Rare Stamps album series
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Rare Stamps is a series of soul albums released by Stax Records / Volt Records in 1969, featuring music by J.J. Barnes (1943–2022) and Steve Mancha (1945–2011), Eddie Floyd (b.1937), and Johnnie Taylor (1934–2000).
The “Inverted Jenny” from 1918 is one of the rarest stamps in U.S. postal history. The lettering on it is typical of its time – and similar to Ornamented No. 1049, minus the hatching.
The design is by Christopher Whorf and Gerry Rosentswieg, with art direction from Honeya Thompson.
While “RARE STAMPS” is lettering, the artists’ names are set in Ornamented No. 1049. Originally cast by Bruce in 1875, this design was available at the time as part of the Morgan Press Collection by Headliners. The bold wide serif imitates a style that was commonly used in the late 1800s and early 1900s on banknotes, stock certificates, and postage stamps.
Track names are added in the related but less heavy Engravers Bold (1902) a.k.a. Engravers Title.
At the time the albums were released, actual U.S. postage stamps with African Americans on them were not unheard of, but still a very rare thing: a timeline published on the USPS website in 2024 lists a mere seven stamps on African American subjects issued by 1969, featuring four named individuals. The first one was a 10-cent stamp from April 7, 1940, commemorating Booker T. Washington. It was followed by stamps honoring George Washington Carver (January 5, 1948), Frederick Douglass (February 4, 1967), and W.C. Handy (May 17, 1969). Only in 1978 would the Postal Service initiate the Black Heritage stamp series, to recognize the achievements of individual African Americans.
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