Happy Independence Day!

Stamp plate block of a segment of John Trumbull’s 1817 painting, Declaration of Independence

Happy July 4th to you!

As I’ve mentioned, I’m fortunate to have had parents that were willing to hold onto much of my childhood stuff- stamp collections, beer can collections, even my Planet of the Apes trash cans (more on that later).  Not having looked at my stamps in many years, and now having them out of the basement, I’m really enjoying looking through them. With the arrival of the Forever Stamp, we no longer have the chronicles of Americana displayed so beautifully on our postage. Understandably though- it would be a tough argument to say that we need more variety in our stamps, seeing that our need for snail mail is becoming less and less.

The stamps here are all from 1976, the year in which the United States was celebrating it’s 200th July 4th. I’m sure there were many more stamps issued that year, but these were some of the choice ones I was able to find inside the many envelopes that I filled while in elementary school.

Hey, what’s that cool hand gesture that Mr. Franklin is making on the above stamp?  The three piece group above Benjamin Franklin show a segment of Archibald Willard’s famous painting The Spirit of ’76 (aka Yankee Doodle).

Three major elements of the Revolution and Independence Day: the proliferation of the printing press- to help spread the spirit of independence to the masses throughout the colonies, Thomas Jefferson- who along with a select few, master-minded and wrote the Declaration of Independence, and Independence Hall- the building in which the document was actually signed.