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#5285
2018 First-Class Forever Stamp,Frozen Treats: Green and Yellow Horizontal Striped Popsicle
$5.25
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U.S. #5285
2018 50¢ Frozen Treats – Green/Yellow & Orange/Pink
Value: 50¢ 1-ounce First-Class Letter Rate (Forever)
Issue Date: June 20, 2018
First Day City: Austin, Texas
Type of Stamp: Definitive
Printed by: Ashton Potter
Printing Method: Offset, Flexographic
Format: Double-sided Booklet of 20
Self-Adhesive
Quantity Printed: 100,000,000
The Secret Story Behind the First U.S. Scratch-and-Sniff Stamps
There's a lot to love about the mouthwatering 2018 Frozen Treats Forever stamps — but the story behind them is even better than the stamps themselves.
It all started in 1905 in San Francisco with an 11-year-old boy named Frank Epperson. One day he mixed soda powder and water with a wooden stirring stick, left the glass outside overnight, and woke up the next morning to find it frozen solid. He licked it, loved it, and eventually patented what his kids would later rename the "Popsicle." One happy accident launched one of America's most beloved frozen treat brands.
More than a century later, the USPS honored that tradition with a cheerful set of 10 Forever stamps featuring 20 colorful popsicles painted in watercolor by California artist Margaret Berg. And they had another clever idea: make them scratch-and-sniff — a first for U.S. stamps.
Scratch-and-sniff technology traces its origins to 1960s research by 3M and NCR Corporation, who developed "microencapsulation" — a process that traps scented oils in tiny pockets on the paper's surface. A light scratch releases them. What began as a technology for carbon copies and receipts eventually found its way onto children's books, product marketing — and later, U.S. postage stamps.
Before the Popsicle stamps went into production, someone at the USPS asked a smart question: what about the window clerks? With up to 20 different popsicle flavors represented, there could have been 20 different fragrances — and postal clerks stand over their stamp drawers all day. Because some postal clerks suffered from allergies to certain scents and smells, the USPS decided that was a risk they simply weren't willing to take.
The solution was elegant. Rather than scrapping the scratch-and-sniff idea, they printed all the stamps with a single, non-allergenic "sweet summer scent." The concept survived intact. The clerks were protected, and the USPS still made history on June 20, 2018, issuing America's very first scratch-and-sniff stamps at the Thinkery Children's Museum in Austin, Texas.
Add this little piece of postal history to your collection. It's a stamp with a story that smells like summer.
U.S. #5285
2018 50¢ Frozen Treats – Green/Yellow & Orange/Pink
Value: 50¢ 1-ounce First-Class Letter Rate (Forever)
Issue Date: June 20, 2018
First Day City: Austin, Texas
Type of Stamp: Definitive
Printed by: Ashton Potter
Printing Method: Offset, Flexographic
Format: Double-sided Booklet of 20
Self-Adhesive
Quantity Printed: 100,000,000
The Secret Story Behind the First U.S. Scratch-and-Sniff Stamps
There's a lot to love about the mouthwatering 2018 Frozen Treats Forever stamps — but the story behind them is even better than the stamps themselves.
It all started in 1905 in San Francisco with an 11-year-old boy named Frank Epperson. One day he mixed soda powder and water with a wooden stirring stick, left the glass outside overnight, and woke up the next morning to find it frozen solid. He licked it, loved it, and eventually patented what his kids would later rename the "Popsicle." One happy accident launched one of America's most beloved frozen treat brands.
More than a century later, the USPS honored that tradition with a cheerful set of 10 Forever stamps featuring 20 colorful popsicles painted in watercolor by California artist Margaret Berg. And they had another clever idea: make them scratch-and-sniff — a first for U.S. stamps.
Scratch-and-sniff technology traces its origins to 1960s research by 3M and NCR Corporation, who developed "microencapsulation" — a process that traps scented oils in tiny pockets on the paper's surface. A light scratch releases them. What began as a technology for carbon copies and receipts eventually found its way onto children's books, product marketing — and later, U.S. postage stamps.
Before the Popsicle stamps went into production, someone at the USPS asked a smart question: what about the window clerks? With up to 20 different popsicle flavors represented, there could have been 20 different fragrances — and postal clerks stand over their stamp drawers all day. Because some postal clerks suffered from allergies to certain scents and smells, the USPS decided that was a risk they simply weren't willing to take.
The solution was elegant. Rather than scrapping the scratch-and-sniff idea, they printed all the stamps with a single, non-allergenic "sweet summer scent." The concept survived intact. The clerks were protected, and the USPS still made history on June 20, 2018, issuing America's very first scratch-and-sniff stamps at the Thinkery Children's Museum in Austin, Texas.
Add this little piece of postal history to your collection. It's a stamp with a story that smells like summer.
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