I love this gorgeous First Day of Issue commemorating the 1777 arrival of the Marquis de Lafayette—all of nineteen—in America to aid in the Patriot war effort. Europe was not always sending its best and Washington pleaded with Franklin and other diplomats to make it stop. I still collect blocks of four for older stamps, but First Day Covers are the only way to go with new releases given that today’s stamps are all self-adhesive. I can only hope that next year or in 2025 we get a release commemorating the bicentennial of Lafayette’s grand tour of 1824-25 when he visited every state in the union on the cusp of the jubilee. Richard Varick as a friend of Lafayette and president of the New York State Society of the Cincinnati did a fair amount to make that trip a success.