About This Stamp
Mythologized and misunderstood, few creatures capture the imagination as sharks do. With this sheet of 20 stamps, the U.S. Postal Service® showcases five types of these amazing fish, which emerged long before dinosaurs and are now uniquely adapted for their top-predator role in the marine food chain.
Each realistic stamp image is labeled by species: “MAKO SHARK,” “THRESHER SHARK,” “GREAT WHITE SHARK,” “WHALE SHARK,” and “HAMMERHEAD SHARK. Styled in lowercase letters, the words “usa forever” also appear on each stamp.
As difficult as it can be to put our primal fears and vulnerabilities in perspective, people are realizing that we pose far greater danger to sharks than they do to us. They are overfished for food and sport. The practice of “finning” — cutting off shark fins for a soup delicacy, only to throw the incapacitated animal back in the water — dooms a great many sharks. They are slower to reach reproductive maturity than other fish, and though they bear more developed offspring, because of unsustainable fishing this is no longer an evolutionary advantage over egg laying. Many populations are in collapse.
There is new hope, however. Shark ecotourism has become popular worldwide with enthusiasts excited to see these graceful fish underwater. Shark allure is resulting in increased study and greater understanding of these fantastic, still mysterious creatures.
Art director Derry Noyes designed the sheet with original artwork by Sam Weber. The sheet includes four stamps each of Weber’s five shark illustrations.
The Sharks stamps were issued as Forever® stamps. Forever stamps are always equal in value to the current First-Class Mail® one-ounce price.
Stamp Art Director, Designer, and Typographer
Derry Noyes
For more than 40 years Derry Noyes has designed and provided art direction for close to 800 United States postage stamps and stamp products. She holds a bachelor of arts degree from Hampshire College and a master of fine arts degree from Yale University.
Noyes worked as a graphics designer at Beveridge and Associates, a Washington, D.C., firm, until 1979 when she established her own design firm, Derry Noyes Graphics. Her clients have included museums, corporations, foundations, and architectural and educational institutions. Her work has been honored by American Illustration, the Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington, Communication Arts, Critique magazine, Graphis, Creativity International, and the Society of Illustrators.
Before becoming an art director for the U.S. Postal Service, she served as a member of the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee from 1981 to 1983.
Noyes is a resident of Washington, D.C.
Stamp Artist
Sam Weber
Alaska-born illustrator Sam Weber grew up in Deep River, Ontario, Canada, drawing as a child to amuse himself and eventually others. Introduced to the idea of making art a career by an influential high school teacher, Weber graduated from the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary before pursuing an MFA at the School of Visual Arts in New York.
Weber's first stint as a professional artist came while he was still in grad school, creating images for the The New York Times Op-Ed page and becoming assistant art director there. In his short career, Weber has produced an array of editorial pieces for clients, including Rolling Stone, TIME, Penguin Books, and The New Yorker, among others. Weber has also illustrated editions of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and his favorite book, Lord of the Flies, for The Folio Society. One of Weber's most recent pieces was an image of Cleopatra designed for a National Geographic cover.
With haunting illustrations that combine elements of the natural world and imaginative details, Weber's uniquely striking images have won him acclaim in the art industry. In 2010, Weber was named one of Print magazine's 20 Under 30, and he has received silver and gold medals from the Society of Illustrators.
Weber currently lives and works in Brooklyn. His first project for the Postal Service™ was Flannery O'Connor (2015), which was followed by Sharks (2017), Henry David Thoreau (2017), and Walt Whitman (2019).