Friday, 31 May 2019

1446. 🇺🇸 China World Stamp Exhibition Dominates Latest IGPC Issues.

  🇺🇸 More new philatelic products from IGPC although many of them are on subjects which have little or no relevance to the countries whose names are printed on them. So nothing new there then.

  🇦🇬 Antigua And Barbuda -

  2019 (no specific date) - China World Stamp Exhibition - 2 miniature sheets, 1 containing 4 different stamps and the other containing a single stamp. Rating:- 0.



  2019 (no specific date) - 75th anniversary of the death of former US President Franklin D Roosevelt - 2 miniature sheets, 1 containing 6 different stamps and 1 containing a single stamp. Rating:- 0.



  2019 (no specific date) - Roses - 1 miniature sheet containing 6 different stamps. Rating:- 0.


  🇬🇲 The Gambia - 8 June 2019 - The African jacana - 2 miniature sheets, 1 containing 6 different stamps and the other containing a single stamp. Rating:- **.



 31 May 2019 - The caracal - 2 miniature sheets, 1 containing 4 different stamps and the other containing 2 different stamps. Rating:- **.



 31 May 2019 - 75th anniversary of D Day - 2 miniature sheets, 1 containing 4 different and the other containing a single stamp. Rating:- 0.



  8 June 2019 - Birth bicentenary of Queen Victoria- 2 miniature sheets, 1 containing 4 different stamps and 1 containing a single stamp. Rating:- 0.



  10 June 2019 - China World Stamp Exhibition, sites and scenes of Wuhan - 1 miniature sheet containing 4 different stamps. Rating:- 0.


  🇬🇩 Grenada - 10 June 2019 - China World Stamp Exhibition, the bridges of Wuhan - 1 miniature sheet containing 4 different stamps. Rating:- 0.


  🇬🇾 Guyana - China World Stamp Exhibition - 2 miniature sheets, 1 containing 4 different stamps and 1 containing a single stamp. Rating:- 0.



 17 June 2019 - Spangled cotinga - 2 miniature sheets, 1 containing 4 different stamps and the other containing a single stamp. Rating:- **.




  17 June 2019 - Victoria Amazonia water lily - 2 miniature sheets, 1 containing 4 different stamps and 1 containing a single stamp. Rating:- *.



  🇰🇳 Nevis - 25 May 2019 - 50th anniversary of the First manned lunar landing - 2 miniature sheets, 1 containing a single stamp and the other containing 4 different stamps. Rating:- 0.



1445. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Cricket Cup Commemorated On Post Boxes In England.

🇸🇱 I rarely mention the so-called ‘postage’ stamps produced and marketed by the Lithuania-based ‘philatelic agency’, Stamperija, though it still appears to have contracts to produce philatelic items with the postal services of Sierra Leone and Mozambique. However occasionally it is interesting to mention the more appalling items from this agency and one such item has appeared on an internet auction site this week. With the name of Sierra Leone inscribed on the 110 ‘stamps’ included in it, a large sheetlet with its inscriptions mainly in Chinese, is now available to buy for those who feel they must possess this reproduction of Chinese art. Oh, and if you can’t get enough of this stuff it’s also sold in imperforate format at a massive premium. This product is almost as awful as the Royal Mail ‘Marvel Comics’ set and miniature sheet. Rating:- 0.










 Moving on from the depredations of Stamperija, of the 88 Commonwealth philatelic entities I have listed in Blog 1361, 32 have yet to issue stamps in 2019 though as 7 months of the year still remain there is plenty of time for these entities to release worthwhile philatelic items. The entities still to issue stamps are:-

Aitutaki (Cook Islands)
Anguilla
Barbados
Belize
British Antarctic Territory 
British Indian Ocean Territory 
British Virgin Islands
Brunei Darussalam
Cameroon 
Cayman Islands 
Cook Islands 
Dominica
Eswatini
Ghana
Gibraltar (Swiss Post)
Kenya
Kiribati 
Lesotho 
Montserrat
Penrhyn (Cook Islands)
Ross Dependency
Rwanda (last known stamp issue was released on 15 November 2010, has released only 4 issues - 17 stamps - in past 20 years).
St Helena
St Kitts
Samoa
Seychelles 
Solomon Islands 
Tanzania 
Trinidad And Tobago 
Turks And Caicos Islands
United Kingdom Universal Mail
Vanuatu 
Zambia

