1473. 🇬🇧 England Winners Cricket Stamps Due On 22 August.

  🇬🇧 The two miniature sheets to be issued by Royal Mail to commemorate the English team’s Cricket World Cup victory as well as that of the Women’s team in 2017 will be issued on 22 August 2019 (see Blogs 1471 and 1472).

  🇰🇪 Kenya Post has issued a set of 4 stamps to mark the 10th anniversary of World Sickle Cell Day. I do not yet have details apart from illustrations of the stamps but suspect that the date of issue was 19 June 2019 which is the date of the event itself. Rating:- ****.

  🇲🇿 Gene, the editor of the extraordinarily useful online stamp catalogue, Colnect, has been kind enough to supply me with information (which he does frequently and which I greatly appreciate) of the existence of 2 previously unreported apparently locally produced stamps from the Mozambique postal service. The issue commemorates the opening of the Maputo-Katembe Bridge, a joint project between Mozambique and The People’s Republic Of China. It is not clear if there are other stamps in the set but they are quite crudely printed having all the features of being printed locally in Maputo. 

  Gene believes that the stamps were issued by Correios De Moçambique at some time in 2018. I assume that it will be very difficult to obtain examples of this issue. Rating:- *****.

   Meanwhile, the notorious producer of philatelic items, Stamperija, of which the Mozambique postal service is a client, also released 2 miniature sheets, one containing 4 different ‘stamps’ and the other a single ‘stamp’ on the subject of the opening of the bridge with a stated ‘date of issue’ of 10 February 2019. While the locally produced stamps highlighted here are highly desirable the Stamperija tat is not.

 🇰🇮 Kiribati Post will release an issue on 27 September 2019 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi. I have no further information about the issue at present. Thanks to Etei Abeteneko of the Philatelic Division of Kiribati Post for the information.

  🇳🇿 New Zealand Post will issue an entertainingly titled set of 9 stamps produced in sheetlet format on 7 August 2019 depicting what it describes as ‘Rock Legends’ and depicting not popular veteran musical performers but, er, rocks.

  The issue was designed by Eighty One Group of Wellington and lithographed by Southern Colour Print and perforated 14.5 x 14.

  Rating:- ****.

1472. 🇬🇧 Yes, There Will Be England Winners Stamps!

  🇬🇧 Yes, Royal Mail will release stamps to commemorate the English team’s historic and astonishing victory over New Zealand in the Cricket World Cup at Lord’s yesterday. The issue will take the form of a miniature sheet containing 4 different stamps and there will be a second miniature sheet containing another 4 stamps to belatedly celebrate the victory of the England Women’s team in 2017 (well they couldn’t celebrate the men’s victory without commemorating the women’s success could they?)

  Each sheet will contain 2 x 1st Class rate stamps and 2 x £1.60p stamps.  The stamps will go on sale ‘from later in the summer’.

  Royal Mail will also celebrate the victories by arranging for postboxes situated at the various cricket grounds which hosted the competition to be painted white and gold. Additionally two other postboxes will be similarly treated - those situated at locations of special meaning to the captains of the two teams - Eoin Morgan and Heather Knight. The postboxes will retain the special decorations for a period of 3 months.

  A commemorative postmark noting the English team’s success will be introduced on Wednesday 17 July.

  All this sounds like good news. Well done Royal Mail!

  See Blog 1471.

1471. 🇬🇧 Royal Mail England Winners Stamps?

  🇹🇷 The postal service of the Turkish Republic Of Northern Cyprus issued a strip of 3 se-tenant stamps with an attached label on 31 May 2019 to take account of ‘April 23rd and Ataturk Children’s Day’. The designs featured the winning art from a local children’s design competition and the stamps were lithographed by Bolan Dijital Baski Ltd. The stamps can at least be described as colourful. Rating:- ***.

  🇬🇧 Now that England, after one of the greatest cricket games in history, has finally won the World Cup - the question must be “will Royal Mail release a stamp issue to commemorate the English team’s momentous success?”.  In the past, Royal Mail has released a miniature sheet to commemorate the English team’s victory over Australia in the 2005 Ashes series and in 2013 to commemorate Andy Murray’s Wimbledon Tennis Championships victory but in recent years sports subjects have not featured noticeably on Royal Mail stamps. When the England Women’s Cricket team won the World Cup in 2017 there was no philatelic commemoration of the English team’s success so having ignored the women’s team success can Royal Mail reasonably issue stamps to commemorate the men’s success?

  Interestingly Royal Mail chose not to release a stamp issue to commemorate the hosting of the 2019 Cricket World Cup by England and Wales though it did float the idea in a survey of collectors’ choices for 2019 special issues it carried out in 2017. An issue to commemorate England's victory could be popular with a part of the general public and even if stamp collectors do not seem to be great sports enthusiasts I suspect that the new issue collecting community would welcome an ‘England Winners’ issue much more than it did the ‘Marvel Comics’ atrocity. We will see what the completely out-of-tune Royal Mail comes up with in the next few days.

1470. 🇲🇹 MaltaPost To Issue Lunar Landing Sheet.

