Boston 2026’s newest collectible label was released at 1 PM today during a ceremonial presentation about the World Expo on the exhibition floor at the Great American Stamp Show in Cleveland, Ohio.
This third-in-a-series of patriotic-themed promotional “The Road to Boston 2026” labels was again created by award-winning stamp designer Chris Calle, whose artwork will be issued yearly up until show time. Each of the 3,000 sheetlets produced by the Portland Stamp Company contain nine water-activated labels of the same design.
Prominent in the design is the 1973 USPS Boston Tea Party block of four stamps depicting the nighttime raiding of British ships carrying tea that took place on December 16, 1773. Hours earlier 7,000 Bostonians rallied at the Old South Church to protest the tea importation tax imposed by the British with the catchphrase, “No taxation without representation.” Pro-independence leader Samuel Adams assembled 50 colonists in Indian guise that evening to accomplish the symbolic protest. His image is in the lower left of the label alongside the famous “Join, or Die” flag of a segmented snake.
Both the unsigned and a limited edition of 450 artist-signed versions of the sheetlet are available. Orders are currently being accepted through the Boston 2026 web site. Labels 1 and 2 in both formats have been withdrawn.