Yvette's Inner Geek Blog

After 20 years on the air, The Simpsons will finally get their own United States postage stamps! Our beloved prime time cartoon family will be available to adorn snail mail and/or stamp collections on May 7. There are five different stamps, each featuring the face of a core Simpsons family member.

The USPS definitely understands the minds of collectors. There are several options to purchase The Simpsons stamps online, not all of which are actual stamps.

• Booklet of 20 (4 stamps of each face) with a random cover
• 4 Booklets of 20 (so completists get all of the covers without that pesky blind box anxiety)
• First Day Covers (envelopes with the stamp and a special digital postmark dated May 7)
• First Day Covers—but with special color postmarks
• “Simpsons Cancellation Keepsake” (all 4 colorized First Day Covers plus a booklet with random cover)
• Stamped postal cards (but since postcards only cost $0.28 to send, I’m assuming they’re ironically not  stamped with the Simpsons stamps)
• Individual 11×14 inch giclée art prints of each stamp, matted
• A family set of giclée art prints, 11×20 inches, matted and framed

So, if you have an extra $250, you can get all of that for your stamp and/or Simpsons collection. I know, I know, it cuts into your Qee budget. But if you’re a real fan, you know that “budget” is synonymous with “oppression” and not even something called “therapy” could help quell your desire to acquire everything SIMPSONS. (And that’s probably why Matt Groening has issued you a restraining order.)

Since I’m not that “real” of a fan, the only stamp collectibles I’ll probably get are the 4-pack of stamp booklets so that I get each cover. The First Day Covers would be neat, but not top priority. However, if I could convince Ben that we should spend $25 on it instead of a gallon paint to touch up the front of the house, I would really love to have a giclée art print of Lisa.

I wouldn’t call myself a stamp collector, per se, but I do have a small stash of stamps sheets featuring images I love. Maybe someday I’ll tell my uninterested children about why I find them so interesting. I hope that they’ll appreciate commemorative stamp issues like Jim Henson and the Muppets, Marvel superheroes, Hubble telescope, etc. I’m not going to hold my breath. (Since my uninterested children are still imaginary, you’d think that I would imagine them as being interested. But since they’ll likely get half their genes from Ben, I’m a little more realistic. He has a pretty practiced BLANK STARE OF INCREDULITY whenever I get excited about my cool little stamp stash. Or my coin collection, for that matter.)

And on days when I’m feeling optimistic and happy, I can get a good dose of bitterness just by looking at my stash as a record of the rapid price increases of stamps from year to year.

By the way, USPS prices are going up again on May 7 to counter your Simpsons excitement. The standard stamp will increase from 42 cents to 44 cents. So if you still send letters via snail mail, you might want to consider buying some more non-denominated Liberty Bell “forever” stamps.

Don’t hang on to them too long, though, because I estimate that the Forever Stamp Bubble will burst around 2011, when nobody will have any use for any sort of snail mail whatsoever. Because that’s when 3D fax machines (aka Transporters, natch) will make it possible for you to receive that adorable bargain-priced kitten calendar from Aunt Helen over the internet.