U.S. #3295
1999 33¢ Raspberry
Flora and Fauna

Issue Date: April 10, 1999
City: Ponchatoula, LA
Quantity: 1,200,000,000

Printed By: Guilford Gravure for Banknote Corporation of America

Printing Method: Photogravure

Perforations: 11 ¼ x 11 ½

Color:&...  more

U.S. #3295
1999 33¢ Raspberry
Flora and Fauna

Issue Date: April 10, 1999
City: Ponchatoula, LA
Quantity: 1,200,000,000

Printed By: Guilford Gravure for Banknote Corporation of America

Printing Method: Photogravure

Perforations: 11 ¼ x 11 ½

Color: Multicolored

The Four Fruit Berries stamps were issued April 10 at the Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival in Ponchatoula, Louisiana. The event is the largest free two-day festival in Louisiana.

The stamps were released in three different self-adhesive formats: coils of 100, convertible panes of 20; and folded booklets of 15.  The coil version of this issue is the first of a kind for the United States Postal Service. This se-tenant variety features each design adjacent to one another on the backing paper without a space appearing between each stamp. Issues featuring multiple designs have been released as coils by the Postal Service before the Fruit Berries. But prior issues, like the Contemporary Christmas stamps of 1993, were on backing paper with spaces in between the stamps.

Artist Ned Seidler created the Four Fruit Berries stamps. Other stamps illustrated by Seidler include the African Violet stamp of 1993, four Garden Flowers booklets (released from 1993 to 1996), the Peaches and Pear stamps (1995), and American Holly stamp of 1997.