A special stamp ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda on Monday will kick off Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday celebration.

The U.S. Postal Service will release four new Lincoln stamps on to commemorate the life of the Great Emancipator. The stamps depict Lincoln as a rail splitter, lawyer, politician and president.

Springfield, Ill., the place the Lincoln family called home for 17 years, will be the first place in the nation to sell the four stamps Monday.

However, Lincoln, Neb., the largest city in the world named for Abraham Lincoln, will hold its own first-day of sale ceremony at 10 a.m. in the Rotunda. The event is sponsored by the Lincoln Post Office and the Lincoln Stamp Club.

During the ceremony, Heineman will proclaim Feb. 9-22 as “Celebrate Abraham Lincoln Days For All Nebraska Residents.” David Failor, head of the U.S. Postal Service’s stamp services division in Washington, D.C., will be a featured guest, along with Lincoln postmaster Kerry Kowalski and Mayor Chris Beutler.

The city of Lincoln is planning a series of special events, capped by a free lecture by Pulitzer Prize-winner/historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, to celebrate its namesake and Beutler has declared Feb. 11-15 as “Celebrate Abraham Lincoln Days in Lincoln.”

In honor of the bicentennial, the Lincoln Stamp Club and the Lincoln Post Office will offer special stamp covers that can be bought by collectors and the public.

Two of the covers — commemorating the first day of sale of the four new Lincoln stamps and Lincoln’s 200th birthday — will be available at the city’s Lincoln celebration events Feb. 11-15. Two other covers feature statues of Lincoln found at the State Capitol and the County-City Building.

Each cover will include a brief biography of Abraham Lincoln and a short history of how the city of Lincoln got its name. The inserts were written by local historian Jim McKee.

All four covers will also be sold at the Lincoln Stamp Club’s annual LINPEX stamp show Feb. 21-22 at the University Place Inn, 5250 Cornhusker Highway. There will also be stamp displays and a movie about Lincoln. Admission is free.

For information about the city’s 10 Score events visit: www.lincoln.ne.gov/.