1743. 🇧🇼 Water In Botswana.

 

🇧🇼 Botswana Post issued 2 stamps and 1 miniature sheet containing both stamps on 27 August 2020 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Water Utilities Corporation. The issue was designed by Shathani Basupi and lithographed by Southern Colour Print. Rating:- ***.

🇮🇲 Isle Of Man Post Office will Issue a set of 8 stamps on 30 September 2020 to commemorate the Centenary of the 37 and three quarters Isle Of Man TT races course. The stamps depict as one might expect photographs of various motorbikes and show them at various stages on the course with each value being issued in se-tenant pairs, one showing a vintage scene and the other a modern picture. Although the stamps identify the place where the photographs were taken they provide no more information than that about the riders and when the photographs were taken. The issue was designed by Isle Of Man Advertising and lithographed by Cartor and is perforated 13. Rating:- ***.

 

1742. 🇳🇿 Fingerprints Feature On Ross Dependency Stamps.

 

🇳🇿 New Zealand Post will issue a set of 4 stamps and 1 miniature sheet on behalf of Ross Dependency on 7 October 2020 on the subject of the Seasons of Scott Base which has the very irritating gimmick of depicting a thumbprint and the word touch along with the face value and the territory’s name and nothing else. The stamps were lithographed using heat sensitive ink by Southern Colour Print and are perforated 13.5. Once one has undergone the tiresome business of applying one’s finger to the stamps the attractive designs appear but if the stamps are sitting in a album the set looks more like a police department’s fingerprint collection. The designer was Cam Price of New Zealand Post and if this was his silly idea we might hope that he has been furloughed subsequent to producing these gimmick stamps. Rating:- 0.

 

🇯🇲 In addition to the 4 stamps issued by Jamaica Post on 7 September 2020 (see Blog 1739) a miniature sheet containing all 4 stamps was also released. Much better illustrations than in Blog 1739 of the 4 stamps are shown here (they were originally posted on Stamp Boards by Gene who kindly sent them to me also so I could use them here (thanks to Gene). 

 🇬🇧 Norvic Philatelic Blog has drawn attention to the resulting effects on Royal Mail Post and Go stamps of changes in postal rates from the beginning of September 2020. Here in Birmingham there are 11 NCR kiosks situated in Pinfold Street post office which is the main post office in the centre of Britain’s second largest city. Since the start of the COVID-19 crisis only 2 of those kiosks have actually been in use. One of them currently dispenses the classic Machin Head Post and Go stamps (MA16) and the other the 50th anniversary of the Machin Head Stamps set of six.

  The three new values are:- Euro 100g World 20g, World 100g Zone 1-3 and World 100g Zone 2. These three new values for each design are depicted below :-

  Other designs and codes have been reported and are listed in the Norvic Blog. The Blog also draws attention to the same changes being applied to stamps dispensed by IAR kiosks. It appears that the various museums involved are the Postal Museum (A001), Royal Navy Museum (A002), Fleet Air Arm Museum (A003), Royal Navy Submarine Museum (A004),HMS Trincomalee (A006), Museum of Firepower (A007) and the Shakespeare Birthplace Gift shop in Stratford upon Avon (A009). The Shakespeare shop kiosk, on my several visits since just before Christmas 2019, was always out of use but it appears to have been reactivated on 17 September 2020 to dispense the new postage rates on strips of Machin Head stamps (added inscription Shakespeare 1616)  (my example has a MA14 code) and the Heraldic flowers set of 6 stamps (added inscription Shakespeare 1564) (code MA17 as before). The 5th value of each design initially had the inscription World 100g Euro 1-3 but this was rapidly changed to World 100g Euro 1 & 3. This revised inscription has also been introduced on stamps dispensed by kiosks situated elsewhere. I hope to be able to illustrate the second version next week.

1741. 🇮🇪 The Anglo-Irish War, Part 2.

 

🇮🇪 An Post, the postal service of The Republic Of Ireland, issued 2 more stamps in its ongoing series about the Anglo-Irish War of 1919 to 1921 on 24 September 2020. The issue is titled ‘Civil Society’.

  In Blog 1608 the opening months of the war between the IRA and the British forces resisting it were detailed and the stamp issued earlier this year by An Post showing the painting of an IRA column by Seán Keating was depicted. Although the general population initially disapproved of the IRA’s violence the heavy handed response of the British government led the people in Southern Ireland to start to resist the government by holding strikes and other measures. The new stamps feature this reaction. One of the stamps designed by Ger Garland depicts newspaper headlines about the dock workers’ strike whereby they refused to handle war materials. The munitions strike lasted from May to December 1920 and greatly hampered the government’s ability to support its troops in Ireland.

  The second stamp alludes to the Dáil setting up of courts which were intended to dispense an Irish law system as British authority collapsed across Ireland and a replacement was required. The Dáil established 900 parish courts and 77 district courts which dealt with rowdeyism, larceny, breaches of the licensing  laws, damage to property, ‘abusive language to women’, bank and post office robberies and assaults.Treason was dealt summarily by court martial. The design also by Ger Garland depicts the IRA court in Westport Town Hall in summer with Conor Maguire presiding alongside Edward Moane and John O’Boyle.

