11:30am on January 3rd, 2009, wasn’t the sunniest day of the year for an unveiling, but yesterday, just before lunch, the Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage, Alaska buzzed with the release of a new postage stamp.   On 3 January, 1959, Alaska was admitted to the union as the 49th state of the United States of America, and to commemorate that event the United States Postal Service has released a 50th Anniversary postage stamp.  The stamp is a photograph by Alaskan Jeff Schultz of champion Ididarod musher DeeDee Jonrowe.  Schultz sounds very pleased that his art is reproduced in such a tiny form, but you can also purchase a poster-sized print of the same photo on his website, to compliment your stamp collection.

Not many states celebrated their statehood with a postage stamp at the time of statehood, though.  Alaska’s statehood was celebrated in 1959 with a 7¢ airmail stamp.  — and then again, twenty-five years later, with a 20¢ domestic postage stamp depicting a caribou near the Alaskan pipeline.  A little less than ten years after their admission as a state, the USPS celebrated the 100th anniversary of Alaska’s purchase from Russia, making it a U.S. territory, by issuing an 8¢ postage stamp depicting an Inuit totem pole.  Twice, a small (but significant) portion of Alaska has appeared on a postage stamp:  Mount McKinley first appeared on a 3¢ stamp in 1937, as part of a series commemorating the various U.S. territories of the time.   Then, in 2001, the USPS issued a modern 80¢ airmail stamp focusing just on the peak itself as part of an “American landmarks” series of stamps.  In 2002, as part of the Greetings from America series, the USPS depicted a bear eating a salmon representing Alaska; in the Flags of our Nation series,  a humpback whale is used to represent our largest U.S. state.  While the subject matter hasn’t varied much (exotic wildlife, beautiful scenery, yes it’s a state), Alaska has seen far more representation in our postage than many more accessible and populous states.   The fact that it grabs our imagination, evokes memories of gold rushes, and presents itself as a land of beauty and cold all combine to demonstrate why Alaska has deserved so many postage stamps in its honor.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, January 4th, 2009 at 12:33 am and is filed under collecting fyi, events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.