2006 39c Love Birds conv. bklt of 20

U.S. #4029
True Blue
Love Series

Issue Date: May 1, 2006
City: Washington, DC
Quantity Issued: 600,000,000
Printed by: Avery Dennison
Printing method: Photogravure
Perforations: Die cut 11
Color: Multicolored

“For now the winter is past,

The rain is over and gone.

The flowers appear on the earth;

The time of singing has come,

And the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.”

(Song of Songs 2:11-12)

In the Book of Solomon, the voice of the turtledove heralds spring. Together with flowers and singing, the birds signal a time of renewal in this biblical love song.

For centuries, doves, lovebirds, and bluebirds have all been used to symbolize romantic love, faithfulness, and happiness. The doves stay with one mate for life. Lovebirds are also monogamous and are particularly affectionate with one another.

Bluebirds represent happiness, as in the wish, “May the bluebird of happiness sit upon your shoulder.” Bluebirds also symbolize faithfulness, because they are “true blue.” In medieval Coventry, England, dyers used a blue dye that stayed fast and unfading. The phrase “true as Coventry blue” was eventually shortened to “true blue.”

The 2006 Love stamp, “True Blue,” features two blue birds, beak-to-beak, forming a heart between them.