Otters in Snow Forever First Class Postage Stamps

The Otters in Snow booklet came out in 2021, and it is a winter stamp without being a holiday stamp. Four scenes run through the book of 20: one river otter surfacing through the ice, two coming down a snowbank on their backs, and one standing chest-deep in a drift looking straight out at you. John Burgoyne drew them in pen and ink, with watercolor in shades of brown for the otters and black crosshatching for the shadows; Derry Noyes was the art director. At stamp size the crosshatching still reads clearly, which is harder to pull off than it sounds.

These are Forever stamps, so the 58¢ they were worth when they were issued still covers a one-ounce letter at the current 82¢ rate, with no extra postage to add. Most people reach for them in January and February, once the Christmas stamps are put away but there is still a card that needs something other than a flag on it — late thank-you notes, birthday cards, anything going out in the middle of winter. They also save you from putting a Santa on a business envelope in December.