🇲🇹 Rather unusually, MaltaPost will release an issue on 20 July 2019 on a subject which has no direct relevance to the island, namely the 50th anniversary of the first manned lunar by astronauts from The USA and not from Malta. The issue takes the form of a single-stamp miniature sheet and was designed by Aidan Cassar and lithographed by Printex and perforated 14. I’m afraid I don’t like this item. Rating- *.

 🇱🇰 It appears that Sri Lanka Post issued 3 miniature sheets to accompany the set of 3 stamps released on 9 July 2019 (see Blog 1468) to commemorate the Katagarama Esala festival. Each sheet contains a single stamp, each of the stamps in the ordinary set being featured in the miniature sheets. Rating:- ****.

 🇲🇻 Maldives Post issued a miniature sheet containing 8 different stamps on 21 June 2019 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the country’s establishment of diplomatic relations with Thailand. The Thai postal service issued a similar item containing stamps with the same designs to make this a joint issue between the two countries and it seems likely that this issue was donated to Maldives Post by the Thai authorities. The 8 stamps depict 4 Thai and 4 Maldivian aspects of subjects relevant to both countries - local fruit, national flowers, aerial views of islands and local fishing boats. Rating:-  ****.

1469. 🇵🇰 Pakistan Post Commemorates National Satellites.

🇵🇰 Pakistan Post issued its second stamp of the year on 9 July 2019 to commemorate the country’s first remote sensing satellites. The interesting issue was lithographed by National Security Printing Company, Karachi. Rating:- ****.

 🇬🇧 More to think about when deciding whether or not to spend good money on modern Royal Mail ‘commemoratives’. I am currently visiting the seaside town of Weston Super Mare in the West Country and I thought I would buy the ‘Curious Customs’ stamps as they have been released during my visit here. I visited the largest post office in the centre of this town which has a total population of a not insubstantial 188000 but was told, somewhat triumphantly I thought, that “This Post Office does not sell stamps (which I interpreted to mean ‘special stamps’) and coins”. I called in at another post office in the town housed in a not terribly spacious supermarket where a nice lady apologised but they did not sell special stamps and I should try the main post office, which of course I had already visited. It does seem extraordinary that it is impossible to buy Royal Mail postage stamps in a town the size of Weston which is home to approximately 0.3% of the population of Britain. I wonder which other towns of similar size are also commemorative stamp deserts. What relevance do such stamps actually have to today’s postal service? Barely no relevance at all I should think. So what’s the point of spending money on them if one is a collector of postage stamps?

  Meanwhile I see that HMS Queen Elizabeth has sprung a leak and had to return to its base in Portsmouth. I imagine the ship will be depicted on one of the stamps due for release on 19 September 2019 as part of the ‘Royal Navy ships’ issue. I wonder if the ‘Sir David Attenborough’ will also make an appearance and for that matter, will there be space in the set for ‘Boaty McBoatface’? Could be fun.

 🇲🇻 The postal service of Thailand issued a set of 8 stamps and 1 miniature sheet on 21 June 2018 as a joint issue with Maldives Post. Four of the designs featured subjects relevant to Thailand and the other 4 featured subjects relevant to Maldives. I assume that a similar issue has been or will be issued by Maldives Post but no details are as yet available.

  🇸🇬 Singapore Post consistently issues some of the most original, interesting and attractive stamps which I mention in this Blog. There are a few misses but generally Singapore Post’s stamps are more exciting and pleasing to collect than those of most of the other territories which are highlighted here. There may be a few too many new issues coming out of Singapore at present but they are all relevant to the country and feature a far more imaginative range of subjects than those who plan the new stamp issues of other territories are often able to come up with.

  The latest new issue to be planned by Singapore Post, due for release on 17 July 2019, is on the subject of ‘Forms of Street story telling’ and the designs by Lim An-ling are wonderfully atmospheric and give a clear impression of the story the design is attempting to tell unlike, for instance, the recently issued Royal Mail ‘Curious Customs’ stamps which, apart from being ugly, are indecipherable. The issue was lithographed by Secura and is perforated 13. Rating:- *****.

1468. 🇯🇪 Jersey Post To Commemorate Guiding In Jersey.

 🇯🇪 Jersey Post will issue a set of 6 stamps on 6 August 2019 to commemorate a notable anniversary with direct relevance to the island on a subject which is a popular theme. Remarkable! The pleasant set will commemorate the Centenary of Guiding in Jersey. Rating:- *****.

🇱🇰 Sri Lanka Post issued a set of 3 stamps on 9 July 2019 to commemorate the Kataragama esala festival. Kataragama deviyo is a guardian deity of Sri Lanka and the Esala Festival held at Kataragama is the principal event which plays homage to the deity. This is an interesting and colourful issue. Rating:- *****.

🇬🇮 The Royal Gibraltar Post Office issued a miniature sheet containing 6 different stamps on 5 July 2019 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first manned lunar landing. The issue was designed by Stephen Perera using photographs of NASA and lithographed by Cartor. This small territory’s postal service issues far too many stamps and this issue has no direct relevance to Gibraltar itself. Rating:- 0.

🇮🇪 The International rate booklet of self-adhesive versions of 4 previously issued stamps from An Post, the Irish postal service, which I mentioned in Blog 1463 is now illustrated below. The 4 National rate stamps were depicted in Blog 1465.