Blues Postage Stamps

I've been trying to put together a post on blues postage stamps. You know, a little something something for the philatelists who read SML. Oh, and the bluesmen just call them stamp collectors.

But my ability to collect pictures of the blues stamps is not so good. I know that there are many more stamps then the few I have posted here.

Here is what I have come up with so far, I will update my collection when I find more photos of blues stamps.

If you know of any photos that I can post here let me know in a comment.

Bessie Smith Postage Stamp


Muddy Waters Postage Stamp


W.C. Handy Postage Stamp


Ma Rainey Postage Stamp


Josh White Postage Stamp


Robert Johnson Postage Stamp


The Robert Johnson Postage Stamp (I wish I could find a better image) is a really cool one because of the contraversy that sourounds it. It was made using the photo booth image (read all about it here). According to the article;

The cigarette that dangles from Johnson’s lips was famously removed at the order of the USPS, an interesting change that is analyzed in great detail in Patricia Schroeder’s excellent 2004 work Robert Johnson, Mythmaking, and Contemporary American Culture. In order to accommodate the dimensions of the stamp, Johnson’s guitar and hand are also moved slightly, and the drapery background of the original portrait becomes a wall of shingles in stamp designer Julian Allen’s version.

And others also called foul, and claimed that the postal service was Sanitizing History On a Postage Stamp.

In 1994 the United States Postal Service removed the cigarette from its picture of blues great Robert Johnson so no one would doubt where it stood on smoking.