457. A Night At The Opera.

  Hong Kong China issued a set of 6 stamps and 1 miniature sheet on 21 August 2014 on the subject of Cantonese opera costumes. This very attractive and interesting issue was designed by Michael Fung and lithographed by Cartor:-

  Another set of stamps issued by Tanzania on 20 December 2013 has been offered for sale by Peterthematics on an internet auction site - this time a set of 4 stamps and 1 miniature sheet. The subject of the issue is World Vision - this is the 5th issue to have been released on this subject by Tanzania. In the Blog of 17 April 2012 I wrote about and illustrated all the previous issues from Tanzania on the subject - previous sets and accompanying miniature sheets appeared in 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2007:-

  In Blog 436 I mentioned the set of 40 stamps (10 sheetlets each of 4 different "stamps") and 10 miniature sheets on the subject of Domestic Animals produced in the name of Uganda and said to have been issued on 26 February 2014. Now Stamperija has announced the "issue" on 26 February 2014 of another 10 similar sheetlets and accompanying miniature sheets but this time on the subject of "Bird Watching". A number of the featured species are to be found in Uganda but quite a large number are not even found in Africa. I depict the complete issue for any bird stamp collector who does not mind a country depicting subjects on its stamps which are irrelevant to it and who has the money to spare to buy this lot (total face value is 175000/- which is currently equal to £40.39p):-

  Another emission from Stamperija, said to have been released on 3 July 2014, is a set of 9 sheetlets each of 4 different "stamps" and 9 miniature sheets, produced on behalf of The Maldive Islands, a country which is devoutly Islamic. This latest production is on a subject which one does not normally associate with Maldives - "Greatest Flemish Painters". Many of the designs are extremely inappropriate depicting, as they do, paintings related directly to Christianity such as various Madonna and Child depictions, depictions of Christian saints, Christ taken down from the cross, The Last Supper and even one painting by Jan van Eyck which is titled "Soldiers Of Christ" and which depicts Crusaders with red Christian crosses on the breastplates of their armour. I should think that if any of these items were actually put on sale at post offices in The Maldives then great offence would be caused. I can not help but think that the designs of this "issue" were not approved by Maldives Post and I have my doubts that the Maldives Post Office was aware of precisely what was being produced in its name:-

"The Soldiers Of Christ" by van Eyck