 Things seem to be changing in the world of new issues. Many Commonwealth philatelic entities have reached the point where they either issue very few stamps or even none at all. I take it that it is, in most cases, a case of there being no profit (or perhaps even a loss) in producing and releasing new issues and unless there is a truly important national event or anniversary to commemorate then there really is no point in issuing stamps.
  Contrarily, some philatelic entities continue to pursue policies of issuing very large numbers of philatelic items with high cost prices and in ‘limited editions’, some of which are aimed at uninformed non-collectors who see such items as having investment potential or who buy them merely because they have a nostalgic appeal or because they depict modern cultural icons whose fame will not live up to the test of time. These philatelic entities are usually now those of the larger, wealthier countries which have their own local but ever-shrinking collector base. As the number of their issues and products increases so the number of their loyal collectors decreases and fewer items are sold so more items must be produced to compensate. They miss the point that once an obsessional ‘one of everything’ collector finally comes around to not buying an item then it becomes psychologically easier for them not to buy something a second time or a third time and so on. Eventually, and hopefully we are starting to see the beginning of this trend, collectors reduce their buying to the point where philatelic entities have to reduce massively their excessive issuing or else make a great financial loss.
  This year I have finally managed to prevent myself from buying selected Royal Mail commemorative issues and all prestige booklets to the immense benefit of my bank account. It’s like a weight lifted off my shoulders. The prestige booklets are usually very attractive but I find I can live without them. Up to the Millennium I collected PHQs, presentation packs and first day covers but excess led me to give them up. Royal Mail introduced Smilers stamps but eventually produced them in excessive numbers so it lost my custom for those items. Then came Post and Go stamps which started off as being very collectible but then appeared in vast numbers so I restricted severely which of those would be entered in my collection.
  From time to time Royal Mail comes up with a popular new product and then produces excessive numbers of issues of those products and so I and other collectors lose interest and stop collecting them and eventually Royal Mail stops producing them or at least has to cut back massively on such issues eg Post and Go stamps and Smilers sheets. Lessons never seem to be learned. Few young people are now beginning a life time of stamp collecting and at the other end of the scale life-long collectors are passing away. I do not know any members of the general public who have considered spending £50 on a ‘limited edition’ deluxe stamp booklet or even, for that matter, felt driven to buy an ordinary commemorative set even if it features a modern cultural icon in which they are interested.  I do not know how long it will take but I expect that eventually the large philatelic entities which continue to release excessive numbers of items will be forced to cut back enormously on the number of issues and associated collectables they release just as the smaller philatelic entities have already had to do.
  And let us be honest these stamps are not needed for use on mail. I do not recall receiving an item of mail in the past 12 months with a recently issued commemorative stamp fixed to the envelope. Even last year’s 2nd Class Christmas stamps failed to turn up on mail addressed to me. Postage stamps are rapidly becoming unnecessary and if they have no role on ordinary mail itself then they cease to be postage stamps. And that is where my collection will end. In the meantime, if you ask me what would be a reasonable Royal Mail new issue programme for me then I would say 8 commemorative issues per year plus 2 miniature sheets, 1 Prestige booklet and 2 counter booklets containing self-adhesive stamps. And every issue should be about a British subject and not something like American comic characters. But that’s just my opinion. Royal Mail - stop throttling the golden goose! Though the goose may actually have been throttled successfully a long time.

 🇬🇧 Royal Mail seems to have fallen out with issuing new stamps which commemorate sporting events. Hence it has not announced a special stamp issue to mark the hosting by England of the Cricket World Cup which is soon to start. A number of events and anniversaries are often now commemorated by special postmarks not related to a new stamp issue. Another little gimmick which Royal Mail has become fond of recently to commemorate events is the painting of the traditionally red postboxes unusual colours or with special texts and pictures on them. I have illustrated some of these post boxes in previous Blogs (1390 - romantic writing by distinguished British writers [Anna Seward, John Keats, Thomas Hardy and Robert Burns] and 1210 (Anniversary of Shakespeare’s Birthday 2018). We have also had the gold postboxes located in the home cities/towns/villages of Olympics gold medal winners and red postboxes with special plaques depicting Royal Mail stamps fitted to them which are location relevant (Blog 587).
  Now in various locations a number of postboxes have been painted blue to commemorate the holding of matches of the Cricket World Cup in the towns which are homes to the host cricket grounds. In all twelve postboxes have received this treatment situated in Bristol, Cardiff, Chester-le-Street, Leeds, London, Manchester, Nottingham, Southampton and Taunton as well as my home city of Birmingham which is home to the Edgbaston Cricket Ground. The Birmingham postbox is situated in the city centre in New Street and not in the Edgbaston area. As well as the changed colour inscriptions on the box have been added - ‘Brian Lara hit the highest ever first-class score - 501 - at Edgbaston Birmingham’ and ‘England all-rounder Chris Woakes, born and bred in Birmingham, will be playing at the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019’.
  With the usual English (generally misplaced) optimism the English team has been described as favourites to win the competition which begs the question as to whether Royal Mail would issue stamps to commemorate such a victory. It might be difficult given that Royal Mail failed to qcommemorate the England team’s victory in the Women’s Cricket World Cup a couple of years ago (see Blog 1048).
  The Birmingham postbox is depicted below:-






