Polk Stamp Takes A Licking In Sales

A stamp issued last month to mark the bicentennial of the birth of our 11th president is a dud at the post office, where customers instead are snapping up squares of comic-strip characters and Marilyn Monroe.

“It’s too bad, but the James K. Polk stamp is pretty drab,” said Judy Gurkin of the U.S. Postal Service. “It’s the kind of stamp if you put it out there the customer is more likely to say, ‘No, give me the flag.”’

Historians rank Polk, who served from 1845 to 1849, among the nation’s 10 most effective presidents.