U.S. Postal Service 2027 Stamps: Sports Icons, Mythical Beasts, and Holiday Themes
The agency announced its upcoming stamp lineup featuring Pat Summitt, Willie Mays, unicorns, and a semipostal supporting childhood cancer research.
By Robert Ward ·
The U.S. Postal Service released its list of stamp subjects for 2027 on Monday, outlining a collection that spans athletic achievement, folklore, seasonal celebrations, and public health initiatives.
The 2027 lineup includes tributes to two major figures in American sports history. Pat Summitt, who spent 38 years as a coach at the University of Tennessee, is honored with a stamp featuring her portrait. She recorded over 1,000 wins and eight national championships during her tenure. The design utilizes an oil-on-primed-linen portrait created by Roberto Parada, with Ethel Kessler serving as the USPS art director.
Baseball player Willie Mays is featured in the 50th installment of the Postal Service’s Black Heritage series. Mays played for the New York and San Francisco Giants during a 23-year career. His stamp depicts him wearing a New York Giants hat and performing a catch from the 1954 World Series. Antonio Alcalá, a USPS art director, designed the stamp using photographs from Getty Images.
The agency also plans to issue a series of stamps depicting mythical creatures, reflecting regional folklore across the United States. The set includes five distinct designs. The Mothman, first reported in West Virginia in 1966, is shown as a flying being with red eyes. The Jackalope, an antlered rabbit created by taxidermist brothers in Wyoming in the 1930s, appears in another stamp. The Squonk, a weeping creature from Pennsylvania lumbermen’s lore, represents anxiety in modern culture. Sasquatch, also known as Bigfoot, is depicted beyond its traditional Pacific Northwest habitat. Champ, a lake monster from New York and Vermont, rounds out the set. Artist Nat Power drew the creatures using bold black linework and vivid colors.
A pane of 16 stamps will feature unicorns in dreamlike forest scenes. Kendra Binney created the mixed-media artwork using watercolor, acrylic, pencil, and digital effects. Derry Noyes designed the stamps for the Postal Service. Another booklet of 20 stamps will showcase close-up color photographs of ten different vegetables, including red onions, Savoy cabbage, purple cauliflower, beech mushrooms, purple asparagus, artichokes, eggplant, rhubarb, and watermelon radish. Renée Comet provided the food photography, and Ethel Kessler designed the stamps.
Seasonal themes are also part of the 2027 release. The Lunar New Year stamp marks the Year of the Goat and is the eighth in a series that began in 2020. Camille Chew created cut-paper masks for the Chinese zodiac animals, and Antonio Alcalá designed the stamp using a photograph by Sally Andersen-Bruce. A Love stamp will use geometric shapes and bright colors inspired by folk art. Lisa Congdon organized the design on a grid, with Greg Breeding providing art direction. A Halloween series will feature friendly depictions of a vampire, a witch, a mummy, and Frankenstein’s monster, drawn by Erick Martinez.
The Postal Service will also issue a semipostal stamp to support biomedical research for childhood cancer. Approximately 15,000 American children and adolescents receive cancer diagnoses each year. The condition is the leading cause of disease-related death for children after infancy. Net proceeds from the stamp surcharge will be donated to the National Institutes of Health. Greg Breeding designed the stamp with original artwork by Chuck Styles.
The announcement provides a preliminary look at the visual designs for these upcoming releases. The Postal Service did not specify exact release dates for each individual stamp in the Monday announcement. The collection aims to cover a wide range of cultural and historical topics for the coming year.
