country no. of stamps no. of min. shts. no. of booklets total no. of items
1. Mozambique 1136 101 1237
2. The Gambia 216 17 234
3. Australia 205 14 not included 229
4. St. Vincent 166 6 172
5. Sierra Leone 150 14 164
6. Grenada 145 15 160
7. G.B. Royal Mail 120 13* 15 148
8. Dominica 135 9 144
9. Antigua 128 9 137
10. Nevis 120 15 135
11. Malaysia 110 9 2 121
12. South Africa 116 2 118
13. St. Kitts 109 6 115
14. New Zealand 100 11 111
15. Guyana 91 15 106
16. India 91 12 103
17. Tanzania** 81 14 95
18. Grenada
Grenadines 84 8 92
19. Papua New Guinea 61 25 86
20. Cook Islands 76 4 80
21. Jersey 69 9 1 79
22. Canada*** 57 16 *** 73
23. Maldives 64 9 73
24. Singapore 60 4 4 68
25. Isle Of Man*** 60 7 *** 67
* G.B. Royal Mail: does not include "Smilers" and "commemorative" sheets.
** Tanzania: may increase in number as little information about the locally available issues of 2010 for use on genuine local mail is currently available.
*** Booklets not included but individual stamps from the booklets are included in the first column.
In truth, these numbers hold little surprise, the list comprising principally of countries who have postally valid items produced with their name inscribed on them who have allowed a single philatelic agency in The United States to produce such items. Their status as true "postage stamps" i.e. freely available receipts for the pre-payment of postage in the particular countries whose name is printed on them, is questionable. Nor is the outrageous excessive issuing of stamps by Australia Post and Royal Mail anything new - it has been going on, but gradually getting worse, for years. Neither of those postal authorities find anything wrong with it and clearly collectors continue to buy such items as well Gibbons continuing to list them in their catalogue. Stamp new issues continue to be a license to print money. The offshore islands of Britain also continue to cynically overproduce new issues and Jersey and The Isle Of Man find themselves in the top 25 and Guernsey would as well if its stamps were combined with those produced with the inscription "Alderney" (total number of items: 86). But there are some rays of sunshine, the following are the top 10 of lowest numbers of new stamp issues in The Commonwealth during 2010:-
country no. of stamps no. of miniature sheets total
1.= Nauru 0 0 0
1.= Rwanda 0 0 0
1.= Turks & Caicos 0 0 0
4. Samoa 0 1 1
5. Anguilla 3 0 3
6.=Belize 4 0 4
6.=Cocos (Keeling) 4 0 4
6.=Jamaica 4 0 4
6.=Penrhyn 4 0 4
6.=Tonga* 4 0 4
* Tonga produced locally surcharged stamps for use on local mail and not available through philatelic channels.