I Miss Trout Stamps

[Phil Lilley]

I have more hidden someplace in the house. I know I put back more pages of trout stamps.

[Danoinark]

Wow, Phil now that is one neat collection...I wish I had kept all the ones I have had over the years...

I could not find anything about the old Arkansas Stamps other than the one I posted at the start of the thread. Here is a link to a Mo artist that designed a couple. Go to this site and click on stamps.

http://www.eileenmelton.net/

Dano

[MTM]

Nice collection Phil. Bet I got a new one for you. Here in Montana we do not have a trout stamp. But we do have a warmwater stamp. For all fish like Bass Walleye and such. They built a new hatchery for those tyes of fish and that is how they are paying for it LOL. I think we are the only state that has such a stamp. Ron

[BWO]

Wow, those stamps are amazing, her in OK all I can remember is something that looked like an S&H green stamp, no colorful artwork.

They are really something to look at.

[strangercreek]

cool pictures. This is a little off the topic but I was setting up a network at a client's home office the other day and he is apparently an avid hunter. He had a framed illustration of past duck stamps on the wall. It was really cool, they went all the way back to the 1940s. Same type of deal, each one had a very distinct image on it.

I would like to find something like that with the trout stamps.

[Al Agnew]

Sorry I didn't find this post until Dano just messaged me about it...

Charlie Schwartz designed all the MO trout stamps until 1983, when they made it a competition. Terry Martin won the first competition, which was the rainbow lying in the grass in the pictures above. I entered the contest for the 1984 stamp and won it, with a brown trout underwater. I entered again in 1987, when the requirements were that there had to be a historical context to the design, and won that one with a brown lying in gravel with an old cane fly rod and in the background, some sepia-tone depictions of stocking trout from old trucks and milk cans. Those were the only ones I entered, though I helped judge at least one other contest.

I think they stopped the stamp program at the same time that the licensing became computerized as it is now, with a print-out license. It was easier and cheaper to just print out the trout permit on the list of permits you were purchasing. After all, printing the stamps entailed some expense. There was a print program to go along with the stamps, but the artist was responsible for getting the prints produced.

When I won the first one, I was just starting out as a professional artist. In fact, winning it was a lot of what gave me the confidence (probably misplaced) to try to make it as an artist. I thought I'd make a bunch of money off the sale of the prints. Alas, Missouri's trout stamp program was not much of a money maker for the artist.

I was commissioned to do that Arkansas stamp...it wasn't a contest. By that time I'd won the 1984 and 87 MO, and also had designed the Texas saltwater conservation stamp, so I was contacted by the guy who ran the print program in conjunction with AR F&G, as I remember he was responsible for "picking" who would design the stamp. There was an edition of prints produced from that one, along with the sales posters. I suspect that you may be able to find somebody who wants to sell their print if you search the web.

Eventually, I ended up winning the first Nevada trout stamp (the only one I ever made a significant amount of money from), along with being commissioned to do two California stamps, and winning the Illinois stamp contest one year. The Nevada was of a Lahontan cutthroat, which I'd never seen, and I designed it from photos I obtained secondhand from the Nevada Fish and Game Department. The California stamps were of a golden trout and a steelhead. The Illinois was of a coho salmon. the only two contests I entered and didn't win were Nevada a few years later when they wanted a lake trout, and Illinois the first time I entered it. That one was interesting. I did what I thought was a very good rainbow (better than the coho I won with the next year). On the day of the judging I got a call from the Illinois people. Here is what was said:

"Mr. Agnew, we have some good news and some bad news for you."

"Okay...what's the good news?"

"You tied for first place in the trout stamp judging!"

"So...what's the bad news?"

"Well, we decided it by flipping a coin, and you lost."

True story!

[Phil Lilley]

I'm bidding on one of Al's stamps on ebay.

After getting out my collection the other day, I've bought a dozen or more stamps off ebay- it really is alot of fun. Hope to collect them all (Al's at least).

Here's another.

[Danoinark]

Phil, I saw that on Ebay

[troutgal]

Sorry I'm late on this one, but here's a fill in on the 84 trout stamp, as well as a couple more duck stamps. I have all of the duck stamps from 64-84 if anyone's interested in seeing any, let me know and I'll post some more.