About This Stamp
An 8.4-cent coil stamp featuring a 1920s wheel chair was issued on August 12, 1988, in Tucson, Arizona. The dedication ceremony was in the courtyard of the Veterans Administration Medical Center, which serves as the central distribution point for philatelic material and information regularly sent to individual and groups of veterans interested in stamp collecting. The 8.4-cent denomination met the single-piece rate for third-class bulk mailings prepared by nonprofit organizations.
With an increasing number of disabled veterans, traffic and industrial accident victims, and lifesaving improvements in medicine and surgery came a new awareness of the problems facing the permanently disabled. Concern for the special requirements of the handicapped resulted in the development of rehabilitative equipment, more in a few short years than in the previous century. Many practical innovations applied to the wheel chair.
Improvements to the wheel chair have been a basic part of the research and development efforts of the Veterans Administration and other handicap organizations. They contributed to a number of changes in 1980s, including the publishing of performance and safety standards and innovative design features, such as seat cushions that reduce pressure sores, longer-lasting sealed bearings in the main wheel hub, die-cast "mag" wheels eliminating maintenance and replacement problems, and improved motor control systems.
Designed by Chris Calle, the stamps were engraved through the intaglio process (B Press) by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, with coils of 500 and 3,000 (pre-canceled only).