🇨🇦 Canada Post released a se-tenant pair of self-adhesive stamps issued in booklets of 10 (5 x 2 different designs) and 1 miniature sheet containing 6 stamps (3 x 2 of the same designs) on 27 June 2019 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first manned lunar landing. Rating:- ***.
🇮🇲 The Isle Of Man Post Office will issue a set of 6 stamps on 4 July 2019 on the subject of ‘Greetings in Manx’ which marks the 120th anniversary of the Manx Language Society and the International Year Of Indigenous Languages. The issue is a collaboration between Culture Vannin, a partner organisation of the International Year, and the Manx artist, Mary Cousins. The designs feature ‘Manx mice’ around and about various Manx scenes greeting each other in Manx Gaelic.
The stamps using Mary Cousins’ illustrations were designed by EJC Design and lithographed by Lowe Martin and perforated 13. A light-hearted issue but the Manx Postal Service has managed to come up with an event and a reasonably worthwhile anniversary to justify the release of these stamps. Rating:- ***.
🇬🇬 Although the island of Guernsey is geographically nowhere near Wales Guernsey Post still feels it necessary to issue a miniature sheet to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the investiture of Prince Charles as the Prince Of Wales. The item will be released on 24 July 2019 and was designed by The Potting Shed and lithographed by B Post. Rating:- 0.
I'm curious as to why you gave Canada's moonlanding stamps three stars, but Australia's stamps none. Your comments in blog post 1458 saying the stamps celebrate the achievements of the US equally apply here. Canada also seems to be issuing mainly thematic stamps too these days.
ReplyDeleteThanks Chris. You make an understandable point but when I give my own very personal opinion of a new Commonwealth stamp issue I weigh up various factors including relevance of subject, worthiness of commemoration, quality of design, reasonableness of face value and general excessiveness of number of issues. Generally Canada stamps are well designed (as admittedly are Australian stamps) but the face value and number of stamp items issued by Australia Post is far in excess of those released by Canada Post. For me the new stamps of Australia Post have to be really worthwhile because there are so many of them (the same is true of Jersey, Guernsey, Isle Of Man Gibraltar, Grenada, Antigua, The Gambia and so on (and now also Royal Mail) and they are judged much more harshly than the stamps coming from more reasonable postal administrations. I have not yet reached the point where I feel that Canada Post releases excessive issues though it’s pushing its luck).
DeleteAustralia may have contributed to the Apollo missions, I don't know, but this is how Canada Post justifies these stamps, and the people appearing on the sheets:
ReplyDelete"But Canadian engineers working for NASA played a big part in the mission, including Jim Chamberlin, the first to realize first that flying directly to the moon wasn't the best option. He would help develop the lunar orbit rendezvous — which involved descending to the surface aboard a landing module connected to the main spacecraft.
Owen Maynard, one of Canada's top aircraft engineers, sketched early designs of the command module used in Apollo and is credited as the person at NASA most responsible for the lunar lander.
And a company based in Longueuil, Que., Heroux-Devtek, built the landing gear components for the lunar module, which technically were the first thing to touch the ground. They remain on the moon to this day at the Apollo 11 landing site."
Ian
Thank you Ian for the useful information; in this modern world it’s possible to find input from inhabitants of a number of nations in all sorts of international projects and some have stronger claims to be identified with another country’s achievement than others. Thus we have Royal Mail making excuses for itself to issue stamps to commemorate a typically American product - Marvel Comics - because one or two British artists worked on them over the years. The truth is that postal administrations in many countries will try to find subjects to feature on stamps which they think will sell well and which will contribute to their financial input and the wish to commemorate national achievements has given way to the wish to make money. I assume that collectors’ views will differ and that each individual will buy whatever they think will enhance their collection and might even gain in value, though that seems unlikely when it comes to collecting general new issues.
DeleteSorry, that's the FDC, not the sheet
ReplyDeletehttps://www.dropbox.com/sh/6jf5f88a5jv55g9/AAAkpAFXMFf2BoOhF7st_mlLa?dl=0&preview=2019_Details_No6.pdf