PBS's American Stamps

American Stamps, a thirty-minute documentary about the designers and artists who create U.S. postage stamps,will rebroadcast on Wednesday, May 27, at 10:30pm EST. The program provides a behind-the-scenes look at how stamps are conceptualized, designed and produced.

American Stamps features interviews with USPS art directors Howard Paine, Phil Jordan, Derry Noyes, Carl Herrman, Richard Sheaff and Ethel Kessler. These long-time USPS associates share the details of their stamp creation process and explain the personal connections they have to the monumental characters and events they portray in miniature.

American Stamps also includes interviews with Terry McCaffrey, Manager of Stamp Design for the USPS and Wilson Hulme (1946-2007), former Curator of Philately at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum. McCaffrey introduces the art directors and anchors the program with helpful backstory about the history of stamps in America, the criteria used in selecting stamp subjects, and how stamp artwork gets checked—and re-checked—for accuracy. Wilson Hulme discusses the fun of stamp collecting and the printing errors that can make a stamp extremely valuable.

Shown above, Art Director Derry Noyes enjoys an afternoon working at home on the front porch.

Click here to visit the American Stamps Web site for more information an a clip from the show.