29c Love Dove in Rose Heart single

The Postal Service issued its Love stamp booklet on Valentine's Day, February 14, 1994, holding the first-day sale at Niagara Falls, New York, a traditional honeymoon destination. This issue featured a heart-shaped arrangement of roses with a dove in the center and its tail feathers extending beyond the roses. While issued with a romantic theme on Valentine's Day, the intended use for this stamp was for mailing wedding invitations.

Ron Sheaff, a USPS art director, and Lon Busch, an airbrush artist, designed the stamps. Conceived as a set (with the 52-cent Scott 2815), both stamps featured a different arrangement of doves and flowers. George Schmitt and Company for the American Banknote Company printed the issue on the five-color gravure press, the colors being black for the shading of the flowers and leaves, red for the roses and the text, green for the rose leaves, yellow for the dove's eye and beak, and beige for shading the dove. It was a traditional 'lick and stick' stamp issued as a booklet with two panes of ten.

References:

Kloetzel, James E., ed. 2009 Specialized Catalogue of United States Stamps & Covers. 87th ed. Sidney, Ohio: Scott Publishing Co., 2008.

Linn's U.S. Stamp Yearbook. Sidney, Ohio: Linn's Stamp New, 1994.

Lynn Batdorf

December 17, 2008