Commemorative Stamp Committee

This Committee of the American Federation of Mineralogical Societies is responsible for the efforts to obtain stamps featuring subjects of interest such as minerals, fossils, gems and general geology. The Committee has been active for years and submits an annual report at the AFMS annual meeting.

Our current efforts are directed to trying to convince the United States Postal Service to produce stamps showing Birthstones. No stamps featuring gems have ever appeared on US stamps although there have been some beautiful ones from other countries. The mechanism is to encourage both AFMS members and the public at large to send requests to the Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee of the USPS. It is very difficult to succeed in getting any desired stamp. Only about one out of a thousand requests are approved. It took 10 years of lobbying efforts to get the first set of Mineral Stamps in 1974 and 18 years to get the second set in 1992! The USPS has rules by which the Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee, which recommends adoption of stamp subjects, operates, although the Postmaster General has final say. Rules say there will be no repeat subjects in 10 years.

Our message continues to be the same. The address for the Citizen's Stamp Advisory Committee has recently changed. A new promotional flier has the updated address. AFMS Clubs are strongly encouraged to make copies of it. Use the fliers at your club meetings, at your shows, and to groups your members might encounter such as when presenting talks at schools, to Boy or Girl Scouts, or at Nature Centers etc. Use the Teacher, Student Information Page in working with Children. A tent card for use with the fliers at your shows can also be used. Non-AFMS members are requested to support the campaign. Although many of you may have previously written, do it again so we may flood USPS with requests.

There have been, in addition to the two sets of mineral stamps which were the direct result of the AFMS Committee's work, many prehistoric animals including dinosaurs, the Klondike and California Gold Rush stamps and other geology related subjects on stamps, not a result of the this Committee's efforts.

Wendell Mohr,
Commemorative Stamps Committee Chair
Updated 11/04/2007

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Last Revised on April 13, 2008
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