2282. 🇲🇾 Malaysia New Issue Features Old Coins.

New issues.

🇲🇾 Pos Malaysia - 

13 April 2023 - Malay Sultanate coins - 3 stamps (1 se-tenant pair and a single stamp) and 1 miniature sheet containing a single stamp. Rating:- ****.

🇮🇳 India Post -

7 April 2023 - Bicentenary of the Birth of Dayanand Saraswati, philosopher, social reformer and founder of Arya Sama - 1 stamp. Rating:- ***.

Fakes.

There are a very large number of fake ‘new issue stamps’ appearing on the Delcampe internet auction site at present and often at remarkably high prices. The subjects often have little relevance to the country whose name is inscribed on these illegal products. A search of products being offered on the site under ‘2023’ reveals that these fakes are mostly inscribed with the names of African countries (though the names are sometimes misspelled) and a number of Commonwealth countries have been singled out to have their names abused on these products - these include Gabon, Sierra Leone, Tanzaina (sic), Guyana, Lesotho, Namibia, Maldives and Botswana. I’m quite sure that no regular reader of this Blog would fall victim to wasting money on this scam - indeed the quality of the items betrays their dubious source to informed collectors - but it is worthwhile reminding anyone considering buying the expensive trash that these are illegal products with no value whatsoever.

1948. 🇨🇾 Cyprus Commemorates Links With China.

 

  🇨🇾 Cyprus Post issued 2 stamps on 17 September 2021 to commemorate two anniversaries of local interest. The first commemorates the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Cyprus and The People’s Republic of China and the design depicts the philosophers, Confucius and Zenon of Citium. The second stamp commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Theatrical Organisation of Cyprus. Both stamps were lithographed by Baltic Banknote High Security Printing. Rating:- ****.

🇵🇰 Pakistan Post, continuing its highly conservative 2021 new issue programme, released a single stamp on 25 Seems 2021 to commemorate National Newspaper Readership Day. The interesting stamp was designed by Mughiz Khan and lithographed by National Security Printing Corporation and is perforated 13. Rating:- ****.

🇧🇩 Two previously unreported new issues from the Bangladesh postal service:-

22 February 2021 - 60th anniversary of the First people’s theatrical dramatisation of the Liberation War, Ek Nodi Rokto. - 1 stamp. Rating:- ***.

29 July 2021 - Stamp Day, 60th anniversary of the “Publication” of the first postage stamps of Bangladesh. - 1 stamp. Rating:- ****.

An illustration of one of the stamps from the Jersey Post Post and Go strip of 6 which commemorates the 21st anniversary of the visit to Jersey of the world’s largest tall ship, SV Tenacious is now shown on Jersey Post’s Stamps and Collectables internet site. See Blog 1942).

  With September in its final days it’s time to update the list of Commonwealth philatelic entities which so far in 2021 are not known to have issued, or had issued in their names, any new stamps. The list is little changed from that of  August save that the postal service of Mauritius has now issued a single stamp (see Blog 1942) and there are therefore now 25 Commonwealth philatelic entities still not known to have released any new stamps. For the sake of the mildly obsessional need to list things, here is the latest roll call of stampless philatelic entities which interestingly includes 4 of the 5 British Overseas Territories in the Caribbean (Anguilla, Cayman Islands, Montserrat and Turks And Caicos Islands) with only British Virgin Islands, served so well by the trusty Creative Direction and Pobjoy Stamps, having issued stamps this year. Who, too, would have thought that we would not have seen the dead hand of Stamporrhoea at play and Sierra Leone and Maldives having had released in their names 100s of philatelic products by now? There are still three months to go so anything could yet happen in the rest of 2021.

Anguilla 

Belize

Cameroon 

Cayman Islands 

Dominica 

eSwatini

Ghana

Jamaica 

Lesotho 

Maldives 

Montserrat 

Nauru 

Pitcairn Islands 

Rarotonga Cook Islands

Rwanda 

St Kitts

Saint Lucia 

Samoa

Sierra Leone 

Solomon Islands

Tanzania

Tokelau

Turks And Caicos Islands 

Uganda 

Zambia 

1435. 🏴‍☠️ Commonwealth Stamps Opinion First With Royal Baby Stamps!

