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The Master Developer

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

A top stamp designer is retiring after 40 years with the U-S Postal Service. But Terry McCaffrey 
was more than an artist: As manager of Stamp Development, he influenced more than 25-hundred 
stamp designs -- more than half the stamps the U-S has ever issued.

For some, he'd help pick the artist and the art director...for others, he served in those roles.

He personally supervised all the Art of Disney stamps, and did the art himself when Yoda was 
voted as the most popular Star Wars character three years ago -- maybe helped get Yoda chosen, he 
said then.

"Who'd you vote for? (laughter) "I voted for Yoda, and I voted for Darth, and then I voted for 
Yoda a couple more times."   :07

Actually, he really did have influence on the stamp subjects chosen...as well as HOW they were 
portrayed...making sure families and interest groups were satisfied. When he met with playwright 
Moss Hart's widow, the actress Kitty Carlyle, in her swank New York City apartment, she picked up 
her favorite photo of Hart and GAVE it to him.

He told me Audrey Hepburn's son was very particular about how his mother was portrayed, because 
her beauty was unique. That was a tough one, he told me.

"We assumed it would be a very simple process, because everyone knows Audrey Hepburn, which they 
do, but because of that, we have to be very careful." :07

And when Terry McCaffrey would brief us reporters on upcoming stamps, there was often a twinkle 
in his eye that said more about a stamp design than any words.

I'm Lloyd de Vries of The Virtual Stamp Club. For more on stamps and stamps collecting, visit 
virtual-stamp-club-dot-com.

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