Page 22 - Demo

Nuclear Weapons of the Atomic AgeA Florida attorney, Mark Warda, was the first individual to create Cinderella stamps in protest of the government%u2019s cancelling of the atomic-bomb postage stamp. The idea came about after he read an article about the controversy in the December 3, 1994 issue of the St. Petersburg Times. Because Mark owned a hundred-year old stamp perforating machine, he was in a good position take on the project. After consulting a local printer, he went to the the library and photocopied pictures of a mushroom cloud, then created the artwork for a two-color Protest Stamp.On a single sheet, Mark created two designs, which would be cut apart after printing (image below). The upper design had a block of 20 stamps (in 5 rows, each having 4 stamps), which he would perforate so they could be separated and used as protest labels on envelopes. The lower design was of a Miniature Sheet, with four stamps, fake perforations, and text explaining his reasons for making the stamps. After delivering his artwork to the printer, Mark realized that the full sheets of 20 would require stiffening cardboard, large envelopes, and additional postage. So he decided to trim down the blocks of 20 stamps into smaller sheets that could mailed in a standard business envelope for 29%u00a2. This yielded two blocks of 8 stamps (in 2 rows of 4), plus an extra row of four stamps at the bottom, which he used on his own mailings. Later, he decided to offer the blocks of 20, despite the increased shipping costs.Two weeks after reading the article in the St. Petersburg Times, Mark picked up his stamps from the printer, and on December 19th he mailed News Releases to a couple of dozen news outlets and several stamp-collecting publications.At first, orders for Mark%u2019s protest stamps trickled in, then one day he got a call from the Post Office to stop by and pick up a tray of letters, which contained 138 orders. It didn%u2019t take long before he needed to have additional stamps printed. He also purchased a used letter-opening machine, but one part of his operation couldn%u2019t be speeded up%u2014perforating the stamps, because each row of perforations required a separate setup, and the machine could only punch through 5 sheets at a time. Because Mark had mentioned in a News Release that he was donating a portion of his profits to the Japanese victims of the atomic blasts, some of his customers (many of whom were WWII veterans) wrote to say Japan didn%u2019t deserve the help because they started the war. After learning that the Japanese government was already taking care of its victim%u2019s needs, he sent his donations to a group that helped Korean POWs who were atomic victims, and also to the National Association of Atomic Veterans in the U.S.Articles about Mark%u2019s Protest Stamps began to appear in newspapers across the U.S., as well from as from as far away as Japan, China, Denmark, and Germany. With his stamp%u2019s popularity growing, other people began producing their own Protest Stamps. Someone even made a counterfeit version of Mark%u2019s stamp, but in a single color%u2014red. The popularity also prompted Mark to create variations on his original design, and some additional new stamps. Examples of most are contained herein. Mark eventually shipped over 30,000 stamps.Warda Protest Stamp, 1995