Saroyan

William Saroyan was a Twentieth Century writer from California, born of Armenian parents from Turkey. After his father died when he was three year old, he was put in an orphanage until he was eight, when he was returned to his mother. That seems to have had an emotional toll on him as he drank and gambled much of his adult life, and had a difficult marriage.

Saroyan was a successfull and prolific writer, writing plays, short-stories, and novels. He was very passionate about his writing: he wrote fast and did very little correcting afterwards. He despised being edited or rewritten: he seemed to have had contempt for others. He wrote in 1939 a play called, The Time of Your Life, which was very successful, winning him a Pulitzer Price which he refused to accept because he didn’t feel commerce should judge art. IN 1943, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios hired him to write a screenplay for a movie called, The Human Comedy. He wrote a few hundred pages, which the producer complained and asked him to shorten. Instead, Saroyan quit and turned it into a novel, which was published when the movie was released. He still won an Academy Award from the movie for Best Story.

Note

For some reason Leuchtturn has started putting text above each stamp describing it. Part of me likes that, but it makes it difficult to make adjustments. For instance, on this page I’d like to move the Vermont stamp to the third spot on the second row, so I can shift the two stamps of people over to the left. Then in my table listing the stamps, I would have all three Famous Americans together under the same heading. I like to be tidy.

Incidentally, regarding the basketball stamp at the end of the second row, there’s more information on that and it’s inventor on a much earlier page: see Naismith.

Contains 11 spots: own 11 – 11 unused, 0 used.
Page is finished.
Album or Web Page Last changed Jul 24, 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
1.1	✓	2561	District of Columbia	29c (sep 1991) comm., multicolor
1.2	✓	2538	William Saroyan	29c (may 1991) comm., multicolor
2.1	✓	2533	Vermont Statehood	29c (mar 1991) comm., multicolor

Famous Americans

2.2	✓	2550	Cole Porter	29c (jun 1991) comm., multicolor
2.3	✓	2567	Jan E. Matzeliger	29c (sep 1991) comm., multicolor
2.4	✓	2560	Basketball	29c (aug 1991) comm., multicolor
3.1	✓	2534	Savings Bonds	29c (apr 1991) comm., multicolor
3.2	✓	2551	S.W. Asia Service Medal	29c (jul 1991) comm., multicolor
3.3	✓	2552	S.W. Asia Service Medal	29c (jul 1991) comm., multicolor
3.4	✓	2558	American Numismatic Assoc	29c (aug 1991) comm., multicolor

United Nations & Other Nations

4.1

✓

2532

Swiss Confederation

50c (feb 1991)
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.