  The issue was lithographed by Enschedé and is perforated 13.5 x 14.

  As 1920 moved on the British tax system in Ireland collapsed and people were encouraged to donate to Michael Collins’ ‘National loan’ scheme to raise funds for the rebel Irish government. By the end of 1920 £358000 had been raised by that scheme but this was dwarfed by the sum raised by Irish Americans in the United States which amounted to over $5 million. By August 1920 the Westminster Parliament had passed the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act which replaced trial by jury by courts martial in areas where the IRA was dominant and by the beginning of 1921 martial law was in place across much of Southern Ireland. Courts martial were extended to cover the whole population and were empowered to use the death penalty and interment without trial. As a result violence escalated further and on 21 November 1920 Michael Collins’ death squads murdered 16 British agents and later in the day Royal Irish Constabulary men drove to the Crowe Park sporting ground and shot into the crowd watching a football match resulting in the deaths of 14 civilians including one of the football players. Later the same day two IRA prisoners and an associate were shot dead trying to escape from Dublin Castle prison. These events combined to lead to 21 November becoming known as Bloody Sunday.

  On 11 December the centre of Cork was set ablaze by Black and Tans as a reprisal against an IRA ambush in the city that day which resulted in the murder of one auxiliary and the wounding of 11 others. As 1920 drew to a close Ireland was at a tipping point and no doubt there will be further stamp issues next year from An Post to take the story further.

  

  

1740. 🇲🇺 Mauritius Commemorates 50 Years Of Relations With Australia.

🇲🇺 Mauritius Post will issue its first stamp of the year on 29 September 2020 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Mauritius and Australia. Rating:- ****.

🇺🇸 Many more new issue products have been announced by the USA-based agency IGPC which is allowed to produce philatelic products on behalf of several Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth ‘client’ postal administrations. Foremost among these territories is The Gambia:-

🇬🇲 The Gambia - 

30 September 2020 - The Sitatunga antelope - 1 miniature sheet containing a single stamp. Rating:- 0.

30 September 2020 - Big cats of The Gambia (including the tiger which definitely is not a big cat of The Gambia)  - 1 miniature sheet containing 4 different stamps. Rating:- 0.

30 September 2020 - Chinese art of Dr Wang, a Chinese-American - 2 miniature sheets, 1 containing 3 different stamps and the other containing a single stamp. Rating:- 0.

30 September 2020 - Chinese New Year - 2 miniature sheets, 1 containing 4 different stamps and the other containing a single stamp and featuring maneko neki, the cats with waving arms said to bring good fortune. Rating:- 0.

30 September 2020 - Sloths (no species of sloth are found in Africa) - 1 miniature sheet containing 4 different stamps. Rating:- 0.

30 September 2020 - Snakes - 2 miniature sheets, 1 containing 4 different stamps and the other containing 2 different stamps. Rating:- 0.

30 September 2020 - The Turaco - 1miniature sheet containing 3 different stamps. Rating:- 0.

30 September 2020 - The Tanuki (Japanese raccoon dog, as the name suggests it is a not a species to be found in Africa) - 1 miniature sheet. Rating:- 0.

30 September 2020 - 75th anniversary of the Allies’ victory in Europe at the end of the Second World War- 1 miniature sheet containing 4 different stamps. Rating:- 0.

30 September 2020 - Woodpeckers - 1 miniature sheet containing 4 different stamps. Rating:- 0.

1739. 🇯🇲 First Jamaica Stamps Of 2020 Commemorate Poet Miss Lou.

 

🇯🇲 Jamaica Post released its first new issue of the year on 7 September 2020 when it issued 4 stamps to commemorate the Birth Centenary of Miss Lou, the Honourable Louise Bennett-Coverley who was a Jamaican poet, folklorist, writer and educator. I have no other details about this joyous set at present and I’m afraid the illustrations are the best I can provide at the moment. Actually the issue coincides with Miss Lou’s 101st birth anniversary but we won’t quibble. Rating:- *****.

🇺🇸 The New York-based agency IGPC is attempting to put out a lot of new issues with the names of its client philatelic entities printed on them to recover some of the income it has almost certainly lost during the first wave of the COVID-19 crisis. Some of the issues are listed here with more to follow.

🇬🇲 The Gambia - 31 August 2020 - Chinese New Year, Year of the Rat (7 months after the event) - 1 miniature sheet containing 5 different ‘stamps’. Rating:- 0.

🇬🇩 Grenada - 1 August 2020 - 175th anniversary of the first postage stamp from Switzerland - 2 miniature sheets, 1 containing 18 different stamps and the other 4 different stamps. Rating:- 0.

Grenada Carriacou And Petite Martinique - 31 August 2020 - Tribute to the Frontline workers against COVID-19 - 1 miniature sheet containing 4 different stamps. Rating:- 0

Guyana - 31 August 2020 - 500the anniversary of the Death of Raphael, Italian artist - 2 miniature sheets, 1 containing 4 different stamps and the other a single stamp. Rating:- 0.