To commemorate today’s total solar eclipse – the first since 1991, per NASA – Colorado-based Chromatic Technologies, Inc. was tabbed to create a stamp using temperature-activated, color-changing ink that simulates the moon crossing the sun’s path.

CTI’s thermochromic inks allows each stamp – the United States Postal Service (USPS) produced 60 million – to display two images of the sun’s corona during a total solar eclipse, according to CTI founder and CEO, Lyle Small.

When a thumb or finger – 84° F or higher – is placed on the stamp for a few seconds, the lunar surface appears.  

The image reverts to the dark image when cooled to 77° F. and below.

“The rare event of an eclipse has brought out the geeky excitement in all of us [at CTI],” Small said.
 
Per NASA, the eclipse was expected to travel across the U.S., from Oregon to South Carolina, on Aug. 21.
 
“When we had a chance to support the eclipse stamp, it was as if we won a golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory,” Small added.
 
CTI invented an “Image Hide” technology to conceal messages that can be revealed with the touch of a warm finger, per Small.
 
“CTI’s technology offers the ink in screen or flexo, but the ‘Hide UV Flexo’ replaces many screen applications for game pieces,” Small told Ink World. “This radically reduces the cost and allows ‘hide technology’ to economically be printed on hundreds of millions of pieces where screen was not affordable.”
 
The technology is the same process that MolsonCoors, Frito-Lay and Coca-Cola have used.

This was CTI’s first project with the USPS. 

The stamp was originally unveiled at a June 20 ceremony in Laramie, Wyo.
 
When asked about any future products, Small declined to comment, citing “competitive industry circumstances.”
 
The CEO did mention, however, a recently invented solvent-based, glow-in-the-dark and photochromic products; irreversible, heat-activated inks for tamper evidence; freezer indicators; and a high-pressure processing indictor, which Small said is used to assist food companies in complying with FDA Food Safety Modernization Act regulations.




Image courtesy CTI