New issues.
🇬🇧 Royal Mail -
30 March 2022 - Postal Museum new exhibition, ‘Sorting Britain’, Post and Go - 2 stamps, Union Jack and Machin Head designs with identical added inscriptions in 2 lines, ‘The Postal Museum/Sorting Britain’. The new exhibition centres on the introduction and use of postcodes in Britain.
🇱🇹 Stamperija (products inscribed Guyana) -
March 2022 - ‘Ukraine against Russian invasion’ - 1 miniature sheet. This does NOT appear to be an official product of Guyana Post Office Corporation being a printing carried out, one suspects by Stamperija itself, on a sheet of GPOC personalisable stamps.
Stamperija, which is promoting this product, claims that 30% of “net sales goes to the foundation supporting Ukraine’s resistance” which means, one assumes that the remaining 70% goes to Stamperija. The sheet includes 12 stamps (2 of each design though two of the designs have subtle differences - in the upper blue shield stamp part of an aircraft wingtip intrudes on the design but not on the lower stamp and there is a similar difference between the two stamps which depict a female saint).
🇱🇹 Stamperija (products inscribed Sierra Leone) -
24 February 2022 - Support for Ukraine. Stamperija claims that the products it has released with the name of Sierra Leone printed on them in support of Ukraine in the face of the invasion of the country by Russian forces (see Blog 2051) were released just 4 days after the aggression began on 20 February as judged by the post mark applied to ‘first day covers’. Hence, if one is to believe that these items were designed, printed and flown to Sierra Leone for release in the country’s post offices on the 24th then one must admire Stamperija’s brilliance in stamp production and handling - second to none, I should think. On the other hand one may just be realistic and conclude that it is all a complete fantasy providing a back story for yet another cynical effort by this disreputable business to make money out of someone else’s tragedy.
Commonwealth philatelic entities which are not known to have yet issued stamps (or had items released on their behalf) during 2022.
Anguilla
Australia Cocos (Keeling) Islands
Barbados
Belize
Bermuda
British Indian Ocean Territory
British Virgin Islands
Brunei Darussalam
Cameroon
Cayman Islands
Cook Islands
Cook Islands Aitutaki
Cook Islands Penrhyn
Cook Islands Rarotonga
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus
Dominica
eSwatini
Ghana
Grenada Carriacou And Petite Martinique
Jamaica
Kenya
Kiribati
Lesotho
Malawi
Montserrat
Namibia
Nauru
Nigeria
Niue
Papua New Guinea
Pitcairn Islands
Ross Dependency
Rwanda
St Helena
St Kitts
Saint Lucia
Samoa
Seychelles
Solomon Islands
South Africa
Tanzania
Tokelau
Tonga
Tonga Niuafo’ou
Trinidad And Tobago
Turks And Caicos Islands
Uganda
Vanuatu
Zambia
Thus at the end of March, 49 of the 87 Commonwealth entities have not yet issued (or had issued on their behalf under contract) any postage stamps (or items purporting to be postage stamps) so far during 2022. This compares with a total of 55 at the end of February and 65 at the end of January. Meanwhile Ukrainian resistance and courage appears to be leading to a humiliating defeat for the Russian tyrant Putin and his incompetent military forces. Little surprise then that Putin’s Defence Minister has had a heart attack - I hope he’s got a good stock of warm clothing, I believe it’s rather cold in Siberia.
