The U.S. Postal Service has issued its annual holiday stamps and they are on sale nationwide at all postal facilities.   The stamps have a value of 44 cents each.

The Holiday Evergreens stamps come in four designs.  Decorating with evergreens during the winter holiday season is a popular and appealing tradition.  The new stamps feature close-up views of the foliage and cones of our different conifers:  ponderosa pine, eastern red cedar, blue spruce, and balsam fir.  The stamps come in double-sided booklets of 20.  More than 157,000 stamps have been printed.

The artist, the late Ned Seidler, was a gifted painter of nature subjects.  When painting flora, he frequently used cuttings from plants and trees in his own yard as reference.  The artwork for the Evergreens stamps dates to the early 1990s.  Seidler died in 2007 at the age of 85.  Beginning with the 20-cent Francis of Assisi commemorative stamp of 1982, he painted the ictures for 33 stamps and postal stationery items.  The evergreens art was first created in 1992 but was put on hold.

The four nondenominational Holiday Evergreens stamps are part of the “forever” stamps to be issued by the Postal Service.  Like the familiar Liberty Bell design that was first issued in 2007, these new stamps will be always valid for payment of postage for a one-ounce domestic letter, regardless of future rate increases.  This year, the stamps sell for 44 cents. Appropriately, the stamps picture needles, cones and berries of evergreen trees, symbolizing the evergreen nature of their postal value.

For the holiday season, angels represent peace on earth.  The Angel with Lute stamp features an angel playing a lute, an image from a fresco painted around the year 1480 by Italian Renaissance artist, Melozzo da Forli, for the apse of the Church of the Holy Apostles in Rome.  It radiates serenity and dignity, along with compassion, while the lute points to harmony and song.  The painting resides at the Pinacoteca art gallery in Vatican City and measures approximately 37 inches by 46 inches.  400 million stamps have been printed.

Also available at post offices nationwide during the holiday season are previously issued 44-cent stamps:  Madonna and Child, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and Eid.

Customers have 90 days from the official first day of issuance date to obtain first day of sale postmarks on new stamps and stationery items.  Collectors may request a local first day of sale postmark by mail only.  There is no charge for servicing of first day of sale postmarks up to 50 covers.  Mail-in customers must supply a self-addressed envelope with sufficient return postage applied to return the serviced covers.

To obtain the first day of sale postmark, mail stationery items bearing Holiday Evergreens  or Angel with Lute stamps to:  Customer Relations USPS, 79 Mid Cape Terr Ste 8, Cape Coral, FL  33991.  Please specify which city you are requesting a postmark for—Fort Myers, Cape Coral, Naples, or Sanibel.  All orders must be postmarked by January 21, 2011.

For more information about purchasing stamps, stamps by mail, postal regulations, a free subscription to USA Philatelic magazine, Post Office events, the location of the nearest postal store or contract unit, or for answers to your specific Postal Service questions, contact USPS at 1-800-275-8777, or visit www.usps.com.  To schedule a presentation for your community, club or group on how the Postal Service brings the Post Office to your home or office computer, call 239-573-9638.

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A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 150 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no direct support from taxpayers. With 36,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, the Postal Service relies on the sale of postage, products and services to pay for operating expenses. Named the Most Trusted Government Agency five consecutive years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $68 billion and delivers nearly half the world’s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 28th in the 2009 Fortune 500.