2549. 🇦🇬🇩🇲🇬🇾🇰🇳🇱🇨🇻🇨 Eastern Caribbean Bank Stamps “Now In Circulation”.

 

New Issues -

🇦🇬🇩🇲🇬🇩🇰🇳🇱🇨🇻🇨 Postal services of Antigua And Barbuda, Commonwealth Of Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts And Nevis, Saint Lucia and St Vincent And The Grenadines - 

2024 - Caribbean news outlets were reporting on 2 August 2024 a statement by the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank which indicated that the stamps first reported in Blog 2344 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the ECCB are “now in circulation” with 3 stamps being issued by the postal services of each of the countries named above. Each territory appears to have issued a se-tenant pair of two $5 stamps and a single stamp of $10 or whatever value is the “best selling stamp” in each respective country (whatever that means).

  The reports stated that “two sheets of stamps will be available to each country” which is rather ambiguous in that it might mean that only 2 sheets of the stamps will be sold in post offices of each of the six nations (which seems like a rather inadequate supply) or that sheets of each of the two values will be sold in each country. We will have to see the situation regarding the stamps’ availability to collectors and how accessible they are. I assume that all of them will be sold to collectors via the Intergovernmental Philatelic Corporation - IGPC - as five of the postal administrations have IGPC as their philatelic agent and Saint Lucia has previously been a client of IGPC though it has issued stamps very infrequently in recent years. If IGPC does not handle the Saint Lucia issue then it could well be something of a pain to try to obtain as was the case of the single stamp issued in 2015 to commemorate the centenary of the birth of Sir William Arthur Lewis, the notable Saint Lucian economist. 

  In Blog 2543 I recently highlighted that the most recent official new stamp issues from the postal administrations of Saint Lucia and Dominica date back to 22 February 2019 and 18 November 2020 respectively and so the new stamp issue is of particular interest in the case of those two countries.

  Collectors will also of course take note that the St Kitts and Nevis stamps will bear the inscription St Kitts-Nevis and not take the form of separate issues for the two islands. 

  So there are a lot of interesting features to this miniomnibus making them very worthwhile additions to collectors’ albums. In its press announcement, the ECCB provided illustrations of the stamps without the country names applied to them but illustrations of the Grenada $10 value and the St Kitts-Nevis se-tenant pair are available as shown below. Other illustrations are awaited.

Basic designs -

St Kitts-Nevis se-tenant pair of 2 x $5 -

Grenada $10 value -

🇱🇰 Sri Lanka Post -

12 August 2024 - Inscriptions and sannas of Sri Lanka - 4 stamps. Lithographed by Government Printer Sri Lanka. Rating:- *****.