Mighty Mississippi Forever First Class Postage Stamps

The Mississippi runs 2,300 miles from a shallow outflow at Lake Itasca in Minnesota to the Gulf, and the stamps follow it - through the Driftless Area in Wisconsin, past the effigy mounds in Iowa, past what is left of Cahokia in Illinois, which was the largest city in North America before Europeans arrived. The set treats the river as a route through American history rather than as scenery.

It sells hardest in the ten states the river touches, where it functions as a regional stamp, and to historical societies, river conservation groups and museums along its length. For general mail it is a landscape set with more behind it than most. Sheets of 20. Cahokia is the detail most people stop on - at its height it held more people than London did at the same date. Forever value applies, so a sheet holds its worth against the one-ounce rate for as long as it sits in the drawer.