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For broadcast on CBS Radio Network stations November 1-2, 2003:

Changing of the Guard.

The Stamp Collecting Report, I'm Lloyd de Vries.

Before any stamp gets to your post office, its subject and design go through a group 
of volunteers called the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee. The 15 members range 
from celebrities to college professors, from artists to government officials.

It provides a buffer between interest groups and the Postal Service.

Even stamps ordered by Congress or the Postmaster General go through the committee, 
which gets about 50-thousand requests a year for subjects. While C-SAC doesn't always 
have the final word on WHETHER a stamp will be issued, it does have oversight on the 
designs, and it initiates many of the subjects.

Several members of the Committee are stamp collectors, and it includes a past president 
of the nation's largest stamp collecting group, the American Philatelic Society.

Some members have served for nearly 30 years, but now there's a limit of 12 years to 
their tenures. The most senior members will retire from C-SAC, at the rate of about 
one per year.

And that's stamp collecting this week. 

I'm Lloyd de Vries, CBS News. 


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