"American Stamps" is a documentary about the designers and artists who create our postage stamps. Featuring interviews with art directors Howard Paine, Phil Jordan, Derry Noyes, Carl Herrman, Richard Sheaff, and Ethel Kessler, these long-time United States Postal Service associates share the details of their stamp creation process and the personal connections they have to the monumental characters and events they portray in miniature. Terry McCaffrey, Manager of Stamp Design for the USPS, lends context with helpful backstory about the history of stamps in America, the criteria for selecting stamp subjects, and how stamp artwork gets checked for authenticity. Wilson Hulme, Curator of Philately at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum, talks about the fun of stamp collecting and the printing errors that can make a stamp extremely valuable.
