Monarch

In 2010, the U.S. Postal Service will issue a monarch stamp, the first butterfly stamp design for use on large-size greeting cards. Many cards that require the additional postage will carry an outline of a generic butterfly to suggest to customers that they may want to buy the new butterfly stamp. The Monarch First-Class Surcharge Rate stamps will be published as a pane of twenty.

Nationally acclaimed artist Tom Engeman used images of mounted butterflies to inspire the stamp art he created by computer. The result is a highly stylized, simplified image of a monarch—more the illusion of the butterfly than an exact replica. Engeman, of Bethany Beach, Delaware has designed a long list of stamps for the U.S. Postal Service including the Liberty Bell Forever™ stamp, various stamped cards in the Historical Preservation series, and sixty stamps for the Flags of Our Nation series that began in 2008.