Flag Stamp with 14 Stripes

Posted by Miss Cellania in Everything Else on August 6, 2008 at 9:36 am


The US flag has 13 stripes, to represent the original 13 colonies. The United States Postal Service always has stamps that depict the flag, although the design changes occasionally. On April 18, a new set of stamps were released, featuring four paintings of flags at different times of the day. The set is called “Flags 24/7″. But wait! How many stripes does the fourth flag image have?

In the magnified view of the stamp image, there are 6 more stripes visible, before the image is clipped off. The small area located in the lower-left corner of the design is clearly white. By counting the stripes below the blue canton, starting with the white stripe (number 8) it is very evident that there is a 14th stripe and it is white.

This raises an even further design issue … if the flag was bounded by red stripes as the top-most and bottom-most stripes, which every flag issued by the United States since the founding of the country in 1776 has been, it would leave one to think that the flag on the stamp, if it followed the usual red stripe convention, would actually have had 15 stripes!

If the Postal Service is forced to change the design, these stamps may become collectors items. Link -via the Presurfer


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COMMENT

9 comments to "Flag Stamp with 14 Stripes"

  1. Miss Cellania
    August 6th, 2008 at 9:43 am

    Hmm, looks like we had an automatic html conversion to a smiley! But I don't want to change a quote, so there you are. It's 8 followed by ).

  2. RevRagnarok
    August 6th, 2008 at 10:28 am

    Smooooth.... BTW, Miss C - you can try 8) or some other empty tag to "break" the smiley engine.

  3. RevRagnarok
    August 6th, 2008 at 10:29 am

    Heh... that didn't display... but worked. I said 8<B></B>)... (this needs previews).

  4. Joe Red
    August 6th, 2008 at 11:14 am

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but from 1795-1818, the flag had 15 stripes. Originally they had planned to add a star and a stripe for each state, but eventually they reverted to the original thirteen stripes while still adding a star.

  5. Alex
    August 6th, 2008 at 12:33 pm

    Fixed that for you, Miss C.

  6. RevRagnarok
    August 6th, 2008 at 4:13 pm

    (This may be a repost, it was at least an hour ago when I last tried.)

    Joe is correct, however the star field that is shown clearly shows it being more than 15. See Wikipedia.

  7. JC
    August 6th, 2008 at 11:41 pm

    I think they are already a collector´s item. I would like to hear the artist´s explanation.

  8. ted
    August 7th, 2008 at 5:45 am

    Maybe it's in front of the white stripe of another flag.

  9. PGS
    August 7th, 2008 at 12:07 pm

    I think the 14th stripe must represent the "state of confusion" we are currently experiencing in America due to our current administration. This design flaw is almost poetic irony.


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