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#6031
2025 $1.27 Luna Moth
$3.25
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US #6031
2025 Luna Moth
- Non-machinable stamp
- For use on irregularly sized envelopes
Stamp Category: Definitive
Series: Butterfly
Value: $1.27, Non-machinable rate, Forever
First Day of Issue: August 16, 2025
First Day City: Schaumburg, Illinois
Quantity Issued: 25,000,000
Printed by: Banknote Corporation of America
Printing Method: Offset, Flexographic
Format: Pane of 20
Perforations: Die Cut
Why the stamp was issued: This stamp was issued for use on non-machinable envelopes, including square greeting cards, or envelopes that are lumpy or have ribbons or buttons attached.
About the stamp design: The digital image of a luna moth was created by artist Joseph Scheer. He made multiple scans of a preserved moth then made a composite of the scanned images to form the final print. USPS art director Derry Noyes designed the stamp.
First Day City: The First Day of Issue ceremony took place during the 2025 Great American Stamp Show held in Schaumburg, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.
About the Butterfly Series:
In late 2009, the USPS unveiled the first butterfly stamp for greeting card envelopes that required additional postage (an extra 20¢) over the standard one-ounce rate covered. This applied to envelopes that couldn’t be sorted on the USPS’s automated equipment, otherwise known as “nonmachinable.”
Some of these nonmachinable envelopes include those that are oddly shaped or vertical, lumpy, rigid, or with clasps, ribbons, or buttons on them. Even if an envelope weighed less than one ounce, but was unmachinable, it would need this stamp. However, letters that were simply heavy didn’t necessarily need it. The two-ounce rate at the time was 61¢, and this stamp was 64¢, so customers would have overpaid by 3¢ if they used it.
The USPS worked closely with the greeting card industry on this new stamp. Prior to this issue, some greeting card envelopes would be imprinted with “extra postage required.” With the creation of this new stamp, the Greeting Card Association encouraged its members to print a butterfly silhouette on the envelopes of cards that would require this additional postage. Reflecting this close working relationship, the 64¢ monarch butterfly stamp was issued on May 17, 2010, at the National Stationery Show held at the Jacob Javits Center in New York.
The monarch stamp remained in use for two years, then was replaced by the Baltimore checkerspot butterfly stamp in 2012 when the nonmachinable rate increased to 65¢. New stamps were issued each year through 2016. The 2015 and 2016 followed the Forever format, in printing “non-machinable surcharge” on the stamp, rather than the actual denomination.
The California dogface butterfly stamp was initially announced in 2016 and expected for a 2017 release. However, the USPS said that they had designed the stamp but wouldn’t produce it until supplies of existing butterfly stamps were nearly depleted. So that stamp wasn’t issued until 2019.
History the stamp represents: With its glowing green wings, long trailing tails, and fuzzy white body, the luna moth looks more like a creature from a fantasy novel than something you would find in your backyard.
One of North America’s largest moths, the luna moth can measure over seven inches across! It’s named for the Roman goddess of the moon due to the spots on its wings that are similar to the crescent moon.
After emerging from its cocoon, the adult luna moth has no mouth. It doesn’t eat or make sound. And it only lives as an adult for about a week. That’s part of what makes spotting one feel like witnessing a secret—the luna moth appears, ghostlike, just long enough to leave you wondering if it was ever really there.
Luna moths fly mostly at night and are often drawn to porch lights. Their tails serve a surprising purpose: they can twist and spiral in flight, confusing the sonar of hunting bats. In tests, moths with tails survived bat attacks far more often than those without. Even more amazing, luna moths can sense chemical signals, or pheromones, from miles away. Males will follow the scent of a single female through forests in complete darkness.
Now, this mysterious marvel of nature is taking flight on a 2025 non-machinable rate US stamp.
US #6031
2025 Luna Moth
- Non-machinable stamp
- For use on irregularly sized envelopes
Stamp Category: Definitive
Series: Butterfly
Value: $1.27, Non-machinable rate, Forever
First Day of Issue: August 16, 2025
First Day City: Schaumburg, Illinois
Quantity Issued: 25,000,000
Printed by: Banknote Corporation of America
Printing Method: Offset, Flexographic
Format: Pane of 20
Perforations: Die Cut
Why the stamp was issued: This stamp was issued for use on non-machinable envelopes, including square greeting cards, or envelopes that are lumpy or have ribbons or buttons attached.
About the stamp design: The digital image of a luna moth was created by artist Joseph Scheer. He made multiple scans of a preserved moth then made a composite of the scanned images to form the final print. USPS art director Derry Noyes designed the stamp.
First Day City: The First Day of Issue ceremony took place during the 2025 Great American Stamp Show held in Schaumburg, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.
About the Butterfly Series:
In late 2009, the USPS unveiled the first butterfly stamp for greeting card envelopes that required additional postage (an extra 20¢) over the standard one-ounce rate covered. This applied to envelopes that couldn’t be sorted on the USPS’s automated equipment, otherwise known as “nonmachinable.”
Some of these nonmachinable envelopes include those that are oddly shaped or vertical, lumpy, rigid, or with clasps, ribbons, or buttons on them. Even if an envelope weighed less than one ounce, but was unmachinable, it would need this stamp. However, letters that were simply heavy didn’t necessarily need it. The two-ounce rate at the time was 61¢, and this stamp was 64¢, so customers would have overpaid by 3¢ if they used it.
The USPS worked closely with the greeting card industry on this new stamp. Prior to this issue, some greeting card envelopes would be imprinted with “extra postage required.” With the creation of this new stamp, the Greeting Card Association encouraged its members to print a butterfly silhouette on the envelopes of cards that would require this additional postage. Reflecting this close working relationship, the 64¢ monarch butterfly stamp was issued on May 17, 2010, at the National Stationery Show held at the Jacob Javits Center in New York.
The monarch stamp remained in use for two years, then was replaced by the Baltimore checkerspot butterfly stamp in 2012 when the nonmachinable rate increased to 65¢. New stamps were issued each year through 2016. The 2015 and 2016 followed the Forever format, in printing “non-machinable surcharge” on the stamp, rather than the actual denomination.
The California dogface butterfly stamp was initially announced in 2016 and expected for a 2017 release. However, the USPS said that they had designed the stamp but wouldn’t produce it until supplies of existing butterfly stamps were nearly depleted. So that stamp wasn’t issued until 2019.
History the stamp represents: With its glowing green wings, long trailing tails, and fuzzy white body, the luna moth looks more like a creature from a fantasy novel than something you would find in your backyard.
One of North America’s largest moths, the luna moth can measure over seven inches across! It’s named for the Roman goddess of the moon due to the spots on its wings that are similar to the crescent moon.
After emerging from its cocoon, the adult luna moth has no mouth. It doesn’t eat or make sound. And it only lives as an adult for about a week. That’s part of what makes spotting one feel like witnessing a secret—the luna moth appears, ghostlike, just long enough to leave you wondering if it was ever really there.
Luna moths fly mostly at night and are often drawn to porch lights. Their tails serve a surprising purpose: they can twist and spiral in flight, confusing the sonar of hunting bats. In tests, moths with tails survived bat attacks far more often than those without. Even more amazing, luna moths can sense chemical signals, or pheromones, from miles away. Males will follow the scent of a single female through forests in complete darkness.
Now, this mysterious marvel of nature is taking flight on a 2025 non-machinable rate US stamp.
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