About This Stamp
Send greetings to friends and family overseas with the latest international stamp from the U.S. Postal Service featuring a colorful illustration of an 18th-century compass rose.
The 32-point compass rose from the Collections of Maine Historical Society depicted on this round stamp was drawn by Lucia Wadsworth, the aunt of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in her school geography notebook in 1794, when she was 10 years old. She brightly colored the directional points in blue, red, yellow, and green.
A compass rose is a round figure on a map that helps users of the map orient themselves by showing the direction of north and other points of the compass. The earliest known compass rose was drawn in the 1300s and was used to indicate the directions of the eight principal winds. Now they are typically shown as the four cardinal directions (north, south, east, west) and four intercardinal directions (northeast, southeast, northwest, southwest). More elaborate compass roses show the directions not only of the eight principal winds, but also the half-winds and quarter-winds, which were used as points of orientation. The term “compass rose” comes from the resemblance of the directional points to the petals of roses.
Art director Greg Breeding designed the stamp.
This Global stamp can be used to mail a one-ounce letter to any country to which First-Class Mail International® service is available. As with all Global stamps, this stamp will have a postage value equivalent to the price of the single-piece First-Class Mail International first-ounce machineable letter in effect at the time of use. The 1794 Compass Rose Global stamp is being issued in self-adhesive panes of 10.
Collections of Maine Historical Society.
Stamp Art Director, Stamp Designer
Greg Breeding
Greg Breeding is a graphic designer and principal of Journey Group, a design company he co-founded in 1992, located in Charlottesville, Virginia. He was creative director until 2013, at which time he began serving as president and continued in that role through 2023.
Breeding’s fascination with modernism began while studying design at Virginia Commonwealth University. His affinity with the movement continues and motivates his ongoing advanced studies at the Basel School of Design in Switzerland most every summer.
As an art director for postage stamp design since 2012, Breeding has designed more than 100 stamps covering a diverse array of subjects, from Star Wars droids and Batman to Harlem Renaissance writers and the transcontinental railroad.
His work has been recognized in annual design competitions held by Graphis, AIGA, PRINT magazine, and Communication Arts.
Breeding lives in North Garden, Virginia, with his wife and enjoys nothing so much as frolicking on the floor with his grandchildren.