Every US stamp gets a first day of issue, and every first day happens somewhere specific. The city is not incidental — it is picked to mean something, and reading the location tells you what the issue is actually about.
The autumn 2022 run is a clean demonstration. Here it is, in issue order, with the place attached.
Pony Cars — 25 August, Sacramento, California
Issued at the Great American Stamp Show, which is where a set aimed squarely at collectors belongs.
Five cars: the 1969 Ford Mustang Boss 302, the 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T, the 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28, the 1967 Mercury Cougar XR-7 GT, and the 1969 AMC Javelin SST. Bold colour fields and hard highlights — an intentionally loud set, matching the cars.
James Webb Space Telescope — 8 September, Washington DC
Issued at the National Postal Museum, in the city where the mission was funded and announced.
The design is an artist's digital rendering rather than a photograph, which is the right call: the telescope's own first images are of things it is looking at, not of itself. The alignment of its eighteen mirror segments had been confirmed shortly before, and the first images and spectra released around the same time opened the observing programme to astronomers worldwide.
Holiday Elves — 15 September, North Pole, Alaska
The most on-the-nose choice of the year, and hard to argue with. North Pole is a real town in Alaska that leans fully into the name — candy-cane striped street lamps, Christmas decoration year round — and its post office handles the North Pole postmark that goes onto replies to children's letters at Christmas.
Four designs: elves assembling toys along a winding conveyor belt in a snow-covered forest. Illustrated by Don Clark, art directed by Antonio Alcalá.
Elves are a relatively recent arrival in the American Christmas, as these things go — they took hold in the nineteenth century, alongside the modern Santa, and became fixed in the story through twentieth-century television specials, films and books.
Virgin and Child — 22 September, Boston, Massachusetts
Issued in Boston because that is where the painting hangs: the Museum of Fine Arts.
An early-sixteenth-century Florentine oil, showing the Virgin looking down at the Christ Child with one arm around his waist and the other resting on his arm, while he looks away to the left. Attribution is not settled — it has been catalogued to an unnamed Florentine master and also to Francesco Granacci, born 1469, who trained in Domenico Ghirlandaio's workshop, remained a lifelong friend of Michelangelo, and was among the artists who worked on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
Peanuts — 30 September, Santa Rosa, California
Santa Rosa is where Charles M. Schulz lived and worked. There was never another candidate.
Ten stamps for the centenary of Schulz's birth (1922–2000): Charlie Brown, Lucy, Franklin, Sally, Pigpen, Linus, Snoopy with Woodstock, Schroeder, Peppermint Patty and Marcie. The pane frames a 1987 photograph of Schulz by Douglas Kirkland, art directed by Greg Breeding.
The strip began in 1950 and had become a global phenomenon by the 1960s — books, television specials, a Broadway show. What holds it together is Charlie Brown: beaten regularly, back the next day, which is a harder thing to write than it sounds.
Snowy Beauty — 11 October, Guilford, Indiana
A booklet of 20 built on original oil paintings by Gregory Manchess, art directed by Derry Noyes.
The subject is plants that hold up in cold weather — camellia, winter aconite, crocus, winterberry, pansy, plum, grape hyacinth, daffodil, buttercup. Painted with real light and shadow rather than flattened out, which is unusual for a floral issue and the reason this one is worth looking at closely.
Kwanzaa — 13 October, St. Louis, Missouri
Kwanzaa runs from 26 December to 1 January, drawing on first-harvest celebrations across Africa.
The stamp shows a girl and a boy standing behind a kinara with its seven candles — the mishumaa saba — lit. A pale blue circle behind their heads joins the two figures, framed by a mosaic pattern.
The seven principles the week is built around: Umoja (unity), Kujichagulia (self-determination), Ujima (collective work and responsibility), Ujamaa (cooperative economics), Nia (purpose), Kuumba (creativity) and Imani (faith).
Women Cryptologists of World War II — 18 October, Annapolis Junction, Maryland
The sharpest location choice of the set. Annapolis Junction is the address associated with American signals intelligence, so the issue was released where the work it commemorates continued.
The design layers characters from Purple — the cipher the Japanese government used for diplomatic traffic — over a WAVES recruitment poster. The pane margin carries letters that look random and are not; the key to reading them is printed on the reverse. A stamp you have to decrypt is a good stamp.
Roughly 11,000 women worked on processing and breaking enemy traffic during the war. WAVES — Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service — was established in July 1942 within the US Naval Reserve. The breakthrough into Purple itself came from a woman working in the Army's Signal Intelligence Service.
Hanukkah — 20 October, Chagrin Falls, Ohio
A hanukkiah — the nine-branched candelabrum used only during Hanukkah, distinct from the seven-branched menorah — rendered as fibre art: hand-dyed fabric, appliquéd and quilted, then photographed. The texture is the point, and it looks nothing like the engraved and painted candelabra of previous Hanukkah issues.
Why any of this matters if you are not a collector
Because it tells you what is going out of print, and when. Commemoratives are printed for one run and withdrawn roughly a year after issue. The first-day date is the start of a short clock.
Everything on this list is now past that clock. All of it is still valid postage.
Best deals on Forever stamps
A retired commemorative is postage that nobody can buy at the counter any more, which is the whole reason it turns up below face value on the surplus market rather than above it. It carries a letter at today's rate exactly like the plain issue on the rack.
Where to buy
Current issues from USPS. Retired ones from marketplaces, at a markup, or from a verified surplus channel such as Forever Stamp Center at www.foreverstampcenter.com — see the Forever range.
The short version
Sacramento for the collectors' set, North Pole for the elves, Santa Rosa for Schulz, Boston for the painting, Annapolis Junction for the codebreakers. The city is part of the issue, and once you know that, the release calendar reads differently.
More on buying Forever stamps
- 👉 The 2022 Release Calendar, Month by Month
- 👉 You Have to Be Dead to Get on a US Stamp
- 👉 Five Women in One Year: The 1948 Stamps
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.
