Operation Smile, Covenant House distribute new Christmas-themed BREs
Shriners Children’s Hospitals in August kicked off this year’s Christmas-themed business reply envelopes with a BRE featuring three stamp-sized designs printed on it, but last week’s check of my post office box turned up examples from a couple of other nonprofits.
The first came from Operation Smile. This bright yellow envelope has designs picturing a penguin wearing a winter cap and draped with strings of Christmas lights; the word “Hope”; and a Christmas tree.
Operation Smile business reply envelope with preprinted stamp-sized Christmas designs
The second envelope is from Covenant House. It’s a bit larger than average, and I suppose because of the extra space has five designs: a Christmas tree captioned “Joy”; Madonna and Child captioned “Love”; Santa Claus captioned “Believe”; A child and lamb captioned “Faith”; and children captioned “Hope”.
Covenant House business reply envelope with preprinted stamp-sized Christmas designs
As I’ve written before, these aren’t stamps, and there’s probably little place for this sort of material in a typical stamp collection, but I have to admit these envelopes add some color to my incoming junk mail!
Local posts in New Hampshire, Minnesota, & Oregon release new stamps
The local post scene had, to the best of my knowledge, been pretty quiet overall over the past couple of months, but within the past week and a half, I’ve received new issues from three different sources!
The first came from New Hampshire’s Purgatory Post, which on September 19 issued a 14-sola stamp commemorating Pope Leo XIV. Robert Provost was elected pope in May; the Chicago native became the first pope born in the United States.
Purgatory Post Pope Leo XIV stamp
Coincidentally, Minnesota-based Como Park Post issued a new stamp on the same day as Purgatory Post’s latest stamp was released. The 3¢ stamp was printed from a handcarved wooden die.
Como Park Post 3¢ stamp
And just last Wednesday, September 24, Mick’s Local Post in Oregon issued a stamp picturing the Coins-Donuts sign in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which points customers in the direction of Santa Fe Coins & Jewelry and Whoo’s Donuts, respectively. A release enclosed with the stamp I received identifies the sign as a “beloved icon” and “cultural treasure.”
Adanaland releases miniature sheet celebrating Festival of Ornament
When my daughter and I went to check our post office box last week, there were a couple of pieces of “stamp mail,” one of which came from Adanaland’s Alan B. Alan sent along his latest philatelic creation, a miniature sheet of nine stamps celebrating the Adanaland Festival of Ornament.
Adanaland Festival of Ornament miniature sheet
Alan writes that he acquired a box of letterpress type ornaments some time back and decided they would be useful for creating stamps for a fictitious event.
As you can see, although the same symbols are used repeatedly, each stamp in the sheet is unique. It’s an interesting arrangement, and an interesting end product!
We’re finally closing in on the beginning of autumn, and enough United States stamps have been issued over the past few months that it’s time for a stamp album update. The Fall 2025 Supplement (114 KB, 2 files, 4 pages) for The Philosateleian U.S. Stamp Album is now available, and it includes spaces for all United States postage stamps issued from June through July of this year.
It’s hard to believe, but The Philosateleian is coming up on its 20th anniversary next year. I had no idea when I launched my project in 2006 that I would still be creating new album pages this far into the future, but here we are. I truly appreciate the your support and encouraging words throughout the journey.
You can download and print the new pages at your convenience, and as always, thank you for using The Philosateleian!
Shriners Children’s Hospitals use Christmas-themed preprinted designs on BRE
I made my weekly run to check the post office box today, and there was the usual stack of nonprofit mailings containing an array of return address labels, notepads, and calendars.
A mailing from Shriners Children’s Hospitals also included a business reply envelope with three preprinted stamp-sized designs that I had not previously seen. The designs picture Santa Claus, a reindeer with presents on its back, and a car with a Christmas tree strapped to its roof.
Shriners Children’s business reply envelope with preprinted stamp-sized Christmas designs
Shriners Children’s has been using stamp-sized designs of this sort for a while now. They’re colorful, at least, and other than a few nonprofit stamps on the envelopes I received, this was the closest thing to what my daughter and I refer to as “stamp mail” that I received this week!
