1979 10c 22nd Summer Olympic Games

U.S. #1790
1979 10¢ Summer Olympic Games
Issue Date: September 5, 1979
City: Olympia, Washington
Quantity: 67,195,000
Printed By: Bureau of Engraving and Printing
Printing Method: Photogravure
Perforations: 11
Color: Multicolored

Issued on September 5, 1979, in Olympia, Washington, this 10-cent stamp depicts a javelin thrower and was part of a series issued to salute the 1980 Summer Olympic Games in Moscow. The 10-cent denomination was chosen because it matched the domestic postcard rate at the time. The design features five overlapping stars rather than the traditional Olympic rings — a deliberate choice, as a licensing dispute prevented the U.S. Postal Service from using the Olympic rings on its stamp designs.

The stamps in this series were caught in a geopolitical storm that gave them a unique place in philatelic history. On Christmas Day 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. In response, President Jimmy Carter announced a U.S. boycott of the Moscow games, and on March 11, 1980, Postmaster General William F. Bolger pulled the entire Olympic stamp series from sale to show solidarity with the boycott. The withdrawal of a U.S. commemorative series mid-sale was an extraordinary and essentially unprecedented move. Once the Moscow games concluded that summer, the stamps were returned to sale — but the period of withdrawal gives surviving examples of the series an added layer of postal history interest.

The 1980 Moscow games went forward without the United States and 64 other boycotting nations, making them the smallest Summer Olympics since 1956 in terms of participating countries. Four years later, the Soviet Union and its allies returned the favor by boycotting the 1984 Los Angeles games.