About This Stamp
A 32-cent multicolored Peach definitive was issued on July 8, 1995, se-tenant in a checkerboard pattern with a stamp depicting a pear, at Topex-Nevpex ’95 in Reno, Nevada. The stamps were issued in two formats: a pane of self-adhesives (convertible booklet) and a conventional booklet with water-activated stamps.
The stamp was designed by Ned Seidler. The booklet stamp was printed on the Bureau of Engraving and Printing seven-color Andreotti gravure press (601) and distributed in two panes of 10, five Pear and five Peach stamps per pane with the two designs se-tenant vertically and horizontally. Gravure printing cylinders with 480 subjects were used to print the stamp. One group of five cylinder numbers appears on each pane binding stub; wide or narrow cross-register lines appear on some stubs. The stamp was perforated 11 x 10 on the Goebel booklet machine stroke perforator.
The self-adhesive stamp was designed by Ned Seidler, printed by Avery Dennison Security Printing on a Dai Nippon Kiko 8-color gravure press and die-cut in a serpentine fashion on a Comco Commander die cutter. Panes of 21 (20 stamps and one non-stamp) were distributed, arranged vertically three across by seven down. Gravure printing cylinders of 10 panes, five across and four down were used. Coil stamps, or strips, were printed from gravure cylinders of four hundred subjects and sold in rolls of 5,000 or strips of 20. One set of five cylinder numbers preceded by the letter ‘V’ appears on the first selvage strip in the convertible booklet and below the design on every 20th coil stamp. The booklet stamp exists with serpentine die-cut perforations on one side, two side, three sides, and four sides. The coil stamp has vertical serpentine die-cut perforations.
The peach (prunus persica) is a tree native to China that bears a juicy fruit of the same name. It is a small deciduous tree growing to 16.5–33 feet tall. The flowers are produced in early spring with five petals. The fruit has a single large seed encased in hard wood (called the "stone" or "pit"), yellow or whitish flesh, a delicate aroma, and a velvety skin.
Cultivated peaches are divided into 'freestone' and 'clingstone' cultivars, depending on whether the flesh sticks to the stone or not; both kinds can have either white or yellow flesh; both colors often have some red on their skin.
The peach is the state flower of Delaware (1895) and the state fruit of South Carolina (1984) and Georgia (1995). Georgia and Delaware are both nicknamed the Peach State.
Art Director
Howard E. Paine
A member of the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee before being named an art director in 1981, Howard E. Paine supervised the design of more than 400 U.S. postage stamps. After three decades as an art director for the U.S. Postal Service, he retired in 2011.
For more than 30 years Paine was an art director for the National Geographic Society, where he redesigned National Geographic magazine, developed the children’s magazine, National Geographic World, and designed Explorers Hall. A popular lecturer, he has spoken at Yale University and New York University, among others, and presented programs for the National Park Service and the Smithsonian Institution. A judge for numerous art shows and design competitions, Paine also taught magazine design at The George Washington University.
Paine had been a stamp collector since childhood. In 2000, he designed the catalog for Pushing The Envelope: The Art of the Postage Stamp, an exhibit of original stamp art at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
Howard Paine died on September 13, 2014.