Tuesday 28 June 2022

2210. 🇲🇹 MaltaPost’s Meteorological Stamps

 

New issues.

🇲🇹 MaltaPost -

1 July 2022 - Centenary of the Malta Meteorological Office - 3 stamps. Designed by Malta International Airport and lithographed by Printex and perforated 14. Rating:- **. This issue appears to replace the SEPAC issue initially said to be due for release on this date.




🇼🇸Samoa Post -

February 2022 - I have now obtained from Steven Zirinsky some of the surcharges detailed in Blog 2096 and illustrate those which have come my way. There are some more illustrations in Blog 2096.












Monday 27 June 2022

2209. 🇲🇾 Traditional Boats Featured On New Malaysia Issue.

 


New issues.

🇲🇾 Pos Malaysia -

29 June 2022 - Traditional boats in Malaysia - 2 stamps and 1 miniature sheet containing a single stamp. Rating:- *****.








🇶🇦 Qatar Post -

1 April 2022 - FIFA 2022 World Cup Championships Finals to be held in Qatar, emblems - 2 stamps and 1 miniature sheet containing the 2 stamps. Lithographed by Cartor. Rating:- ***.





🇧🇩 Bangladesh Post -

16 November 2022 - Among the numerous issues released during 2021 by Bangladesh Post (all recorded in previous Blogs) was an unusual small imperforate miniature sheet or perhaps a very large imperforate stamp which commemorated the contribution of foreigners to the cause of Bangladesh at the time of the War of Liberation. The item was put on sale and then almost immediately withdrawn once it was noticed that the item did not include the country’s name. The item was reissued shortly afterwards to include the name of the country in English and Bengali and to reposition the value and add the year of issue. Interestingly the design includes a cameo portrait of the convicted fraudster politician John Stonehouse who had been the British postmaster general at the time (see Blog 1785). The design also includes a portrait of the British musician George Harrison, former member of the musical group, the Beatles and the humanitarian St Theresa. Rating:- *****.




Some possible or unlikely new issues.

2022 is a year which offers opportunities to commemorate philatelicly important national anniversaries or events.

🇯🇲 Jamaica - 60th anniversary of Independence (6 August 1962) - 2 stamps already issued.



  
🇹🇹 Trinidad And Tobago - 60th anniversary of Independence (31 August 1962) - issue possible

🇼🇸 Samoa - 60th anniversary of Independence ((1 January 1962) - issue unlikely

🇷🇼 Rwanda - 60th anniversary of Independence from Belgium (1 July 1962) - issue unlikely, no stamps were issued to commemorate 50th anniversary of Independence.

🇺🇬 Uganda - 60th anniversary of Independence (9 October 1962) - issue possible

🇪🇬 Egypt - Centenary of Independence from Great Britain (28 February 1922) - 1 stamp issued 15 March 2022



🇷🇼 Rwanda - 21 - 25 June 2022 - Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) hosted by Rwanda - no issue known to have been released.

🇬🇧 United Kingdom - 28 July 2022 - Commonwealth Games, Birmingham - 8 stamps to be issued on 28 July 2022

👑 Various Commonwealth countries and territories - Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II - Issues so far from United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Grenada, Antigua And Barbuda, Bahamas, Tuvalu, Nevis, The Gambia, Guyana, Malta, Kiribati, Gibraltar, Bermuda, Falkland Islands, Pitcairn Islands, South Georgia And South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory, Ascension Island, Tristan Da Cunha, Jersey, Guernsey, Isle Of Man.
No news of any issues from the Commonwealth Realms of New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Saint Lucia, Jamaica, Belize, St Vincent And The Grenadines, St Kitts (Nevis).


Sunday 26 June 2022

2208.. 🇮🇲 Isle Of Man Commemorates Cultural Organisation.

 


New issues.

🇮🇲 Isle Of Man Post Officc -

4 July 2022 - 40th anniversary of Culture Vannin, Manx cultural organisation - 6 stamps. Designed by Jay Cover and lithographed by Cartor and perforated 14. Rating:- *.






🇨🇦 Canada Post -

21 June 2022 - Leaders of indigenous communities - 1 miniature sheet containing 3 different stamps. Gummed. Designed by Lime Design and Andrew Perro and lithographed by Lowe Martin. See also Blogs 2098 and 2100. Rating:- *****.



News.

  At the end of the Kigali CHOGM it was confirmed that the next Commonwealth summit meeting will be held in Samoa. As the country’s postal service service has only released occasional surcharges in recent years after it fell out with Philatelic Collector Inc it seems unlikely that there will be any philatelic items released to commemorate the meeting. 

  The next big Commonwealth event which will definitely receive philatelic recognition with the release of a set of 8 stamps (see Blog 1204) will be The Commonwealth Games which will open in Birmingham in the English West Midlands on 28 July 2022. More news of the stamp issue is awaited.




