Bring me your tired, your gamblers, yearning to be free.

More than four months after it was issued, the U.S. Postal Service's "Lady Liberty Forever" stamp is revealed to be an image not of the Lady in the Harbor, but of the replica outside the New York-New York Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

Linn's Stamp News, the U.S. philatelist bible, reports the blunder today.

Apparently, in its frequent use of stock-photo agencies, the USPS settled on a shot from Getty Images without looking carefully enough to see that its selected image of Liberty Enlightening the World, as its French donors called their gift to America for the U.S. centennial, is not a photo of the real statue.

This does seem an odd mistake. As you can see in the comparison below, the 14-year-old replica, dating from the grand opening of the New York-New York casino, has very clearly defined features compared with the weather-worn original at right.

 
At left, a replica of the Statue of Liberty that stands about 100 ft. tall outside the New York-New York Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nev.; and the original Statue of Liberty, about three times' the height of the replica, which has been towering over Liberty Island in New York Harbor for 125 years.

The USPS has no plans to recall the stamp, first issued Dec. 1, 2010. That prevents a windfall for those who've already bought them. By contast, if you'd bought the USPS's 2009 commemorative stamp labeled "Grand Canyon, Colorado," which was promptly recalled, being too egregious an error to live with, you'd have a valuable collector's item.

   
 
The real statue, standing in majestic isolation in New York, and the faux version at the kitschy New York-New York Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

 

Comments

[thebardofmurdock]

Momma Liberty

If you’d like to revamp the new Post Office stamp
And its New York to Vegas fiasco;
If you want a remake ’cause the picture is fake,
Your complaint will be heard ex post facto.

But before you begin, you might think once again
As the error is truly symbolic.
For the U.S. today it does rightly portray:
It’s a liberal-run state parabolic.

Thru the real Ellis Isle did our grandparents file
With America’s dream as their vision.
And they all understood that by hard work they could
Both themselves and their family provision.

But the Vegas we know is about making dough
Through a card game or dice or a lever.
You acquire your pile with a drink and a smile
And with no effort in the endeavor.

If your luck’s lost its game it’s quite easy to claim
Unemployment and welfare assistance.
For the country’s awash in the wealth of the posh:
To the rich you can look for subsistence.

The American dream was replaced with a scheme
By the liberals who stand with Obama.
And it seems that of late in our fresh nanny state
Lady Liberty is our new momma.

[David]

We should understand the stamp as a symbol of liberty as such without arguing about which picture would represent it better. Moreover, the majority of visitors who come to the US automatically associate freedom with the real statue.

[las vegas entertainment deals]

I would like to share to you some good points about stamps.
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination (price) on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side. Postage stamps are purchased from a postal administration or other authorized vendor and are used to pay for the costs involved in moving mail as well as other business necessities such as insurance and registration.
The stamp’s shape is usually that of a small rectangle of varying proportions, though triangles or other shapes are occasionally used. The stamp is affixed to an envelope or other postal cover (i.e., packet, box, mailing cylinder) that the customer wishes to send. The item is then processed by the postal system, where a postmark, sometimes known as a cancellation mark, is usually applied over the stamp and cover; this procedure marks the stamp as used, which prevents its reuse. The postmark indicates the date and point of origin of the mailing. The mailed item is then delivered to the address that the customer has applied to the envelope or cover.
Postage stamps have been carrying the mails of the world to their destinations since the 1840s. Before this time, ink and hand-stamps (hence the word 'stamp'), usually made from wood or cork, were often used to frank the mail and confirm the payment of postage. The first adhesive postage stamp, commonly referred to as the Penny Black, was issued in the United Kingdom in 1840. The invention of the stamp was a part of the attempt to reform and improve the postal system in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, which in the early 19th century was in disarray and rife with corruption. There are varying accounts of the inventor or inventors of the stamp.
Before the introduction of postage stamps, mail in the UK was paid for by the recipient, a system that was associated with an irresolvable problem: the costs of delivering mail were not recoverable by the postal service when recipients were unable or unwilling to pay for delivered items, and senders had no incentive to restrict the number, size, or weight of items sent, whether or not they would ultimately be paid for. The postage stamp resolved this issue in a simple and elegant manner, with the additional benefit of room for an element of beauty to be introduced. Later related inventions include postal stationery such as prepaid-postage envelopes, post cards, lettercards, aerogrammes and wrappers, postage meters, and, more recently, specialty boxes and envelopes provided free to the customer by the U.S. postal service for priority or express mailing.
The postage stamp afforded convenience for both the mailer and postal officials, more efficiently recovered costs for the postal service, and ultimately resulted in a better, faster postal system. With the conveniences stamps offered, their use resulted in greatly increased mailings during the 19th and 20th centuries.Postage stamps during this era were the most popular way of paying for mail, but by the end of the 20th century were rapidly being eclipsed by the use of metered postage and bulk mailing by businesses.[6][7]) The same result with respect to communications by private parties occurred over the last decade of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st due to declining cost of long distance telephone communications and the development and explosive spread of electronic mailing ("e-mail" via the Internet) and bill paying systems had.

[las vegas entertainment deals]

This is a general historical outline of postage stamps and postal history of the United States of America. The page rarely covers the subjects or topical aspects of Postage stamps issues at any length, and only when it is relevant to the issuance of the postage, as some events are solely responsible for the stamp being issued, as is the case with the first Lincoln stamp of 1866, issued on the anniversary of Lincoln's death one year later. This was not a regular issue. The issue was prompted by an event (subject) and only to that extent will the stamp's subject be addressed here.

[Gerard Hagan]

Lady Liberty has never been analyzed in such a fun way.