US #2530
1991 Hot-Air Balloon
- Part of the short-lived Mini-Scapes series
- Covered the Postcard rate
Category of Stamp: Definitive
Set: Mini-scapes
Value: 19¢, Postcard rate
First Day of Issue: M... more
US #2530
1991 Hot-Air Balloon
- Part of the short-lived Mini-Scapes series
- Covered the Postcard rate
Category of Stamp: Definitive
Set: Mini-scapes
Value: 19¢, Postcard rate
First Day of Issue: May 17, 1991
First Day City: Denver, Colorado
Quantity Issued: 375,138,000
Printed by: Bureau of Engraving and Printing
Printing Method: Photogravure
Format: Booklet – 2 panes of 10, from printing cylinders of 480 subjects (20 across, 24 down)
Perforations: 10
Reason the stamp was issued: This stamp was issued shortly after the Postcard rate was increased from 15¢ to 19¢. It was intended for use by vacationers sending postcards to friends and family. The stamp was a colorful alternative to other definitives available at the time.
About the stamp design: Pierre Mion is the artist behind the Hot-Air Balloon stamp. He was asked to submit sketches for new postcard stamps. A hot-air balloon in flight was one of the suggested topics. After his sketch was accepted, Mion created a gouache (opaque watercolor) painting showing the balloon from above.
First Day City: The stamp was issued during Rompex 91, a stamp show in Denver, Colorado. Though there was no official US Postal Service ceremony, the organizers held their own complete with an actual hot-air balloon.
Short-Lived Mini-Scapes Series
On February 3, 1990, the USPS issued the first of three stamps in the brief Mini-Scapes series.
This series has its roots in the summer of 1988 when members of the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee (CSAC) sought to give mailers an alternative to “bewhiskered unknowns” and Flag-over-Capitol-type scenes on definitives. The USPS had also tried picturing landmarks such as Yosemite National Park, but some felt those didn’t work well on the small scale of definitive stamps.
So CSAC hired three artists to come up with stamps that would be bright, cheerful, and colorful. They asked that the stamps picture “generic landscapes” found in multiple areas of the country or “tight little vignettes” of objects or scenes that would be familiar to a large number of people.
One of these artists was Pierre Mion of Virginia. He produced sketches of some of the suggested images: a hot-air balloon, a child with an umbrella, and a piggy bank. He also gave them a few sketches of his own ideas – a beach umbrella, part of a small boat, the end of a pier, and a child on a carousel. CSAC liked his sketches and then requested paintings of some of them.
Eventually, the USPS needed a new booklet stamp to cover the postcard rate, and they selected Mion’s beach umbrella to appear on it. The Beach umbrella stamp would be notable for a few reasons. It was the first stamp in the new Mini-Scapes Series. It was also the first postcard-rate stamp to be issued only in booklet form for use by vacationers.
Additionally, the stamp was the first in which the phosphorescent tagging was mixed with two different colors of ink. Normally it was applied as a coating on the stamp, or in a couple rare cases, was mixed in with one ink color. The stamp was issued on February 3, 1990, in Sarasota, Florida at the Sarasota Philatelic Club’s Sarapex 90 Show.
A year later, the postcard rate was raised from 15¢ to 19¢, leading the USPS to issue the second stamp in the series, picturing a hot-air balloon. That stamp, featuring art by Mion, was issued on May 17, 1991. The third and final stamp was issued three months later on August 8, and also featured artwork by Mion. It pictured the prow of a fishing boat tied to a pier along a marshy shoreline. The boat pictured is typical of an oyster or crabbing boat found along the East Coast.
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