1919. 🇸🇬 Singapore’s Tribute To Frontline Heroes.

🇸🇬 Singapore Post will issue a second COVID-19-related issue on 6 August 2021 which is titled ‘A Tribute to Frontline Heroes”. The set will be made up of 5 stamps. Further details and illustrations to follow. Rating:- ****.

🇧🇳 Brunei Post, the postal service of Brunei Darussalam, issued a set of 6 stamps and 1 miniature sheet containing all 6 stamps on 31 May 2021 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Royal Brunei Armed Forces. The issue was 767 Major Mohammad Azan bin Haji Ahmad and lithographed by Southern Colour Print and perforated 13.5. Rating:- ****.

🇦🇺 On 31 July 2021 Australia Post issued the ninth stamp in its series commemorating Australian Gold medal winners at the Olympic Games in Tokyo. Issued in a sheetlet of 10, this stamp commemorates Emma McKeon who won the Swimming Women’s 100m Freestyle event. Rating:- ***.

  The stamps suggest that the Australian women are being altogether more successful at the Games than the Australian men with seven stamps featuring female Gold medal winners and only two showing male success. Well done to the Australian women!

1918.🇬🇸 South Georgia Features Whales In Ecosystem Recovery Issue.

🇬🇸 The postal service of South Georgia and The South Sandwich Islands will issue a fine set of 6 stamps (as 3 se-tenant pairs) on 1 September 2021 on the subject of ‘Ecosystems in recovery - Whales’. The issue was designed by Andrew Robinson and lithographed by Cartor and the stamps are perforated 13.5. Rating:- *****.

🇫🇰 The postal service of the Falkland Islands will issue a set of 4 stamps on 30 August 2021 to commemorate the life of the late Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh, husband of Queen Elizabeth II. The issue was designed by Bee Design and lithographed by Cartor and the stamps are perforated 13 x 13.5. Rating:- ****.

  Thanks to Juliet Warner of Pobjoy Stamps for information about the above issues.

 🇦🇺 Australia Post issued 2 more Olympic Games gold medal winners stamps on 30 July 2021. As before they were issued in sheetlets of 10. The successful sportsmen commemorated are Zac Stubblety-Cook who won the Men’s swimming 200m Breaststroke event and Jessica Fox who won the Women’s Canoe slalom event. Rating:- ***.

🇺🇸 The USA-based producer and purveyor of philatelic items, IGPC, has released a new list of products with the names of client Commonwealth philatelic entities printed on them. All items are here rated ‘0’.

🇦🇬 Antigua and Barbuda - no date of issue specified - 6 issues - 4 made up of 2 miniature sheets and 2 made up of a single miniature sheet.

🇬🇲 The Gambia - 5 July 2021, 10th Wedding anniversary of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (2 miniature sheets); 7 July 2021, Elvis Presley (1 miniature sheet);19 July 2021, the Bitcoin (1 miniature sheet)

🇬🇩 Grenada - 5 July 21 - 2 issues - 1 made up of 2 miniature sheets and the other of a single miniature sheet.

🇰🇳 Nevis - 5 July 2021 - 3 issues - 2 made up of 2 miniature sheets and the other of a single miniature sheet.

🇻🇨 St Vincent And The Grenadines - 7 June - 2 issues both made up of 2 miniature sheets.

🇹🇻 Tuvalu - 5 July 2021 - 3 issues - 1 made up of a single miniature sheet and the others each made up of 2 miniature sheets.

1917. 🇬🇧 Royal Mail Celebrates The Industrial Revolution.

🇬🇧 Royal Mail’s next issue can now be seen on Buckingham Covers’ internet site showing as it does a set of 6 stamps accompanied inevitably by a miniature sheet containing 4 different stamps. The subject of the issue will be Industrial revolutions with a date of issue of 12 August 2021. The stamps are interesting if profoundly unattractive. Doubtless they will be accompanied by numerous other pieces of philatelic detritus.

Three more Olympic Games gold medal winners stamps were issued by Australia Post in the established format of sheetlets of 10. The stamps commemorate the achievements of the Men’s Fours rowing team, the Women’s Fours rowing team and Ariarne Titmus who won a second gold medal in the Women’s swimming 200m Freestyle event. Rating:- ***.

  As July draws to a close here is the list of Commonwealth philatelic entities which are not yet known to have issued, or have had issued on their behalf, any postage stamps so far in 2021:-

Anguilla (most recent known issue - 10 October 2016)

Belize

Cameroon 

Cayman Islands 

Dominica 

eSwatini

Ghana

Jamaica 

Lesotho - most recent known issue 7 October 2016

Maldives 

Mauritius 

Montserrat (most recent issue - 31 December 2019)

Nauru

Pitcairn Islands 

Rarotonga

Ross Dependency 

Rwanda - most recent known issue 15 November 2010

St Kitts

Saint Lucia

Samoa - most recent known issue 2018

Sierra Leone

Solomon Islands 

Tanzania 

Tokelau

Turks and Caicos Islands - most recent known issue 7 December 2015

Uganda

Zambia

  This means that only 27 Commonwealth philatelic entities are now not known to have issued, or had issued in their name, any postage stamps so far this year. This compares with a total of 30 at the end of June, 39 at the end of May, 41 at the end of April and 54 at the end of March. The list currently includes 88  philatelic entities though this will be reduced to 87 as the government of Mozambique announced the abolishment of the national postal service (as previously reported) on 26 May 2021 although, notably, Stamperija claims to have issued stamps with the name of Mozambique printed on them on the 25 May, one day before the announcement, and a second source, which some have suspicions that it is linked to Stamperija, also claims to have issued stamps on the subjects of COVID-19 and the Olympics on 25 May.

