Dear Mr. SOROS,
I WILL PERUSE YOUR IMAGE FOR HIDDEN BATS! (PS -- Don't misconstue
gender issues!!! Everything is entirely "normal". Relax.) M.M.J.
October 16, 1997
SECRET MESSAGES FOUND ON STAMPS
Filed at 1:23 p.m. EDT
By The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Captain Midnight is gone, but the post office is preserving a bit of nostalgia from his era: the secret message decoder.
The U.S. Postal Service is offering just the thing for now-grown children who saved cereal box tops for the captain's secret decoder rings in the 1950s. Other decoders came from Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, even Capt'n Crunch.
The new decoder isn't a ring, but it does the job by revealing secret messages hidden on some U.S. postage stamps.
''It was done primarily as a anti-counterfeit measure, but we knew that collectors of all kinds would enjoy it as an interesting design element as well,'' said postal spokesman Barry Ziehl.
You normally can't see the hidden image, but the post office is selling decoders to interested people. For $4.95 collectors can get a special lens that reveals the hidden message when placed over the stamp.
''If we had made it a decoder ring it would have been really hot,'' laughed Ziehl. ''We have had serious interest from collectors and the general public.''
The first hidden image was on a 32-cent U.S. Air Force stamp issued in September. With the decoder, viewers can see the letters USAF repeated over and over across the face of the stamp.
It isn't simple, though. The decoder has to be turned slightly from side to side to get the image to appear.
***The five-stamp movie monsters set issued Sept. 30 also has hidden images, such as Dracula's bats and the mask of the Phantom of the Opera seemingly floating across the stamps.***
Ziehl said the agency plans to include images ''on select issues in 1998 and beyond,'' adding that the post office likes to vary its security measures.
The special images prevent counterfeiting because they cannot be reproduced easily. Several countries use the technology to safeguard such documents as stocks, bonds, money and stamps.
The decoder lens is made of acrylic and contains almost a thousand tiny lenses set to a specific focal length to allow the image to be viewed.
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Decoders can be bought only from the Postal Service's Philatelic Fulfillment Service Center, P.O. Box 419636, Kansas City, Mo., 64179, telephone: 1-800-STAMP-24. |
