The postal service serving Sweden and Denmark is issuing what it believes is the world’s first postage stamp featuring the LGBTI rainbow pride flag and will make it available to customers as soon as 4 May.

The stamp has been created for PostNord by artist Lisa Rydell, based on the flag designed by American gay artist and activist Gilbert Baker in the 1970’s, and will be one of around 15 different stamps that the Sweden headquartered postal company will release in 2016.

According to PostNord, Rydell came up with the idea for the stamp during a long summer walk in 2014.

PostNord says the stamp was created to reflect the values of modern Sweden.

‘By issuing a stamp with the Pride Flag, we want to emphazise the equal value of all people and the strength represented by people’s unique qualities and differences,’ PostNord Sweden head of communications Per Ljungberg said.

‘To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time the Pride Flag has been reproduced on a stamp – which makes it particularly gratifying that people will now be able to send affectionate greetings with the Pride Flag stamp to all corners of the world.’

‘Swedes really like to send and receive stamped letters and postcards. For many people, the choice of stamp is an extension of their written message – which will be made especially profound with the new Pride stamp. This motif is also well in line with PostNord’s internal diversity initiatives.’

The stamp is not the first from the Nordic region to celebrate LGBTI though.

In September of 2014 Finland’s national postal service released a set of stamps celebrating the iconic gay erotic art of Touko Laaksonen, AKA Tom of Finland.

The Tom of Finland stamps were an online hit on their release, getting pre-ordered by people from 178 countries and busting all sales records for previous Finnish postal stamps.