About This Stamp
The Red Squirrel definitive stamp was issued on June 25, 1993, in a pane of 18 die-cut self-adhesive stamps. Strips, or coils, were also produced to facilitate affixing the stamps by machine.
The magenta, yellow, black, green, and line black stamp was designed by Michael R. Matherly, printed on a gravure eight-color webfed press by Dittler Brothers Inc., die cut, and separated into panes or wound into coils of 5,004 stamps by Voxcom Web Printing Company. One group of five cylinder numbers preceded by the letter ‘D’ is printed on the selvage peel-off strip of panes. Selvage markings on the peel-off strip include “Self-adhesive stamps? DO NOT WET ? Peel here to fold ?” and the cylinder numbers.
Five previous stamps had portrayed members of the squirrel family: the 1987 CAPEX souvenir sheet (chipmunk) and five stamps of the 1987 American Wildlife pane of 50, including gray squirrel, eastern chipmunk, woodchuck, and black-tailed prairie dog.
The American red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) is a common North American pine squirrel. It is frequently found from Alaska across Canada to the Northeastern United States and as far south as the Appalachian states and the northern Rocky Mountains. Red squirrels live primarily in coniferous forests but also thrive in deciduous forests.
Eleven to thirteen inches from nose to tail tip, the red squirrel weighs five to nine ounces. Intensely territorial, these squirrels scold trespassers with chatters, chirps, rattles, growls, and foot stomping and tail flicking.