This stamp design promoted the World Columbian Stamp Expo '92, an large philatelic exhibition conducted later in the year in Chicago. The design itself utilizes part of the design of one of the first U.S. commemorative stamps, the Columbians of 1893, the Landing of Columbus. Because of the popularity of significance of that early set of postage stamps to stamp collectors in the United States, and the fact that the stamp series was issued at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, it was appropriate that such a stamp exhibition be mounted on the 500th anniversary of Columbus's first voyage to the New World.