Zymoglyphic Museum

Postage Stamps

In 2012, the Zymoglyphic Postal Service (ZyPS) authorized itself to issue official postage stamps. The original authorization was based on the museum’s claim to be the last territorial remnant of the once-proudly-independent Zymoglyphic region, thus qualifying the museum for “micronation” status, and thereby entitled to all the trappings of a sovereign entity.

These stamps are classified as a “local post,” similar those issued by island territories for postal use within the island and to the mainland. The ZyPS postage stamps are valid only for carriage from the museum itself to a US postal receptacle. USPS-approved postage must also be present on one’s correspondence to enable it to continue its journey onward through the surrounding territory of the United States and beyond.

ZyPS also maintains the museum's philatelic collection and produces postcards

	This is issue #1 of the Zymoglyphic Postal Service, a definitive airmail stamp. It features a leatherwing, one of the mysterious flying creatures endemic to the Zymoglyphic region. In this image it seems to dominate the airspace above the region’s busy capital city.
	The wide, placid rivers of the Zymoglyphic lowlands once teemed with aquatic humanoids. This commemorative stamp pays tribute to these doughty chimeras as evolutionary pioneers. Mermaids were revered as creatures partially human and equally animal, at home on the surface of the sea but capable of plumbing its depths, learning its secrets, and possibly sharing them with people if only the people could communicate with them.
	Commemorative stamp celebrating “carrier shells” of the genus Xenophora. These tropical sea snails add shells, stones, and detritus to their shells as they grow. During the Rust age, they were valued for their mystical connections as “messengers from the deep.” During the Age of Wonder, their collections were seen as little samplings of a variety of faraway underwater realms, a sort of natural curiosity cabinet. In the Modern Age, Xenophora have been called “assemblage artists of the deep” for their habit of selecting and arranging natural objects in aesthetic patterns.
	Commemorative stamp honoring the museum’s iconic Guardian Figure, an artifact from the Rust Age of the Zymoglyphic region. The figure appears to be in a defensive posture but is in fact crumbling and exposing its mechanical innards. It was originally supposed to serve as a protector against certain demons, but its fragility and constant state of decay have transformed it into a symbol of the futility of relying on such talismans.
	Sketch artist Pierre Uszynski has captured the museum’s brooding Ancestor Figure, another artifact from the Zymoglyphic Rust Age. Ancestor figures were constructed from various organic materials, symbolizing the reinvestment of deceased ancestors’ parts into new forms. This one is made of bone, decaying wood, cat hair, feathers, mica, and tar.