🏴‍☠️ I have previously speculated about the likelihood of a number of postal authorities and philatelic agencies issuing stamps to commemorate the birth of the latest royal baby. I thought I would bite back by making sure that Commonwealth Stamps Opinion would be the first to produce Royal Baby stamps on this occasion - beating IGPC, Stamperija, Australia Post, Guernsey Post, Isle Of Man Post Office, Royal Gibraltar Post Office, New Zealand Post, Jersey Post, Philatelic Collector Inc and all the other usual suspects. It took less than 10 minutes to design this set of three - let’s call it ‘a fitting tribute to a wonderful young couple and their first delightful child’. So that’ll be £15 please plus of course 20% VAT and £2.50p handling and postage charge. Oh by the way, they’re not on sale at post offices and can’t be used to prepay postage but what does that matter?  Cheap at half the price!

🇲🇹 MaltaPost will issue its ‘Map of Malta’ Greetings stamp with an attached label on 9 May 2019 in connection with its attendance at the Essen Philatelic Exhibition. This is a reasonably inexpensive philatelic souvenir of the exhibition unlike the strips of Post and Go stamps which continue to appear from British offshore Islands’ postal administrations. Rating:- ***.

🇮🇳 India Post issued a single stamp on 2 May 2019 to commemorate the 750th anniversary of the birth of Sri Vedanta Desikan who was a Sri Vaishnava guru and philosopher. Rating:- **.

🇱🇰 Sri Lanka Post intends to issue 3 stamps and, I expect, 1 miniature sheet containing all 3 stamps, on 18 May 2019 to commemorate the festival of Vesak. Illustrations are awaited.

🇸🇬 Singapore Post will issue a pair of stamps and an accompanying miniature sheet on 16 May 2019 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Singapore and Philippines and the subject of the issue will be Butterflies of the 2 countries. This is a colourful and interesting issue and was designed by Sonny Lee (Common rose butterfly) and Philippines Postal Corporation (Luzon lacewing butterfly). The miniature sheet contains one each of both stamps. The issue was lithographed by Southern Colour Print and is perforated 13.5 or 14 (miniature sheet stamps). Rating:-  *****.

🇹🇷 Following the 2 stamps issued on 15 April 2019 related to local philatelic events and anniversaries (Blog 1430) the postal service of the Turkish Republic Of Northern Cyprus plans to release the following issues during 2019:-

16 May - Centenary of the beginning of the Turkish War of Independence
19 May - ‘April 23 and Atatürk’. The first meeting of the Turkish Grand National Assembly took place on 23 April 1920 and Kemal Atatürk dedicated the new Turkish Republic to children in Turkey.
20 June - Europa, National birds
24 September - Cactus flowers.

1106. 🇹🇿 Tanzania Commemorates The Aga Khan's Diamond Jubilee.

  🇹🇿 Post Tanzania issued a se-tenant strip of 5 stamps and 2 miniature sheets on 11 October 2017 to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of The Aga Khan and his contributions to health and educational developments in Tanzania. The issue was lithographed by Oriental Press Bahrain. Rating:- ****.

  🇮🇳 India Post released a smart single stamp on 23 October 2017 to commemorate the Centenary of  the 3 Kumaon (Rifles) Regiment. An interesting and colourful stamp. Rating:- ****.

  🇯🇪 Jersey Post will issue Post and Go stamps on 23 November 2017 as part of its Christmas output. The "Jersey Crest" strips of 6 different stamps will receive additional inscriptions - "Paix et jouiae" and the image of an angel and the Jersey Flag stamps will have the additional inscription "Peace & Joy" again with an angel image. The stamps will be dispensed from the kiosk JE02 in the Broad Street post office and will also have added inscription "Broad Street". These stamps will be dispensed until 3 January 2018. Rating:- 0.

  🇻🇨 I have found a couple of interesting new items on the IGPC website. The sheetlet of 4 stamps depicting geckos said to have been issued by St Vincent And The Grenadines on 28 September 2017 was apparently accompanied by a miniature sheet containing 3 more stamps which depict the Gold Dust Day gecko which, as mentioned in Blog 1096, is not found in the Caribbean area at all but, thousands of miles away, in Madagascar! Rating:- 0.

  🇲🇸 Meanwhile, the IGPC website also has the illustrations depicted below which state that the "Bats" sheetlet of 4 stamps and accompanying miniature sheet which are said to have been issued by the Montserrat postal service on 24 May 2017 (see Blog 1047) have been "withdrawn by Government". I can not yet find any information anywhere to explain why these items have been withdrawn for sale. Interesting indeed.

  🇵🇰 In Blog 1103 I mentioned the issue from Pakistan Post which commemorates the Birth Bicentenary of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan which was released on 17 October 2017. I now include an illustration of the single stamp and also the miniature sheet which interestingly depicts previous issues from Pakistan which commemorated this notable Pakistani figure. The issue was designed by Adil Salahuddin and lithographed by National Printing Security Co. Karachi and perforated 13. Rating:- ****.