New States

For this page, I’d like to assess three state flags: Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona.

Keep It Simple

All three designs are simple. I’mn ot sure which is the simplest: New Mexico with its golden field and the simple sun symbol; or is it the the Arizona flag with a large star and streams of red and gold rays, with a dark blue bottom. As for the test of being simple enough for child to be able to draw from memorary, that might be Colorado with a large white horizontal stripe on a dark blue field, with a large red C and a yellow circle in the middle.

Use Meaningful Symbolism

In this catagory, New Mexico wins by using a simple, but historic symbol of the sun. It’s a symbol from the Zia people, a native pueblo people of New Mexico. The sun symbol may seem complicated, but when you study it and understand its meaning, you can remember and draw it easily. Like light rays from the sun, there are four sets of four lines each. Each set represents the cardinal directions of the compass. For each set, there’s one line for the parts of the day: morning, mid-day, evening, and night. Another line is included in each set for each season: Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. And there’s a line representing stages of one’s life: childhood, youth, adulthood, and old age. Last is the goal of maintaining a healthy life: a strong body, a clear mind, a pure spirit, and a devotion to the welfare of others.

Use a Few Basic Colors

On this point, New Mexico wins with two colors. Colorado has four colors, three if you don’t count white. Arizona has four colors, all of them dark – which is unappealing.

No Lettering or Seals

None of these have seals, and only one has lettering. Colorado has a single letter, the C for the state name. I’m undecided on that point, whther the C is good or bad. Is the yellow circle in the middle actually an O, making two letters: CO, the postal code for Colorado?

Be Distinctive or Be Related

All three are fairly distinctive. The use of a single star can be found on a few flags, so Arizona loses points for that – but that relates it to the neighboring state of Texas and the stars on the U.S. flag. The large blue and white stripes on the Colorado flag are similar to the Missouri flag and others.

Based on all of this, I think New Mexico has the best flag on this page, perhaps better than California and Maryland. I said Maryland was best on the first page of this set of stamps in that from a classic flag assessment, it wins. Allowing for modern styles, New Mexico wins in my opinion.

Note

This page includes stamps of flags for newer states like Hawaii and Alaska, as well as Arizona and New Mexico. That’s why they have more modern design, but more importantly, they learned from previous states with drab flags. I saw they’re modern, the New Mexico flag is a hundred years old. Still, it looks fresh and new.

Contains 16 spots: own 16 – 16 unused, 0 used.
Page is finished.
Album or Web Page Last changed May 5, 2025

Stamp Details

The table below lists information about the stamps shown on this page of Lighthouse’s stamp album. For more details about a particular stamp, click on its description. That will take you to the related web page of Colnect.

spot

own

catalog

subject

description

comment

Flag Series

1.1	✓	1667	West Virginia	13c (feb 1976) comm., multicolor
1.2	✓	1668	Nevada	13c (feb 1976) comm., multicolor
2.1	✓	1669	Nebraska	13c (feb 1976) comm., multicolor
2.2	✓	1670	Colorado	13c (feb 1976) comm., multicolor
2.3	✓	1671	North Dakota	13c (feb 1976) comm., multicolor
3.1	✓	1672	South Dakota	13c (feb 1976) comm., multicolor
3.2	✓	1673	Montana	13c (feb 1976) comm., multicolor
3.3	✓	1674	Washington	13c (feb 1976) comm., multicolor
4.1	✓	1675	Idaho	13c (feb 1976) comm., multicolor
4.2	✓	1676	Wyoming	13c (feb 1976) comm., multicolor
4.3	✓	1677	Utah	13c (feb 1976) comm., multicolor
5.1	✓	1678	Oklahoma	13c (feb 1976) comm., multicolor
5.2	✓	1679	New Mexico	13c (feb 1976) comm., multicolor
5.3	✓	1680	Arizona	13c (feb 1976) comm., multicolor
6.1	✓	1681	Alaska	13c (feb 1976) comm., multicolor
6.2	✓	1682	Hawaii	13c (feb 1976) comm., multicolor

Footnotes

Spot refers to the postion of the stamp on the album page (e.g., 3.2 indicates row 3, position 2).
Amt. is an abbreviation for the face amount of the stamp.
Own indicates the stamp status: ✓ for unused; ✗ for used or canceled; ⭑ signifies I ordered one; ; ✨ indicates it was bought recently; ✠ means an auction bid is pending; and ◎ is used, and it costs too much for unused.
To search by catalog number, go to the search box and enter it in the catalog number box. However, it’s a bit broken; I need to fix it.