1916 🇦🇺 Another Australian Gold Medal Winners Stamp.

 🇦🇺 Australia Post issued a third Olympic Games gold medal winner stamp on 28 July 2021 to commemorate Kaylee McKeown who won a gold medal in the Women’s swimming 100 metre backstroke event. The stamp was produced and sold in a sheetlet of ten. The Australian team has now won 6 gold medals so there are at least 3 more gold medal stamps pending. Rating:- ***.

🇧🇩 Bangladesh Post issued a single stamp on 27 July 2021 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the birth of Sajeeb Ahmed Wazeed Joy, a Bangladeshi Awami League politician and businessman, who just happens to be the only son of the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, and the eldest grandson of the founding father of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. No political bias there then. Rating:- **.

🇭🇰 The next issue from Hong Kong Post will be released on 25 August 2021 to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Hong Kong postal service.  The issue is made up of 6 stamps and 1 miniature sheet. Further details to follow. Rating:- **.

1915. 🇦🇺 Australia Post Issues Gold Medal Winners Stamps.

 

 🇦🇺 Although Australia Post is never slow to issue a postage stamp when the opportunity presents itself, it must be acknowledged that it has a long tradition of issuing Olympics gold medal winner stamps and it seems a little mean spirited to complain about Australia Post continuing the tradition to commemorate those Australians who have distinguished themselves in the same way at the Tokyo Olympic Games given all the additional difficulties related to the pandemic athletes have experienced this time round.

  Thus we have the first of Australia Post’s issues to commemorate the country’s gold medal winners being released on 27 July 2021 in the form of 2 stamps each issued in a sheetlet of 10 each of the same stamp. This is the same format as has been used for previous Gold Medal winner stamps. The issues celebrate the success of the Australian Women’s 4 x 100 Freestyle swimming team and of Ariadne Titmus in the Women’s 400 metres Freestyle swimming event. Rating:-***.

  Australia has now also won a third gold medal and has a total of 7 medals (3 gold, 1 silver and 3 bronze) putting it sixth in the current medals table. Other Commonwealth countries to have won medals so far are:- 

5. Great Britain 4 golds, 5 silver, 1 bronze (12 medals)

10. Canada 1 gold, 3 silver, 1 bronze (5 medals)

15. Bermuda 1 gold (1 medal)

34. India 1 silver (1 medal)

34. South Africa 1 silver (1 medal)

48. New Zealand 1 bronze (1 medal)

🇱🇰 Sri Lanka Post issued 2 stamps and 1 miniature sheet containing the same 2 stamps on 27 July 2021 as its half of a joint issue with Singapore Post which commemorates the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. An attractive issue. Rating:- ***.

1914. 🇨🇲 Cameroon Commemorates Gandhi.

 

  🇨🇲 Cam Post, the postal service of Cameroon, it appears, issued a set of 3 stamps in 2020 (precise date not yet known) to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Indian nationalist leader, Mohandas Gandhi. The announcement of the issue was made in a ceremony held by members of the Cameroonian government, Cam Post officials and representatives of India in early October 2020 and it was said that 6 stamps would be issued “in the coming days” after Gandhi’s birthday. One assumes therefore that this issue was released some time in early or mid October 2020 but I do not yet know the precise date of issue and it does appear that only 3 stamps were issued instead of 6. As far as is known this was the first set of stamps to be issued by Cam Post since 2015. Rating:- ****.

🇬🇭 Staying in West Africa, three interesting items from the postal service of Ghana in cooperation with Ghana’s national tourist service which date back to 2019:- 

  These look very much like miniature sheets issued to commemorate the Year of Return, when members of the Ghanaian diaspora communities across the world (particularly USA) had events laid on in Ghana to welcome them to the country of their ancestors on the occasion of the Quatercentenary of the first landing of enslaved Africans in America. In fact they are not miniature sheets but postcards with an imprinted GHc4.00 stamp on the reverse:-

  I have hunted across the internet to see if these postcards reproduce three actual miniature sheets but have not been able to track any down but I remain suspicious that somewhere out there are the three miniature sheets skulking in the shadows of the Ghanaian Post Office’s poor publicity machine waiting to be discovered. It may be that these miniature sheets do indeed exist but were  given to officials and dignatories and so on involved in these special events.

1913. 🇸🇬 🇭🇰 New Issues From Singapore And Hong Kong.

 

🇸🇬 Singapore Post will issue a couple of sets of new stamps at the end of July 2021. The first of those issues will be a pair of stamps which are part of a joint issue with Sri Lanka and which will be released on 27 July. The issue was designed to Leo Teck Chong of O’meteor Creative Artel Pte Ltd. (Singapore) and P Isuru Chathuranga  (Sri Lanka), photography by Alfred Ng Kong Hwee (Mangroves) and lithographed by Secura Singapore. The stamps are perforated 13. Rating:- ***.

 

 The second set of 4 stamps will be issued on 30 July 2021 to commemorate the Bicentenary of Singapore’s health service by the founding of a hospital in the town for British soldiers which is seen as the forerunner of today’s Singapore General Hospital. The stamps were designed by Leeyau Chun Chuan of Pinch Design Pte and lithographed by Secura and are perforated 13. Rating:- ***.

🇭🇰 Hong Kong Post issued a set of 4 stamps and 1 miniature sheet containing all 4 stamps on 23 July 2021 to commemorate the participation of Team Hong Kong in the Tokyo Olympic Games. The issue was designed by Hikiko Ito and lithographed by Caeprtor and perforated 13.5. Rating:- ***.