The Postal Service issued the 37-cent, New Mexico Rio Grande Blankets commemorative stamps in four designs in a pressure-sensitive adhesive (PSA) double-sided convertible booklet of twenty on July 30, 2005, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Derry Noyes of Washington, DC designed the stamps. Ashton-Potter, Ltd., produced 420 million stamps (21 million booklets) in the offset process.
For this fifth issuance in the American Treasures Series, art director Derry Noyes chose four nineteenth-century New Mexico Rio Grande blankets. The stamps feature photographs of blankets from the collections of the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico; the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe, New Mexico; and the Taylor Museum, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
The American Treasures Series started with the Amish Quilts (2001), followed by John James Audubon (2002), Mary Cassatt (2003), and Martin Johnson Heade (2004). The series displays beautiful works of American fine art and crafts.
