There is no news of these being offered to collectors as they were last year. The website includes an illustration of the Bailiwick Flowers stamps with the additional inscription 'Welcome to the Caribbean Princess' which seems to visit the port more often than the other cruise ships.
Guernsey Post will issue a set of 6 stamps on 23 May 2018 to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. This is a very nicely designed set using some wonderful photographs of The Queen. The stamps are inscribed 'Alderney'. Rating:- ****.
🇱🇰 Sri Lanka Post issued a single stamp on 28 April 2018 to commemorate the State Vesak Festival. The stamp was designed by Palitha Gunasinghe and printed in lithography. Rating:- ***.
🇱🇹 Stamperija, the notorious Lithuania-based philatelic agency, has released more products with the name of Mozambique printed on them. These take the form of 10 sets each of 4 'stamps' with 10 accompanying 'miniature sheets'. Each individual stamp has been printed in sheets of 4 stamps. The stated 'date of issue' is 15 April 2018 and the featured subjects are:- Concorde, Mushrooms, 5th anniversary of the Pontificate of Francis I, Death centenary of Gustav Klimt, Lions, 150th birth anniversary of Paul P Harris, Sharks, Flying dinosaurs, Pigeons and Eagles. These items are similar in appearance to those depicted in Blog 1214. There is little point in wasting time and space by illustrating them here. Rating:- 0.
🇲🇿🇸🇱🇸🇧 The paraphilatelic products of Stamperija with the names of Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Solomon Islands printed on them have no apparent role as postage stamps as far as it has been possible to see because they are not available at local post offices in the respective countries and there is no evidence of any genuine postal service usage of them. They are not postage stamps. At best we might call them 'philatelic products with theoretical postal validity'. I have written about all of the products released by Stamperija over the years but it is now time to stop pretending that they have a place in a Blog about Postage stamps.
I will therefore cease to give any mention of such products in this Blog in the future. Any items put out by Stamperija which appear to have been released with view to their use in genuine mail services will of course be mentioned.
🇦🇬 🇬🇮 The question arises as to whether the 'special' stamps released by IGPC in the name of Antigua And Barbuda and those of Gibraltar Stamps should also be ignored by this Blog as the editor of Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue has revealed recently that neither of these territories offer their non-definitive stamps for sale at ordinary postal counters with the intention of them being used on ordinary mail. It may be said that such items are also 'Philatelic items with theoretical postal validity' and no more. The numbers of items issued by both of these territories are plainly excessive but not to the extent of those territories which are clients of Stamperija. I shall therefore continue to mention these products for the present.
Hello White Knight. I was in Gibraltar in 2016, I tell you my experience. The Main Post Office had only the Post & Go machine where to buy stamps. If you wanted to use other stamps, you have to go to the Philatelic Shop that it was located next to the Main Post Office. They share the building. You buy the stamps that you like there (definitives or conmmemoratives), post it on the envelope and deposite the letter in a great and beautiful mailbox located in front of the store. I do not know if it changed, but I will not be so drastic in this case (Gibraltar). I believe that it is more a case of lack of space and Post Office organization. Regards. Carlos
ReplyDeleteDear Carlos. Thank you for your extremely helpful message detailing the situation in the Gibraltar post office and the sale of stamps there. It convinces me to continue to write about new stamps from Gibraltar. However it does make me ask the question, what is the post office selling if it doesn't have space for the sale of postage stamps across the counter to customers?
DeleteThe problem is the stamp in these times. The modern methods (mechanical or post and go) is more economic for the Postal Service. Luckily I travel a lot and always visits the local postal office to send letters to friends and myself. Is very difficult to find stamps in the regular counters, and when you find something (definitive stamp mostly) it is very unconfortable the situation because always there are people waiting in line. That is why I am in favor of the official philatelics shop (inside or outside the postal office). You will find a similar case in Hong Kong for example, or Isle of Man, or Macau, or in a recent travel that I did to Singapore at the philatelic Museum. Spaces dedicated exclusively to the philatelist. Quiet places, buy old or just released stamps, and with the posibility of mail letters with the stamp that you like. It is not ideal but it is what are available for us these days.
ReplyDeleteHello again Carlos, I accept that if a philatelic shop is situated next to or within the same building as a post office then the stamps on sale there are reasonably accessible to anyone wanting to put a special stamp on their mail. But as a collector of POSTAGE stamps I want to know that the stamps I buy have a reasonable chance of being used on ordinary mail. I feel that little bits of sticky paper with an image printed on them and a value should be POSTAGE stamps and available to be used to indicate the prepayment of postage - if they are not fairly easily obtainable then they are what we may call 'stamps' but whether they fulfill the role of being 'postage stamps' is highly questionable.
DeleteOnce more, many thanks
WK.