One of the things I like about my stamp collection is just looking at it. I'm always amazed at the level of detail in the artwork, especially on the older stamps - you know, the ones with the hand-carved designs. Modern stamps are beautiful, true, but they're done on computer. The challenges of personal creation aren't the same.
Have you ever looked at the stamps from the 1970s on back? The workmanship is exquisite. I wonder what kind of training it took to work for the U.S. Postal Service. I wish I could meet one of those artists and just talk to them about the amazing artwork they created. I have a mental picture of a person sitting in a studio, hunched over a tiny piece of wood or metal, staring intently through a magnifying glass and working with really small tools. Now, I took shop in high school, so I can envision some of the tools - the chisels, the knives. But what these artists must have used would be doll sized in comparison.
And did the artists create designs that weren't used? If so, what happened to them? What if the artist made a mistake in the design? Did he/she have to do it again? That must not have been fun, especially when you look at the amount of detail in some of those designs. They had to have exceptionally steady hands, so no coffee for them in the morning.
As I said, today's stamps are gorgeous, but they're designed and printed via computer. That means the artist can make changes quickly and print a new version almost immediately. They're not as invested as the early stamp artists must have been. Can you imagine, after spending hours and days on the tiny stamp design, finally seeing your work on a letter? I would think the artist might get irritated with the post office for the postmarks covering their hard work.
But their work is definitely valued and appreciated today. If you look through a stamp catalog and see what some of those old stamps sell for, you can see that. And those are the stamps I'll probably never own. Oh well. I'll appreciate the craftsmanship that went into the ones I have.
