1549. 🇲🇹 Holy Figurines Depicted On Maltese Christmas Stamps.

🇲🇹 MaltaPost will issue a set of 3 Christmas stamps featuring figurines of the Baby Jesus located in Maltese churches on 29 November 2019. The issue was designed using photographs taken by Mark Micallef Perconte and lithographed by Printex. Rating:- ****.

🇸🇱 A single stamp and a miniature sheet inscribed with the name of Sierra Leone are being offered on an internet auction site. They commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Express Mail Service (EMS) and the stamp depicts the design common to that used on the stamps of other postal administrations. A ‘first day cover’ is dated 30 October 2019. The face value of the stamp is equivalent to exactly £1 but the seller is asking the price of £6.77p (a mark-up of 677%) and the miniature sheet’s face value is equal to £4 but the seller is asking the price of £17.04 p (426%). 

  A worthwhile issue if obtainable from a seller who is asking a reasonable price but otherwise the Rating is 0.

🇬🇧 All the new issues of British Antarctic Territory mentioned in Blog 1525 were released on 18 November 2019.

🇧🇹 Bhutan Post issued an interesting miniature sheet containing 6 different stamps on 17 August 2019 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Indonesia-Bhutanese co-operation in hydro-power. Rating:- ****.

🇬🇧 Depicted below are the 2 pairs of ‘Winter Greenery’ Post and Go stamps, first issued in 2014,  reissued by Royal Mail for this year’s Christmas season now with code CL19S (2nd class rate) or R19Y (1st class rate) dispensed by a NCR kiosk situated in the main post office in Pinfold Street in the centre of Birmingham. This issue is said to have been first put on sale on 5 November 2018. Rating:- ***.

  The IAR version of these stamps will be dispensed from the Mail Rail kiosk A005 in London from 2 December 2019. 

🇬🇮 Below are depicted previously mentioned Post and Go stamps from the Royal Gibraltar Post Office which have been issued recently. The extremely belated Year Of The Pig stamps were issued on 13 November 2019 and come in 2 forms - those dispensed from kiosk GI04 with no added inscription and those dispensed from kiosk GI05 with the additional inscription ‘Gibraltar/Philatelic HQ’. This additional inscription was also printed on the 6 stamps included in the strip which was released on 2 November 2019 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first manned lunar landing as depicted below.

  There seems to be very little connection between Gibraltar and both the lunar landing and Chinese New Year and therefore very little reason for the Royal Gibraltar Post Office to issue these items. Rating:- 0.