background of a single color: navy blue, teal, tan or dark blue-green.
