Tahoe man's vintage boat to be featured on U.S. stamp

CARNELIAN BAY - Tom Turner never imagined his old wooden boat would be immortalized on a postage stamp.

The U.S. Postal Service wrote him three months ago asking whether he'd be interested in having his 33-foot boat, christened the Dispatch, in a stamp series titled "Vintage Mahogany Speedboats." Turner is one of four area residents whose boats will be featured next summer on the stamps.

The series of 16 first-class stamps will feature images of the Dispatch; the Duckers, a 1954 Chris-Craft from Loomis, Calif.; the Frolic, a 1915 Hutchinson Brothers launch from Danville, Calif.; and the famous Thunderbird (a custom-designed 1955 vessel moored at the Thunderbird Lodge on Tahoe's east shore, and still one of the fastest and biggest boats on the lake.

"This is the wooden motorboat capital of the world," said Mark Saunders, a community-relations specialist with the Postal Service.

Saunders arrived in Carnelian Bay Friday to take photographs of the boats for advance publicity.

"The reason we selected these four boats is that we wanted to show the evolution of American mahogany speedboats," Saunders said. "We're hoping to ... get people interested in boating and maybe stamp collecting."

The stamps were the brainchild of Carl Herrman, one of six Postal Service art directors and the only one of the West Coast.

Herrman, who has more than 400 stamp designs to his name, first floated the idea of doing a wooden boat series to the Citizen Stamp Advisory Committee's subject board three years ago.

Herrman's stamp portfolio includes a series of sports cars from the 1950s, Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe, Dr. Seuss and D.C. Comics superheroes.

"I try to find things that are icons of American culture, such as movies, cars, boats, etc., and fortunately they translate beautifully into stamps," said Herrman. "I'm a real aficionado of American design ... I thought we should do something on speedboats, particularly because they are pieces of art like sculpture and need to be in (the stamp) program."

Turner, the owner of Gar Woods Grille & Pier in Carnelian Bay and Riva Grille in South Lake Tahoe, purchased the Dispatch, which was built in 1931, in 1995.

"These boats are treasures," Turner said. "They come from a timeless era, and it plays into Lake Tahoe."

The Postal Service will release the stamps' designs on its Web site, www.usps.gov, this month, with an official unveiling ceremony slated for summer when the stamps enter circulation.

The ceremony's location has yet to be announced.

"If it was up to me, I'd say the unveiling should be in Tahoe," Herman said.

• Contact Tom Meyer at 831-4666, ext. 112, or tmeyer@tahoebonanza.com.