A bunch of D-stamps here, however, the main focus is of course on the top right corner, where four dinosaurs are displayed.
These were issued by the USPS on 1st of October back in 1989... and managed to enter the list of some of the most controversial stamps in the US history.
Who could be offended by a block of four stamps honoring animals that had been dead for millions of years? In this case, paleontologists, who maintained that two of stamps contained errors. The dinosaurs labeled as brontosauruses were, in fact, apatosauruses, they said. And the pteranodons weren’t technically dinosaurs at all, but flying lizards. Postal officials admitted the latter point but noted that the stamps were officially named the “prehistoric animal series” and that the term “dinosaur” had merely appeared in promotional materials.
The other two stamps, honoring the stegosaurus and the tyrannosaurus, escaped any controversy.
So, to keep the peace in the postal waters, the title of this post refers to Prehistoric animals, instead of dinosaurs, as initially foreseen :)
As for the other 3 stamps on the left: first is a Davy Crockett stamp issued in 1967. Davy was an American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier, and politician. He is commonly referred to in popular culture by the epithet "King of the Wild Frontier".
Below it is a stamp from 1962 featuring Dag Hammarskjöld who was a Swedish economist and diplomat that served as the second Secretary-General of the United Nations. Hammarskjöld was the youngest person to have held the post, at an age of 47 years upon his appointment.
The last of the stamps was issued in 1969 portraying the Dartmouth College case which was U.S. Supreme Court case in which the court held that the charter of Dartmouth College granted in 1769 by King George III of England was a contract and, as such, could not be impaired by the New Hampshire legislature (whatever that means...)
And last but not least, this cover is part of Bryon's super cool postal experiments, since as you can see, these stamps bear the cancellation of the Dinasour Post Office, and Dinasour is an actual very small town in Colorado.
Hopefully, no paleontologists would be offended by that :D
Check out the other D's here!
And have a nice Sunday! :)
I'm loving there is a Dinosaur post office. Always envious of the variety of US post office cancels.
ReplyDeleteSuch controversy! Still great stamps, though.
ReplyDeleteThat kind of mistakes happen too often. I guess the postal services should do a bit of research, or asking to the specialists, before issuing stamps. Even if they are this cool! But anyway, I'm sure you can find at least one person in the world who get offended for whatever you do...
ReplyDeleteAs others have said, the cancellation stamp on this envelope is a gem!
How coincidental, so many D's on one envelope - even the three person's first names start with a D!..
ReplyDeleteGreat story, thank you for sharing!
In my country a similar (or even worse) error has been made. Be it not by promotional materials but by the designers / Post themselves.. Now that you write this, I think I should keep that story for the letter V (hope I don't forget at that time :-) )
What an amazing envelope with so many Ds!!
ReplyDeleteThe PO managed to talk their way if that controversy, but they really could have consulted some experts in the field, you'd think!
... and now I have the Davey Crockett theme sone running through my head!
Dinosaurs of prehistoric animals these are great stamps; I searched for Davy Crockett bu could only fine Daniel Boon.
ReplyDelete