On July 23, 2009, in Biloxi, Mississippi, the Postal Service issued the 44-cent Gulf Coast Lighthouses commemorative stamps in five designs. The stamps feature the following subjects: Matagorda Island, Sabine Pass, Biloxi, Sand Island, and Fort Jefferson.
Howard E. Paine of Delaplane, Virginia, designed the stamps. These stamps continued the popular series of lighthouse stamps by Artist Howard Koslow. Each stamp features an original acrylic painting by Koslow based on recent photographs of the lighthouses. Koslow also painted the five Pacific Lighthouses stamps issued in 2007; Southeastern Lighthouses stamps issued in 2003; the Great Lakes Lighthouses stamps issued in 1995; and the five stamps in the 1990 lighthouses booklet.
The stamps were issued in a pressure-sensitive adhesive (PSA) pane of twenty stamps and a booklet of twenty stamped postal cards. Ashton Potter produced 100 million stamps using the offset process.
Reference: Postal Bulletin (June 18, 2009).
