54 degrees & 88% humidity
Today I headed up to the New Yorker Hotel on my morning walk. I had received a post card a few weeks ago that announced the ASDA Stamp Show. Investigating it online told me that this is an event for serious stamp collectors. Postage stamps would be sold, mail could be cancelled with a special show cancellation stamp, and today would be the first day of issue for the Poinsettia stamp.
So why not...there's a first time for everything. I decorated a few postcards to be sent to friends with the show cancellation. I was a little confused about the first day of issue situation so I didn't make the best of it.
From the looks of it there probably was just about any stamp available that you could want from the US and other countries. And there were some very serious stamp collectors.
I perused the Harry Potter display which included stamps from other countries that had been issued to commemorate the Harry Potter series. There were many nice stamps but I thought it was a bit of a stretch to include a Polish flower stamp of a lily because apparently Harry's mother's name was Lily Potter.
The US Postal Service had a couple of booths and were supposedly selling every US stamp currently available. They were doing a brisk business even though this is only a block from the James Farley post office (the big one) that even has a Philatelic window to sell you the exact same stamps.
At noon, there was a short and oddly touching ceremony to officially present the Poinsettia stamp. A small crowd gathered and was treated to S. Lynne Watson - Miyamoto (a postal employee) singing of The Star Spangled Banner - a capella and nicely done. There was the presentation of colors by the George Washington High School Navy Junior ROTC.
A few short speeches preceded the official unveiling of the design by a postal representative and the artists. As we entered we had been given an envelope with the stamp and the first day of issue cancellation which we could then have autographed by the artists. I passed on the autograph.
Interesting experience (which was free) and the rain held off for my walk.
On the way home, a man, his slice of pizza and I dodged back and forth as we tried to get out of each other's way. We finally passed as he said, "Thanks for the dance!"
Steps: 8818
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