857. Seychelles First New Stamp For Two Years.

   Seychelles Postal Services issued a single stamp on 14 October 2016 to commemorate Seychelles India Day. The issue was made in conjunction with the Indian Association of Seychelles and depicts the Arul Mihu Navasakthi Vinayagar Indian Temple in central Victoria, the country's capital, and was printed in lithography by BDT International Security Printers. Rating:- *****.

  New issues from Seychelles Postal Services are a relatively rare event - this is the first stamp issue since 9 October 2014 when a single stamp depicting a Green turtle was released as part of an omnibus issue with 5 other southern Indian Ocean territories and that was the only stamp to have been issued since 11 November 2011 when a pair of stamps commemorated the 150th anniversary of The Seychelles Post Office.

  Seychelles is a beautiful and very interesting country and has so many subjects associated with it which would be the basis for attractive and highly collectable stamps as well as providing publicity and a positive image for the country. I like conservative new issue programmes but that of Seychelles is just a little too conservative - wouldn't it be wonderful if a really good philatelic agency such as Creative Direction/Pobjoy had the opportunity to provide an agency service for new issues to Seychelles Postal Services? One can only dream.

  From the conservatism of Seychelles Postal Services to the greedy excess of Australia Post - 2016 has seen the issue of numerous stamps, miniature sheets, booklets and so on - and a previously unmentioned miniature sheet to commemorate the Mandurah 2016 Fair stamp exhibition. The exhibition takes place from 3 to 5 November 2016 and so I guess that the date of issue is 3 November, the Fair's opening day. Rating:- *.

  Jersey Post has announced its proposed new issue programme for the first half of 2017 and there is no evidence that it intends to moderate its current policy of releasing excessive numbers of stamps. I suppose as long as the Stanley Gibbons Catalogue editor is happy to keep giving the products full catalogue status then Jersey Post will keep taking advantage of hapless collectors who feel that they must buy everything that has full catalogue status though similar issues from less popular countries would be judged to be "excessive to postal needs" and banished to the Appendix section.

  The proposed programme involves at least one issue per month:- 

  5 January 2017 - Chinese new year - Year of the rooster

  20 January 2017 - "The royal legacy of Queen Victoria" - Edward VIII

  2 February 2017 - The Jersey crest

  15 February 2017 - Post and Go labels - seashells

  2 March 2017 - Europa - Castles and forts of Jersey

  11 April 2017 - Sepac - Ancient artifacts

  12 May 2017 - "The royal legacy of Queen Victoria" - George VI

  7 June 2017 - Centenary of the Lions Club

  14 June 2017 - Durrell and the Darwin Initiative.

  Jersey Post issued on 14 October 2016 another one of those tiresome "commemorative sheets" at a cost of £12.50p. This time the product contains 20 "Jersey crest" stamps with attached labels which commemorate the 950th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings. It's quite colourful and commemorates an important subject but I have no intention of paying £12.50p for something which I can not fit on my album pages. Rating:- 0.