A stamp that is bought and never used is the most profitable thing a postal service can sell. The money comes in, the delivery never happens, and the customer is delighted.
The US Post Office worked this out in the 1890s, and the commemorative stamp programme is the result. Everything in the catalogue that is not a plain flag or a plain numeral exists because of that realisation.
Before stamps existed at all
American mail started out with no stamps and no prepayment. A letter travelled and the person receiving it paid on delivery.
The most vivid version of this: a ship captain arriving in port with a bag of mail would place an advertisement in the local newspaper listing the names of people who had letters waiting, so they could come and collect — and pay, unless the sender had already done so.
Delivery was locally improvised and stayed that way until after the Revolutionary War, when a national system was finally organised. Private carriers and provisional post offices filled the gaps in between.
1847, and then 1855
The US government issued its first adhesive postage stamps on 1 July 1847, in two denominations: 5 cent and 10 cent.
Note what did not happen: they were not compulsory. Stampless letters and private postal systems carried on alongside them, and prepayment by adhesive stamp was not required until 1855 — eight years later. A universal system takes longer to arrive than the technology that enables it.
Through the rest of the nineteenth century, stamps were overwhelmingly for first-class mail, and the design was almost always the same idea: the head of a president or a statesman. Functional, dignified, and not remotely collectible.
Then the Post Office noticed something
By the 1890s it had become clear that people would buy stamps as objects rather than as postage — and that this was revenue with no service attached.
Commemoratives followed. The first wave was tied to the great national expositions, and then to anniversaries of significant historical events. Both are ideal for the purpose: a fixed date, a built-in audience, and a reason to print something worth keeping.
This is not cynical, and it is not hidden. It is why the design programme is as ambitious as it is — a postal service with no collector market has no reason to commission artists at all, and would print numerals.
Then technology added categories
Airmail, zeppelin mail, registered mail, certified mail — each new service brought its own stamps.
Postage due stamps ran for a long time as well: applied by the post office to a letter with insufficient postage, with the balance collected from the recipient on delivery. The only stamps in the catalogue nobody ever wanted to receive.
Where it stands now
Most stamps are self-adhesive; nothing needs licking. At the counter, clerks frequently print a Postal Value Indicator — a computer-generated label — rather than selling a stamp at all.
And after roughly a century and a half of denominated stamps (5 cent, 10 cent, and upward), the standard product is now non-denominated: Forever stamps for domestic first-class and Global Forever for international, both valid through any rate increase. Denominated stamps still exist for other uses, but they are no longer the default.
The rules for what gets on a stamp
USPS works from twelve published criteria. Two are worth knowing:
Anniversaries in multiples of fifty. Historical events are commemorated on the fiftieth, hundredth, hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary and so on — which is why a subject can be significant and still not get a stamp for decades.
The subject must be dead. For many years the rule was no issue sooner than five years after death, with an exception for recently deceased presidents.
The exception that did not last
In September 2011, with revenues falling, USPS announced it would begin depicting living people — chosen by its advisory committee from public suggestions submitted by post and through social media. The revised wording committed the Postal Service to honouring living men and women who had made extraordinary contributions to American society and culture.
It did not stick. The living-persons policy was short-lived, and the deceased-only rule was restored. So if you are wondering why a living figure has never appeared on a US stamp despite an announcement that they would: the announcement was real, and it was reversed.
Flags of Our Nation, as an example of scale
The first set of ten designs was issued on 14 June 2008 in Washington DC at 42 cents, designed by Howard E. Paine of Delaplane, Virginia.
Five further sets of ten followed, the last by 16 August 2012 — sixty designs in a single series. Sets three and four came out at 44 cents; the final two were issued as Forever stamps, which is the changeover visible inside one series.
Best deals on Forever stamps
Here is the practical consequence of everything above. Commemoratives are printed in quantity for a collector market, then withdrawn after about a year — so a great deal of unused, perfectly valid postage exists outside the official channel.
That surplus is why retired Forever designs sell below face value. You are buying stamps that were printed to be kept, from people who did not keep them.
Where to buy
Current issues from USPS. Retired commemoratives from a verified surplus channel such as Forever Stamp Center — see the full catalogue.
The short version
First US stamps in 1847, compulsory only from 1855, and commemoratives from the 1890s once the Post Office realised collectors pay for postage they never use. Subjects must be dead — a 2011 policy change said otherwise and was reversed.
More on buying Forever stamps
- 👉 How to Read a Stamp: Country, Value, Design
- 👉 Ask Your Mail Carrier for an Order Form
- 👉 You Have to Be Dead to Get on a US Stamp
USPS specialist based in Los Angeles with extensive experience in postal operations and customer service. Certified in mail management and trained at the USPS Business Mail Academy, she offers reliable guidance on Forever Stamps and practical mailing solutions.
