American flags appear on BREs distributed by The Fellowship
Only a couple of months after my most recent post about a business reply envelope enclosed in a mailing from the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, I have another example to share from the same organization.
A mailing I received from The Fellowship last week contained three envelopes with four preprinted stamp-sized designs depicting American flags, one of which is illustrated here.
The other two envelopes were identical except for being labeled “June” and “July” instead of “May” and having different codes printed on the left side of their fronts.
While I’ve received other BREs in mailings from The Fellowship, the stamp-sized images on those have had imagery related to Israel or to the Jewish people. These are the first examples I’ve seen with purely American designs on them.
Minnesota’s Como Park Post is one of the latest local posts to issue a new stamp. The Saint Paul-based local post recently released a bicolored 3¢ stamp, and I received a copy on a cover postmarked April 22.
The stamp has a woodcut design containing the letters “CCP” in the same color as the frame, while the value printed in the center of the stamp is a darker shade of blue.
As I’ve mentioned a number of times before, Como Park Post operator Tom B. carves the printing blocks for his stamps by hand. I can only imagine that is a time-consuming process, but you can’t argue with the results!
Project HOPE BRE bears five preprinted faux stamps
When I checked my post office box last week, it contained plenty of mail but not much of great interest. There were a couple of items worth mentioning, however, the first of which is pictured in this post.
This is a business reply envelope distributed in a fundraising mailing from the nonprofit Project HOPE. The front of the envelope features five preprinted simulated stamp designs picturing some of the organization’s volunteers and aid recipients.
The designs have fuzzy edges intended to roughly simulate stamp perforations, but the designs themselves are a bit smaller than what you would expect out of genuine stamps.
There was one other interesting piece of mail that arrived last week, and I plan to write about it next time.