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For broadcast on CBS Radio Network stations August 21-22, 2004


Behind The Stamps

The Stamp Collecting Report, I'm Lloyd de Vries. 

Each year, Linn's Stamp News publishes a U-S Stamps Yearbook, with all the details and 
stats about that year's stamps....and lots of inside information about why some subjects 
got stamps and others didn't, and why the stamps that WERE issued look the way they do.

For instance, in the Two Thousand Three edition, just released, author George Amick 
<AY-mick> reports that actress Audrey Hepburn's son insisted on changes to her portrait...because, he said, it was TOO perfect. The artists had to add a little bump to 
her nose.

Or that a stamp designer dug up the Nineteen-Oh-Three weather report for Kitty Hawk for 
the First Flight stamps.

"It revealed that the sky that day was clear, cloudless."
RUNS :03

What surprised Amick the most, though, was the number of stamps issued last year.

"That was exactly one half the total of collectable varieties that were issued the year 
before."
RUNS :06

It's also interesting seeing which postal officials use their influence to get certain 
stamps issued.

And that's Stamp Collecting this week. 

I'm Lloyd de Vries, CBS News. 

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