A2202

American Sign Language

 I Love You In Sign Language

Collins Cover Announcement 

DEAF COMMUNICATION

Two distinct and different hand-painted cachets were designed for this pair of new stamps recognizing deaf communication. The first stamp features a mother signing "I Love You" to her newborn baby and the second shows American sign language for "I Love You". Many organizations representing deaf Americans were involved in the planning and design of the new stamps and in coordinating the First Day of Issue ceremony. They included the National Institute of Deafness, the National Institute of Health, the National Association of the Deaf, and the National Center on Deafness. Also involved was the Postal Association which represents about 2500 deaf postal employees.

My cachet for the "Mother and Baby" stamp features a teacher working with a young hearing impaired student. It is in an elementary school classroom setting and the emotional bond between the pupil and his teacher is readily apparent. Also pictured is an old-fashioned ear trumpet as a reminder as to how far research, technology and treatment have advanced in this area. The second cover provides something a little different. Wanting to build on the straight-forward and dirct design on the stamp, I show seven hands and each of them is signing one of the seven letters spelling "COLLINS". I thought it was a very appropriate and direct way to link the communication aspect to cover collecting and more specifically to COLLINS Cachet collecting. The title text in this cachet is hand painted in several vivid colors.

Two nice representative covers for recognizing deaf communications. Mother and Infant (A2201) and Signing "I Love You" (A2202). $10.75 each.