809. New Zealand Post Afloat With More Medal Stamps.

  Most of New Zealand's Olympic team's latest medals are rather watery ones - Lisa Carrington won a gold medal in the Women's kayak sprint K-1 200m race and Sam Meech won a bronze medal in the Sailing Men's laser competition, Lisa Carrington also won a bronze medal in the Women's kayak K-1 500m race, Joe Aley and Polly Powrie won silver in the Women's sailing 470 event, Peter Burling and Blair Tuke won the gold medal in the Men's sailing 49er event and Tomas Walsh won the bronze medal in the Men's shot put event.

  To commemorate this success, New Zealand Post has released more sheetlets of 6 x $1 stamps - I think the dates of issue must have been between 17 August and 19 August 2016. That makes a total of 14 sheetlets so far with a total face value of $84. Rating:- *****.

 Australia Post, in contrast, are sensibly releasing stamps to commemorate only Australia's gold medal winners though unfortunately the Philatelic Bureau is only selling the stamps as $10 sheetlets of 10 x $1. The latest stamps commemorate Kimberley Brennan who won the Women's rowing single sculls and Tom Burton who won the Men's sailing Laser class event. Rating:- *****.

  Bhutan Post has issued a very attractive and interesting sheetlet of 4 stamps and an accompanying miniature sheet on the subject of "The Four Mythical Animals". The issues of Bhutan Post continue to be fascinating, many featuring the immensely interesting local culture, and not over-priced. I do not yet know the date of issue. Rating:- *****.

  The latest products from Stamperija, unusually include an interesting, if large (notunusual) set of stamps that look as though they are actually intended to be used in the country whose name appears on these items. From Maldives come 20 low face value stamps with 20 accompanying miniature sheets which are titled "Personalised landscapes of Maldives" which, it is easy to see, would be of interest to tourists for use on their postcards sent from this romantic holiday getaway destination. Each stamp depicts a scene from a different atoll of the Republic of Maldives and the rather useful miniature sheets give information about the localities. I like these items and find them so interesting that, despite the rather naff art in the borders of the miniature sheets, I give a rating of *****. The date of issue is said to have been 13 June 2016. 

  Stamperia returns to its true form with a tasteless "sheetlet" of 4 stamps and an accompanying "miniature sheet" on the subject of World Youth Day which is an excuse to depict a number of Roman Catholic popes on items with the name of Sierra Leone, where the population is 78% Muslim, printed on them. The alleged date of issue was 27 May 2016. Rating:- 0.

  The same date of issue is also given for another 9 "sheetlets", each containing 4 different "stamps" with 9 accompanying "miniature sheets", on the subject of "National Parks of Africa" (none of the featured parks is located in Sierra Leone). The depicted parks are Amboseli in Kenya, Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in Uganda - a park where gorillas man seen at close quarters, South Luangwa in Zambia, Chobe in Botswana, Maasai Mara in Kenya, Etosha in Namibia, Kruger in South Africa, Kidepo Valley in Uganda and Moremi Game Reserve in the Okovango Delta in Botswana. See also Blog 795. Rating:- 0.