23c Wilma Rudolph stamp

The 23-cent Wilma Rudolph definitive stamp was issued on July 14, 2004, in Sacramento, California. Richard Sheaff of Scottsdale, Arizona designed the stamp.

This fifth issuance in the Distinguished Americans Series honors Wilma Rudolph, a woman who overcame a childhood plagued by serious illness to become one of the nation's greatest athletes.

Artist Mark Summers created the portrait for the stamp using as a reference a photograph of Rudolph taken after she won three gold medals at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome. Summers also created the stamp art for the first four issuances in the Distinguished Americans series: Joseph W. Stilwell (2000), Claude Pepper (2000), Hattie W. Caraway (2001), and Edna Ferber (2002).

The Wilma Rudolph stamp was issued in a pressure-sensitive adhesive (PSA) pane of twenty stamps (100 million stamps by the offset/intaglio), a PSA vending booklet of ten stamps (40,495,000 stamps by the offset), and a PSA convertible booklet of ten stamps (300 million stamps by the offset). Ashton-Potter (USA), Ltd., produced the stamps in all three formats.

Reference: Postal Bulletin (June 10, 2004).

Scott Catalogue USA: 3422
mint

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Museum ID: 2005.2003.20