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.