🇲🇹 MaltaPost issued a set of 4 stamps on 28 June 2017 on the subject of "Traditional Handicrafts". One of the stamps (59c) is MaltaPost's contribution to the 2017 SEPAC series. This interesting issue was designed by Tony Calleja from ordinal photography by Miranda Publishers and lithographed by Printex and perforated 14. Rating:- ****.
🇫🇯 News of another new issue from Fiji Post - a set of 4 stamps which were issued on 14 June 2017 to commemorate the Fiji Women's Expo. The stamps are interesting but entirely depict women doing things that are expected of women - handicrafts, basket making, floral displays, rug making - designs fixed in the middle of the 20th century not towards the end of the 2nd decade of the 21st century. Rating:- **.
🇬🇬 A "tweet" from Guernsey Post Philatelic Bureau reports that on Friday 30 June 2017 the Post and Go kiosk GG01 situated in Smith Street post office was dispensing "Lighthouses" stamps with an added inscription which welcomed passengers from the cruise ship Oriana into port.
Some customers of Guernsey Post have recently been invited to participate in a survey of their preferred subjects for stamp issues in the next 2 or 3 years and the choices offered in the survey give us an idea of what Guernsey Post may or may not be hoping to sell us in the relatively near future. The choices offered in the survey are:-
The 5th Birthday of Princess Charlotte of Cambridge
The 7th Birthday of Prince George of Cambridge
The 15th Wedding anniversary of The Prince Of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall
150th anniversary of the Royal Philatelic Society
Bicentenary of the launch of HMS Beagle
75th anniversary of the Normandy landings
250th anniversary of the Birth of Sir Isaac Brock
75th anniversary of Guernsey's liberation from German occupation
120th anniversary of the sinking of SS Stella
50th Anniversary of the first flight of Concorde
600th anniversary of the Hundred Years War
80th anniversary of the Battle of Britain
60th anniversary of the National Trust in Guernsey
Bicentenary of the births of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert
The Cutty Sark
Visiting cruise ships
Centenary of the death of Auguste Renoir
50th Anniversary of the first manned moon landing
I find this list of suggestions to be extremely depressing - so many events and anniversaries which have been featured on Guernsey stamps before (some more than once), an incredible obsession with commemorating various somewhat insignificant Royal anniversaries (why commemorate the 7th Birthday of Prince George for instance?) What's so special about a 120th anniversary that it requires a stamp issue (I refer to the proposed Sinking of the SS Stella issue, an event which has been commemorated in the not too distant past)? What is the connection between Guernsey and the first manned lunar landing? Yet another Battle of Britain anniversary issue, really? What's the relevance of Concorde's first flight and Guernsey? I could go on.
I like the idea of the Cruise ships stamps as the issue would tie in with Guernsey Post's Post and Go Smith Street post office stamps which have additional inscriptions to welcome visitors from individual cruise ships. But most of the rest of the ideas are unoriginal, tiresome, exploitational and should be forgotten. If Guernsey Post can not find ideas for new original and interesting stamps to sell to collectors then it would be best to issue no stamps at all. Try harder.
🇬🇧 It is expected that Royal Mail Post and Go kiosks will be situated at the one day Midpex 2017 philatelic exhibition to be held at the Warwickshire Exhibition Centre near Leamington Spa on 8 July 2017. It is expected, but not confirmed, that the following kiosks will be situated at Midpex:-
A012 dispensing Machin 50 and Union Jack labels
A013 dispensing Machin 50 and Union Jack labels and
A014 dispensing Machin 50 and Machin 2nd class labels.
It has not been stated whether or not these labels will be given additional inscriptions unique to the event.
🇮🇳 India Post issued a se-tenant pair of stamps on 28 June 2017 on the subject of Banaras Hindu University, the foundations of the main campus of which being laid in February 2016. Rating:- **.
The following day, 29 June 2017, India Post issued a single stamp to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Shrimad Rajchandraji (1867-1901) who was a Jain poet, philosopher, scholar and reformer. Rating:- **.
With an increasing number of countries issuing unrelated, uninteresting and over priced stamps (it would seem) one wonders if thematic collecting is the way forward for stamp collecting rather than focusing on individual countries.
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