Old wine in a new bottle !

A cover with vintage stamps of USA ! 

Issue date : Nov, 6, 1961

The stamp commemorates basketball and the 100th anniversary of the birth of James Naismith, who invented the game. Naismith is not pictured on the stamp, although his name and birth year are inscribed. Instead, a close-up view of a “lay-up” shot is shown. 

 Basketball inventor James Naismith was born on November 6, 1861 in Almonte, Ontario, Canada.  Naismith struggled in school, but enjoyed spending time outside, playing catch, hide-and-seek, and other games.  He was orphaned at a young age and was raised by his aunt and uncle.

Naismith enrolled in McGill University in 1883.  He was an athletic person, playing Canadian football, lacrosse, rugby, soccer, and gymnastics for the school.  Naismith earned his degree in Physical Education and became McGill’s first director of athletics.

In 1891, Naismith left McGill to work as a physical education teacher at the YMCA International Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts.  During his time there, Naismith was in charge of boisterous class that could only play indoor games during the cold New England winter.  The students grew rowdy, leading the school’s director, Dr. Luther Gulick, to give Naismith a special task.  He gave him 14 days to create a new game to be played indoors that would provide an “athletic distraction.”  The game couldn’t require too much space, should help to keep track athletes in shape, and “make it fair for all players and not [be] too rough.”    

To begin designing this new game, Naismith first considered the popular games of the time – rugby, lacrosse, soccer, football, hockey, and baseball.  He believed that some of these sport balls were dangerous, but that a big, soft soccer ball would be the safest.  Next, Naismith considered the fact that most of the physical contact in these games happened when players ran with the ball, dribbled, or hit it.  So he decided that the ball could only be passed, again to make it safer.  Naismith’s third idea to keep the game safe was that the goal should be unguardable, so he placed it above the players’ heads.

It’s been claimed that once he developed the basic ideas for the game, Naismith wrote out the 13 rules in about an hour.  For the first games played in December 1891, Naismith used old peach baskets from the school cafeteria.  He soon found it cumbersome to have someone remove the ball from the baskets throughout the game, so he decided to cut the bottom off of the basket, so the ball could fall through.   According to Naismith’s account, the students didn’t quite grasp all the rules at first.  

Eventually the students grasped the rules and there were no more injuries. The game proved popular and Naismith soon decided to publish the rules to share with more people.  So on January 15, 1892, he published the 13 rules of basketball in The Triangle, a local physical education journal.  

Basketball (some wanted to call it Naismith Ball, but its creator refused) continued to grow in popularity. 

Naismith went on to receive an honorary Physical Education Masters degree in 1910.  He patrolled the Mexican border for four months in 1916, visited France, wrote two books, and became an American citizen in 1925.  Naismith never wanted fame or recognition for creating basketball, but he did get some satisfaction in seeing it made an official Olympic sport at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.
Naismith died three years after on November 28, 1939.  Among his many honors are the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts and several different Naismith awards. 
 

The stamp commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Pony Express. The Pony Express was a high-speed (for the time) mail service from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California.

In 1860, mail contractor Ben Holladay joined forces with the Russell, Majors and Waddell freight company to create a mail-carrying company that would be faster and more efficient than the stagecoaches of the Butterfield Overland Mail. Holladay established 200 stations 25 miles apart along a 1,900-mile trail from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California. He bought 500 of the fastest horses he could find and hired 80 daring riders to begin service on the Pony Express on April 30, 1860. 

These riders carried the mail 75 miles every day, picking up a rested horse at each stop, riding non-stop, day and night, rain or shine. This route could be completed in eight days, which was 12 to 14 days faster than the Overland Mail. The fastest trip was seven days, when riders delivered the news of Abraham Lincoln’s presidential election in November of that year. Initially, it cost $5 to send a letter between San Francisco and St. Joseph, Missouri, but that charge was later reduced to $1. Some famous Pony Express riders included Wild Bill Hickock and Buffalo Bill Cody.

The completion of the first trans-continental telegraph line in October 1861 brought about the Pony Express’ decline, just 19 months after it was created.

Issue date :September 22, 1958 

This stamp was issued in Columbia, Missouri, to honor the 50th anniversary of the founding of the first school of journalism in the U.S.  The school was founded in 1908 at the University of Missouri. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees journalists a free press.

Thomas Jefferson was a strong supporter of the Freedom of the Press, and frequently expressed his opinion on its importance. In one letter to the Marquis de Lafayette in 1823, Jefferson wrote, “The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure.” 

Issue Date : June 22, 1956 

This stamp was the second of three stamps commemorating Wildlife Conservation in America.

The Pronghorn Antelope first became known to Americans during the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Its name can lead to confusion, as it is neither an antelope or a deer. Its scientific name, Antilocapra Americana, means “American antelope goat” – but it’s not a goat, either. Instead, it belongs to its own scientific classification. It is a species of artiodactyl mammal indigenous to interior western and central North America. It is the only surviving member of the family Antilocapridae.

Before the arrival of European settlers, the pronghorn population was an estimated 25 million. By 1920, that number had fallen to about 17,000. Conservation efforts have helped the pronghorn antelope increase to approximately half a million today.

During the World Stamp Show in New York 2016, the USPS issued six beautiful new forever stamps. The stamps bear a design closely resembling the design of six mid-19th century stamps. The USPS is calling the set “Classics Forever”. George Washington is portrayed on three of the stamps, Benjamin Franklin on two, and Abraham Lincoln on one.

Washington stamp issued in 1851 

Franklin stamp issued in 1851 

Thanks ES for this wonderful cover - that talks so much about US history in a very modern cover ! And thanks so much for the WW1 USA poster stamp inside the cover :)