Zazzle Coin Postage Stamp Order Rejected - Why? The Words "In God We Trust"

This is my design available on Zazzle, displaying those forbidden words: "In God We Trust"

Claiming my stamp design goes against their guidelines, Zazzle has rejected my order. This is especially strange because I have ordered stamps with this design before. The stamp contains an image of a U.S. Oregon Trail commemorative coin. Designed by the U.S. Mint, the coin contains the phrase "In God We Trust". The curious part of this whole story is that the exact same picture has been used many times before, such as on mailings to our customers.
This time, to our extreme surprise, the order was cancelled by Zazzle. Upon questioning Zazzle as to why - we received the following email:

Thank you for contacting our Content Management Team regarding your cancelled order. We would love to print everything that our customers submit, however we must abide by all applicable laws and standards as well as our own content guidelines and copyright policies.

Because Zazzle Custom Stamps are real postage, they are subject to special Appropriate Use Guidelines, detailed at http://zazzle.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/135. One of these restrictions prohibits the printing of any postage with content that advocates or protests any particular religious, social, political, legal, or moral agenda of any person or entity.

In this instance, your custom stamp design(s) contained the text "in god we trust", so we were unable to fulfill your order.

You were sent an e-mail notification with an explanation, however, please accept our apologies if you did not get that e-mail; it may have been routed to your bulk mail folder.

When we cancelled the order, we immediately issued a full refund to the account used to make your purchase. You can expect the returning funds to be available in your account within the next 7-10 business days, depending on the processing speed of the financial institution that authorized the initial transaction.

We certainly apologize for any inconvenience or disappointment that you may have experienced due to this cancellation and we look forward to delighting you with high quality products in the future!

Best Regards,
Content Management Team
Zazzle Inc.

So let me get this straight. Our stamp order was cancelled because we wanted to use a picture of a U.S. legal tender coin that just happened to contain "In God We Trust". Meanwhile, if you search for Zazzle postage stamps containing coin designs, one of my designs is currently listed as popular.

The use of "In God We Trust" is according to Zazzle Policy: "One of these restrictions prohibits the printing of any postage with content that advocates or protests any particular religious, social, political, legal, or moral agenda of any person or entity". Has God gotten so politically incorrect today, that we can't use it on a U.S. Postage Stamp, but can on a U.S. Coin?

Let's take a moment to think about this!

A Blast From The Past 1983 Premier Issue of "Report on ANACS Coins"

PART 1

Many years ago - back in March of 1983 to be exact, we began to publish a newsletter about the ANACS Certified coin market "REPORT OF ANACS COINS". At that time, and for 3 years to come ANACS was the game in the certified coin market, PCGS and NGC were not around.
ANACS protected many collectors and investors from counterfeit and over graded coins. What follows is my editorial from the premier issue of Report on  ANACS Coins. Every few weeks I will share with you, some interesting articles from my 27-year old newsletter. I hope that you will see, as I feel that all these years later this still is as timely and as interesting to read. Your comments are welcome!

Editorial
Robert S. Riemer
Vol. 1 No. 1 (March 1983)


The concept behind this publication, REPORT ON ANACS COINS, is that of a source of news and information for the certified coin collector; and has been in the planning stages for well over a year.
One of the major obstacles in publishing has been getting what felt was very important statistical information from ANACS. I had requested over a year ago that this information, relating to the number of coins in the various grades that have been authenticated and graded by ANACS be released. For example - how many 1909-S VDB cents have been graded MS-65165? I was interested in all grades from AG-3 to a potential MS-70/70.

A year ago at the ANA Board meeting my proposal was voted down. The reason, ANA's computer was not equipped to give that information and more important priorities at that time existed.
Recently, in December 1982 I requested the same information from ANACS, and was told that it was now available for coins graded during the past year. Earlier statistics would be available in a few months, all for a fee based on ANA staff time involved. Upon this agreement, we decided now was the time to publish REPORT ON ANACS COINS. A few weeks later we were told that the ANA Board of governors would have to vote on this issue. As of now, the ANA Board will be voting in late February.

OUR STAND

During the years that I have been involved with certified coins, many collectors have inquired as to the availability of certain coins in various grades. Has ANACS ever graded a Peace dollar MS-67/67? For the ANACS collector this information besides being straight statistics, would tell them if that MS-67167 1924 Peace dollar with ANACS papers does exist.
ANACS has made its mark on Numismatics. It is here to stay. Collectors put their trust behind ANACS' authentication and grading standards, and many do only buy certified coins.
Now is the time for the ANA Board to decide whether or not to unlock these ANACS numbers. The information is there, and we want to be able to report it.

Remember that the above was written back in 1983. ANACS was relatively new and I felt that the population numbers of dates and grading numbers of coins would be interesting to report. Back then, ANACS had other priorities, and compiling these for me was not one of them. Except for a few grade populations release months later, not much of this information was released.

Watch here for future editions of REPORT ON ANACS COINS!
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New Auctions Up Featuring Morgan GSA dollars and Gold

Although ebay is not our favorite venue for selling coins, we do have a new auction listing online. So why do we use it? Despite the multitude of added fees and rules rubbing many sellers the wrong way, including us, the online auction site does have a strong following. As an alternative, we have used ebid in recent months for selling, with the only drawback being the smaller customer base.

But alas, I diverge, as the main reason for this post is to inform you of the GREAT deals we currently have up for auction. I must point out, there is plenty of time to bid for holiday buying! You can check them out here.

Robert Riemer