You don’t have to die to be on a postage stamp!
“Wow! Incredible! THANK you, Chris!!!” Those were my reactions tonight at a family gift exchange. I had just opened a package containing a sheet of U.S. postage stamps — 20 first-class stamps, each with the same photo of me hurdling! Amazing. As my wife explained it, a new service allows you to order personalized 37-cent stamps with an image of your choosing.
Of course, not any image can be used. (The Terms & Conditions page runs 2,025 words.) But still. I was blown away.
A few weeks back, my wife asked me for a good track shot of me. I found a nearly head-on color photo from about six years ago, showing me hurdling a 36-inch intermediate in a race at UC San Diego. I thought it would be a subject for my son to Photoshop. (In 2004, Bobby put my head on Super Man and on Maurice Greene’s body (after lightening skin tone). Memorable 8×10 glossies in both cases (of me flying over Metropolis and leading a sprint race).
But this was totally unexpected.
I won’t show the stamp, for fear of violating one of the dozens of edicts. But trust me, it’s a shock to see yourself on official quasi-governmental postage!
Online, I found a few descriptions of this new service, including the obligatory PR piece.
Also, it appears several other companies are authorized to print your personalized stamps, including Endicia’s pictureitpostage and the wackily named Zazzle.
A NorthJersey.com description of the service put it nicely:
“What do Franklin Roosevelt, Elvis Presley and Little Poopsie, my niece, have in common? Why, their faces appear on U.S. postage stamps!”
Despite my concern of sharing images of my own stamps, the Smoking Gun showed no such fear with its own versions, boasting ones with images of “Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, the New York couple executed in 1953 for spying for the Soviet Union… Monica Lewinsky’s blue dress (the one splattered with Bill Clinton’s DNA); Linda Tripp; deposed Yugoslavian ethnic cleanser/war criminal Slobodan Milosevic; MIA labor racketeer Jimmy Hoffa; executed Romanian dictator/Communist oppressor Nicolae Ceaucescu; New Jersey Governor James McGreevey and alleged gay lover Golan Cipel; and high school and college yearbook photos of (Ted) Kaczynski, who used the postal service to deliver his homemade bombs.”
Funny.
Now I’m in REALLY good company — FDR and Jimmy Hoffa!
But for celebrating birthdays, anniversaries, retirements or taking sixth in your age group at nationals, popping $20 for $7.40 worth of stamps (soon to be $7.80 when first-class stamps rise to 39 cents each) seems reasonable.
They’re guaranteed to bring shrieks of surprise.
