2023 First-Class Forever Stamp,Christmas Snow Globes: Snowman in Green Snow Globe

US #5816
2023 Snowman – Snow Globes

• Celebrates the popularity and whimsy of snow globes

Stamp Category: Commemorative
Set: Snow Globes
Value: 66¢ First Class Mail Rate (Forever)
First Day of Issue: September 19, 2023
First Day City: Breckenridge, Colorado
Quantity Issued: 550,000,000
Printed by: Ashton Potter (USA) Ltd.
Printing Method: Offset
Format: Double-sided Booklets of 20
Tagging: Nonphosphored type III, block tagged

Why the stamp was issued: To celebrate the holiday season.

About the stamp design: Pictures an oil painting of a snowman snow globe on an emerald green background. Artwork by Gregory Manchess.

First Day City: The First Day of Issue Ceremony was held at the Stephen C. West Ice Arena in Breckenridge, Colorado.

About the Snow Globes set: Includes four different designs picturing oil paintings by Gregory Manchess. Each stamp pictures a snow globe with a different holiday symbol inside: a snowman, Santa Claus, a deer, and a Christmas tree.

History the stamp represents: Today, snow globes come in all shapes and sizes and feature everything from holiday scenes to advertisements. They have come a long way from the first snow globes created over a century ago.

The first snow globes were displayed at the 1878 Paris Unviersal Exposition. Produced by a glassware firm, the water-filled globes contained a man holding an umbrella with white particles resembling snow. Snow globes appeared at another Paris expo in 1889, this time depicting the recently completed Eiffel Tower.

Austrian maker of surgical equipment, Erwin Perzy, was the first to patent a snow globe. In 1900, a surgeon asked Perzy for brighter lights. Perzy knew an old shoemaker’s trick – placing glass globes of water in front of candles. While it made the light brighter at a focused point, surgeons would need the brighter light over a larger area. So Perzy added semolina flakes hoping the light would bounce off them and spread, but that didn’t work either. However, he noticed the slow-falling flakes reminded him of snow. Perzy placed a model of a church in a water globe and patented his design for a “Glass Globe with Snow Effect.” They became a sensation and he received a special award.

Perzy’s factory continues to produce up to 200,000 snow globes every year and is home to one of the world’s largest snow globe museums.