Wednesday, 29 May 2019

1444. 🇲🇹 Malta To Commemorate Centenary of Historic Protests On The Island.

  🇲🇹 MaltaPost will issue an interesting miniature sheet containing a single stamp on 7 June 2019 to commemorate the Centenary of the ‘Events of 7 June 1919’. These events took the form of demonstrations by Maltese people who were protesting against the then economic situation in the island where insufficient food imports had resulted in upward spiralling food prices. The protesters attacked various buildings and the local police called on British forces on the island to help them deal with the riots. An insufficient number of 64 troops were deployed to deal with the thousands of demonstrators and events got out of hand to the extent that 4 Maltese civilians were killed. The events eventually led to the granting of home rule in Malta. The date of 7 June was made a national holiday in Malta from 1989 to commemorate those who died.
  The issue was designed by Sean Cini and lithographed by Printex and perforated 14. Rating:- *****.


 🇭🇰 Hong Kong Post will issue a miniature sheet containing a single stamp on 11 June 2019 to commemorate its participation in the China 2019 World Stamp Exhibition. The item was designed by Margaret Chu and lithographed by Cartor and perforated 13.5. A colourful item. Rating:- **.


 🇮🇳 India Post issued a My Stamp on 13 May 2019 which is titled ‘Festival of Democracy’ and which commemorates the country’s latest general election in which the current prime minister’s party,   the BJP, scored a massive victory. As usual the stamps were sold in sheetlets of 12 at a premium. The stamp depicts the office of the Chief Electoral Officer in Karnataka.




Tuesday, 21 May 2019

1443. 🇫🇰🇸🇭 South Atlantic Islands Commemorate D Day.

 So far this year issues from Pobjoy Stamps/Creative Direction have not been numerous. There is now news of 3 issues from this excellent philatelic agency and stamp producer - one each from Ascension Island, Falkland Islands and Tristan Da Cunha to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Normandy landings (D Day). As usual these stamps are well designed and are pleasingly conservative in nature in that each issue is made up of only 4 stamps and all stamps are of a reasonable face value. My only concern about these issues is that while stamps from these territories usually have subjects which are directly relevant to the territories themselves, these particular issues are less easily identifiable as being directly relevant to this collection of islands. I hope that this is not the start of a new trend of more general issues from the postal administrations of these territories. Rating:- ***.
  The issues were designed by Bee Design and lithographed by Cartor and perforated 13.5. Thanks to Juliet Warner of Pobjoy for information about these issues.
 🇸🇭 Ascension - 6 June 2018 -



 🇫🇰 Falkland Islands - 6 June 2018 -



  🇸🇭 Tristan Da Cunha - 19 June 2019


🇯🇲 In Blog 1438 I detailed the issue of a set of 5 stamps by Jamaica Post which commemorates the Centenary of the Jamaica Civil Service Association. I now depict here all 5 stamps which are all identical apart from the value - sadly the design is excruciatingly dull and imaginative. I still do not know the precise date of issue.






  🇬🇧 Royal Mail’s issue, due on 6 June 2019, to commemorate the Normandy Landings - D Day - will be accompanied by yet another self-adhesive counter booklet costing £4.20p. This of course provides us with new varieties of the 2 commemorative stamps included in the booklet. These booklets are now being issued with almost every new set which has to be considered to be excessive. This year I have already thrown Prestige booklets off my list of new Royal Mail stamps to collect along with whole issues which do not commemorate British subjects - the Marvel Comics issue for instance - and these self-adhesive counter booklets can not now be far behind if this overissuing continues (which I suppose will be the case). The more stuff Royal Mail produces the less it sells (to me at least). Rating:- *.