Frances Todd Stewart with husband Charlie and (right) the CD stamp. Telegraph pictures

Thimphu, Nov. 6: Creative designer Frances Todd Stewart’s eyes light up in almost child-like thrill at the look of disbelief her tale attracts.

It’s not easy to compress the history of a 100-year-old dynasty into an eight-minute documentary. And in a stamp, it sounds impossible.

Bhutan has launched the world’s first CD stamp, over four decades after an American adventurer helped propel the tiny kingdom to the forefront of stamp-making across the globe. The late adventurer’s daughter has now taken over his mantle.

“It’s thrilling. I know you couldn’t believe it at first when I told you about a stamp in the form of a CD, right,” she laughed.

Three inches in diameter, the CD is placed neatly in a wafer-thin square plastic case wrapped in decorated paper. The rear of the paper cover is sticky, and it helps paste the CD stamp on an envelope.

Stewart’s idea is being implemented as Bhutan celebrates 100 years of the Wangchuk dynasty — it had started in 1907, but the country decided not to mark the centenary in 2007 as the year was considered inauspicious.

Two CD stamps are ready, Stewart said. The first details the evolution of Bhutan from Ugyen Wangchuk, the first king, to Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuk, who was officially crowned today. The second, titled “In harmony with nature”, is about the kingdom’s aim to maintain a balance between man and nature. Two more stamps are on the way.

“Today, you can get the same food, clothes everywhere… even cultural distinctions can appear blurred. In a globalised world, only flags and stamps uniquely identify a country,” she said.

Stewart is taking forward a legacy born in 1962, when her father Burt Kerr Todd helped Bhutan launch its first stamp. Since then, Bhutan has time and again flashed at the world the irony of a modernity-wary kingdom using the latest technology in philately.

Under Todd’s guidance, Bhutan created the first three-dimensional stamps in 1967 to mark an Apollo space trip. Six years later, it introduced the musical stamp with an LP record playing Bhutanese songs.

“Honestly, I never thought I would continue with my father’s work. He produced stamps, I never did. But after his death in 2006, and with the centenary of the monarchy coming up in Bhutan, I decided I would travel to this country,” Stewart said.

She flew to Thimphu in 2007. “Like my father, one visit was all it took. Bhutan’s a part of me now,” she said.