🇸🇱 This is something of a memorable week for the world with the inauguration of the new President of The United States about to take place. And Stamperija has risen to the challenge. Among another outpouring of paraphilatelic products with the name of Sierra Leone printed on them, comes a nightmare issue which commemorates the election of President-elect Donald Trump and depicts an awful portrait of the smirking about-to-be US leader. The miniature sheet and the face grinning out of it are enough to frighten little children so, be warned, don't let anyone under 18 get a sight of it.
🇸🇧 An even greater fright for stamp collectors is the latest horrors put out by Stamperija in the name of Solomon Islands - 3 sheets, each containing 36 different "stamps", which depict fish, cats and dogs - 108 stamps in all, every stamp priced at $7 giving a grand total for the 3 sheets of $756 or £78.32!
The designs of these items are truly excrable and it is hard to believe that any one would chose to spend so much money on such poorly produced products.
But that's not all - in addition to the Trump horror and the 3 sheetlets there are further items to add to these products inscribed with the names of Sierra Leone or Solomon Islands. From the latter there are a further 7 "sheetlets", each containing 4 different "stamps", and 7 "miniature sheets" on the following subjects:- Centenary of the Battle of Verdun, the Year of the Monkey, Chinese porcelain (China 2016 International Stamp Exhibition), Nobel Peace Prixe winners, Cricket, Paralympic Games and Russian cosmonauts. The stated "date of issue" was 1 December 2016. Rating:- 0.
The items with the name of Sierra Leone printed on them are on the following subjects:- Commemoration of Valentina Tereshkova, the Gaz-M20 Pobeda automobile, Commemoration of Charles Darwin, Fire engines, European high speed trains, Icebreakers, Future aircraft, Steam boats and the Bicentenary of Sir Humphrey Davy's miners' safety lamp. The stated date of issue was 28 November 2016. Rating:- 0.
In the Comments after Blog 899 John Stone queried the status of Stamperija issues. Stamperija has contracts with the territories whose names appear on the products which they release and have theoretical validity but there is very little evidence that the Stamperija-produced items are sold freely across ordinary post office counters to the mail-sending public of most, if not all, of Stamperija's client postal administrations. I think of them as philatelic collectibles with theoretical postal validity rather than as true postage stamps and it is rare for me to include any of these items in my own collection. Generally Stanley Gibbons does not include these products in its main catalogue listing. Stamperija produces literally thousands of such items every year.
Even more worrying are the large number of bogus issues which are frequently seen on the Delcampe internet auction site. Numerous countries are affected by these issues particularly countries in Africa. These bogus issues are often not too difficult to identify - they are usually imperforate and crudely printed and feature subjects which often have no relevance to the countries whose names appear on these items. An internet dealer in Russia is a frequently identified source of some of this stuff. On sale at present are items from a number of territories - an example is the set of "sheetlets" with the name of Uganda printed on them which are illustrated below. These items are valueless. Buyer beware!
I did find an article regarding 'fake' stamps here (http://www.pwmo.org/articles/illegals-summary.htm) but it only goes up to 2002. I have emailed UPU for further information, they have released circulars on this subject but are not available to the general public. I am still attempting to track the main culprit for all the Mali issues, there seems to be a lot of fraudulent stamp issuers around the world belting out these bogus stamps, it really is a minefield.
ReplyDeleteIt's good that somebody else has asked the UPU to make the illegal stamp circulars public again. I emailed them twice without luck, but if others do so things may happen.
ReplyDelete"Execrable" is exactly the word to describe the emissions from Stamperija. I don't know who their graphic designer is, but they need to go back to graphic design school.
ReplyDelete"Egregious" is another word with total applicability to Stamperija as a company. They're siphoning obscene amounts of money from collectors, and who knows what level of fraud they may commit with these postal entities for the stamps they dump on the public?
I also see them sold from Amazon with the manufacturer labeled as Chad Post, Guinea-Bissau Post, Niger Post, Solomon Islands Post, etc. The cost per sheet is from $6.85 to $17.00. Even sold from Imperial Mint, a legal vendor for stamp and coin collections in the US.
ReplyDeleteHere in America I stumbled upon then on Amazon. The site lists the stamps under the Post of every country. Examples of such will be Angola Post, Chad Post, Guinea-Bissau Post, Madagascar Post, Mali Post, Niger Post, Solomon Islands Post, etc.
ReplyDelete