Commonwealth philatelic entities whose postal services are not yet known to have issued, or have had issued on their behalf, any legitimate postage stamps so far in 2022 (or in the case of new Commonwealth members Gabon and Togo since 25 June 2022, the date on which they joined):-

Anguilla

Barbados 

Belize 

British Indian Ocean Territory 

British Virgin Islands 

Cameroon 

Cook Islands 

Cook Islands Aitutaki 

Cook Islands Penrhyn

Cook Islands Rarotonga 

Dominica 

eSwatini

Gabon

Ghana

Kenya

Lesotho

Montserrat 

Nauru

Nigeria 

Niue

Papua New Guinea 

Ross Dependency

Rwanda

St Helena

St Kitts

Saint Lucia

Seychelles

Solomon Islands 

South Africa

Tanzania

Togo

Tokelau

Tonga

Tonga Niuafo’ou

Trinidad And Tobago 

Turks And Caicos Islands 

Uganda

Vanuatu

Zambia

  With the addition of Togo and Gabon the total number of philatelic entities on this list is now 89. As we approach the end of June, with half the year gone, 39 of those entities now appear on the list of those who are not known to have so far issued (or had issued in their name) legitimate new postage stamps during 2022 or since they joined The Commonwealth. This compares with 41 at the end of May, 46 at the end of April, 49 at the end of March, 54 at the end of February and 65 at the end of January. At the end of June 2021, 30 entities remained on the list.




Saturday 25 June 2022

2207. 🇬🇦🇹🇬 Gabon And Togo Join The Commonwealth.



News.

🇬🇦🇹🇬 Gabon and Togo join The Commonwealth.

  The two former French colonies of Gabon and Togo have been formally admitted to membership of The Commonwealth this afternoon (Saturday 25 June 2022) at CHOGM, the Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting, currently taking place in Kigali in Rwanda. The number of independent countries which are now members of the organisation totals 56 - more than ever before. Neither country has had any previous close links with the countries of what was known as The British Empire.

  In anticipation of this news I discussed the recent issues of both countries in Blogs 1938 and 2103 and future issues of the two countries will now be included in this Blog though the products released by the notorious Stamperija ‘philatelic agency’ on behalf of Togo will not get any notable coverage.


96 year old gets new job in Human Resources.

🇺🇸 Everyone makes a mistake sometimes. Errors on stamps are fun but sometimes they reflect the general carelessness some of the more exploitative purveyors of philatelic items adopt in their approach to the designs which appear on their products. Items intended for sale at rather high prices can be ‘designed’ in a matter of a few minutes in these times of sophisticated computer design programmes and why bother adding to the time consumed to prepare these products when there’s money to be made and more and more of these items to ‘design’ and produce? Over its many years of unloading on to the new issue market vast numbers of such items, the notorious US-based philatelic ‘agency’ IGPC has released numerous items with lazy errors on them which could have been produced error-free by simple checking by someone who knows what they are doing. But why bother?

  Here’s another example of these lazy errors recently offered for sale by IGPC with the name of St Vincent And The Grenadines printed on the items being sold - the ‘stamps’ included in 2 miniature sheets purporting to commemorate the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II, Queen of St Vincent And The Grenadines, the country’s head of state, with the monarch described as ‘HR Queen Elizabeth II’. No, she isn’t “HR’ at all - the abbreviation seems to reflect confusion in the designer’s mind between HM (Her Majesty) which is correct and HRH (Her Royal Highness) which is not correct. It’s fairly easy to get it right if you know what you are doing and disrespectful to the country’s Head of State if you get it wrong. One assumes therefore that, at the grand age of 96, The Queen has taken on a new job in Human Resources though with which company or organisation I can not say.








Friday 24 June 2022

2206. 🇮🇪 Civil War In Ireland.

 












New issues.

🇮🇪 An Post  (Postal service of the Republic Of Ireland) - 

25 June 2025 - Centenary of the outbreak of the Irish Civil War - 1 stamp. Designed from an illustration, ‘Outbreak of hostilities) by Mick O’Dea. The illustration shows the burning of the Four Courts in Dublin (29 June 1922) at the start of the civil war carried out by the IRA faction opposed to the Provisional government and the Anglo-Irish treaty. Lithographed. Rating:- *****.

🇸🇬 Singapore Post -

1 July 2022 - Singapore railway - 5 stamps. Further details awaited. Rating:- ****.






Jersey Post -

7 July 2022 - Centenary of the Jersey Island Cricket Club - 6 stamps and 1 miniature sheet containing 2 different stamps. Designed by Ron Mills and lithographed by bpost. Rating:- *****.

 I think that is my all-time favourite set of cricket stamps.

















🇲🇹 MaltaPost

11 July 2022 - Euromed, Maritime archaeology and historic cities of the Mediterranean - 2 stamps. Designed by Dave Grafton and the University of Malta. Lithographed by Printex. Perforated 14. Designs awaited.