The U.S. Postal Service issued the 50-stamp State Flags pane on February 23, 1976, as part of the Bicentennial Series.
Each stamp in the pane displayed the flag of one U.S. state. The stamps also carried the American Bicentennial logo and the words “BICENTENNIAL ERA 1776-1976,” linking the state designs to the national anniversary.
The State Flags pane was one of several major 1976 issues. On January 1, the Postal Service had released three stamps based on Archibald Willard’s painting The Spirit of ’76. Later that year, on July 4, it issued a strip of four stamps showing part of John Trumbull’s Declaration of Independence painting.
The broader Bicentennial Series began in 1971 with a stamp displaying the celebration’s logo. It continued through commemorative issues about the American Revolution and concluded in 1983 with a stamp marking the Treaty of Paris. The State Flags pane is sometimes confused with the separate 1976 stamp issues devoted to Revolutionary War paintings.