Sverige 300th Anniversary of the New Sweden

SVERIGE (Sweden) issued on 8 April 1938 a set of First Day Cover stamps commemorating the 300th anniversary of the New Sweden colony or Nya Sverige Minnet (New Sweden Memory). It featured a specialized  blue ship postmark and first issued in Stockholme.

This particular cover included a set of stamps, including the 5 öre, 15 öre, 20 öre, 30 öre, and 60 öre denominations, all cancelled with a special blue "Stockholm Delaware 1638-1938" postmark.

NEW SWEDEN (Nya Sverige) was a colony of the Swedish Empire between 1638 and 1655 along the lower reaches of the Delaware River in what is now Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Established during the Thirty Years' War when Sweden was a great power, New Sweden was part of the Swedish efforts to colonize the Americas.

From 1638-1655, this forgotten Swedish settlement extended across the Delaware Valley. In addition to being the smallest, least-populated and shortest-lived European colony in the US, it was also the most clandestine.

Despite lasting just 17 years, New Sweden would play a pivotal role in forging the nation's culture to come. New Swedish settlers introduced the most iconic of American frontier buildings: the log cabin. They also brought Lutheran Christianity to the New World, led one of the earliest civilian uprisings in the US colonies and left their mark on two future US cities.