New postage stamps honor U.S. Merchant Marine

If you like to buy postage stamps that reflect your personal and professional interests, you might want to hurry to the nearest post office to pick up a set of the new postage stamps featuring cargo ships and the U.S. Merchant Marine.

The U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, N.Y., was a fitting setting for the late-July release of the four-stamp pane. The illustrations on the stamps include an 1850s clipper ship, an 1850s auxiliary merchant steamship, a World War II-era Liberty ship, and—to our delight—a modern-day container ship. According to the USPS, the painting on that stamp is based on a photograph of the **ital{R.J. Pfeiffer,} launched in 1992 and operated by Matson Navigation Co.

The "Forever" stamps are usable indefinitely, regardless of future changes in postage rates.