Sunday 31 July 2022

2126. ๐Ÿด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ England Winners Stamps?

 


New issues.

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ Royal Mail -

? August 2022 - It seems almost impossible to believe that Royal Mail, always keen to please and always keen to make money, will not issue some stamps to commemorate this evening’s victory by the England women’s football team in the Women’s European Championships final held at Wembley Stadium which is the first international football championship victory by an English team since 1966. Then England’s men  beat Germany 4-2 in extra time, this time the English women won 2-1 in extra time. Same ratio!

  If Royal Mail does not release one of its four stamp sporting victory miniature sheets at lightning speed then my amazement will know no bounds. Though they might just stick to issuing stamps commemorating American comics and paint a postbox, this time it seems impossible for Royal Mail to risk the public ire which would be incurred if it is does not commemorate England’s women’s notable victory. 



2125. ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ฉ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ณ New Issues From Bangladesh And India.

 

New issues.

๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ณ India Post -

30 July 2022 - ‘Justice for all - right to free legal aid’ - 1 stamp. Rating:- **.


๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง Royal Mail -

1 September 2022 - Transformers - 8 stamps (2 strips of 4 se-tenant stamps, 4 x 1st and 4 x £1.85) and 1 miniature sheet containing 4 different stamps) plus 1 Prestige booklet containing 4 panes including a pane of bar-coded new style Machin Head definitives plus 1 ‘Collectors sheet”. Illustrations awaited. 

๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ‡ท Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus postal service -

25 July 2022 - this date is said to have been deferred - Traditional housing - details awaited.

๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡พ Cyprus Post -

- no date specified - FIFA World Cup Championship Finals, Qatar - 1 stamp.

16 September 2022 - Twelve gods of Mount Olympus - 12 stamps

16 September 2022 - Centenary of the Asia Minor Catastrophe - 1 stamp

18 November 2022 - Christmas - 3 stamps.

๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ฉ Bangladesh Post  - 

17 June 2022 National Population and Housing Census 2022 - 1 stamp. Rating:- ***.


17 June 2022 - Philatelic Fair, Dhaka - 1 stamp, previous issue with overprint applied. Rating:- *.


23 June 2022 - Opening of the Padma Bridge by the prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Haskins - 1 stamp and 1 miniature sheet containing 4 different stamps. Rating:- ****.



27 July 2022 - “91th (sic) birth anniversary of Mysterious Singer Abdul Alim” - 1 stamp. Rating:- ***. A better quality illustration will be added when available.


Commonwealth entities whose postal services are not yet known to have issued, or to have had issued on their behalf, any legitimate postage stamps so far in 2022 or in the case of Gabon and Togo from 25 June 2022 which is when they joined The Commonwealth:-

Anguilla

Barbados 

Belize 

British Indian Ocean Territory 

British Virgin Islands 

Cameroon 

Cook Islands 

Cook Islands Aitutaki 

Cook Islands Penrhyn

Cook Islands Rarotonga 

Dominica 

eSwatini

Gabon 

Ghana 

Kenya 

Lesotho 

Montserrat 

Nauru 

Nigeria 

Niue 

Papua New Guinea 

Ross Dependency 

Rwanda 

St Helena 

St Kitts

Saint Lucia

Seychelles 

Solomon Islands 

South Africa 

Togo

Tokelau 

Tonga

Tonga Niuafo’ou

Turks And Caicos Islands 

Uganda 

United Republic of Tanzania

Vanuatu 

Zambia 


  At the end of July, 38 entities remain on the list, just one less than the end of June. Therefore 42.7% of Commonwealth philatelic entities are not known to have issued, or have had issued in their name, any legitimate postage stamps so far in 2022. 

  We might note that recently the notorious producer and purveyor of paraphilatelic items, Stamperija, has released numerous items with the name of Mozambique printed on them despite the fact that the government of that country announced in June 2021 that it was terminating the existence of the national postal service, Correios de Moรงambique, for financial reasons. The head post office in Maputo was sold off before the end of 2021 and it seems unlikely that there is any functioning postal service in the country now though the Mozambique government did set December 2022 as the time when the postal service would be fully wound up.

  It may be that Stamperija is able to release items purporting to be postage stamps up until the legal winding up of Correios de Moรงambique though in reality they are nothing more than labels with no practical use in the absence of a functioning postal service and therefore they do not fulfill the necessary criteria to be described as postage stamps. Mozambique can no longer be reasonably described as a ‘philatelic entity’ and therefore is not included in the list used here. If there is no postal service then items released by Stamperija captioned ‘Moรงambique’ are not worth the face value printed on them - it is a notional face value - and indeed are worth no more than a small piece of gummed paper with some printing on it. In other words these items are worthless and so, as usual, buyer beware though collectors of colourful labels and stickers with no real intrinsic may be happy to pay the exorbitant prices asked for these items.

Friday 29 July 2022

2124. ๐Ÿ‡ฟ๐Ÿ‡ฒ More clarity on Zambia Issues

 


New issues.

๐Ÿ‡ฟ๐Ÿ‡ฒ Zambia Post -

Since mentioning the Zambia Post surcharges in Blog 2122 Steven Zirinsky who is offering these items for sale on his internet shop site has made a comment on Stampboards saying, “As for Zambia, these are not 2022 issues. They were issued in 2016. Zambia has not issued anything since. And mail does get through. Takes four weeks”.

  Robert, to whom many thanks, has also kindly left a very helpful comment on a recent edition of this Blog on the subject of these surcharges and I reproduce it here to draw readers’ attention to it:-


I think in his comment, Robert probably means ‘Aardwolf’ rather than ‘Aardvark’ as I can not find, quite surprisingly, any Zambian stamps in my collection featuring an aardvark and, if so, the stamp he mentions has recently been offered by Steven Zirinsky. The others he mentions are illustrated above and below:-



  Thank you again for the input. It is always so helpful to receive information particularly on issues such as these surcharges which are the workhorses of the philatelic world in a number of Commonwealth countries. Such issues may become more common - and often not be announced to the philatelic world - as the full effects of the current financial problems affecting the world become apparent and postal services can not afford to pay for the printing of postage stamps. It will be interesting to see what happens in Sri Lanka, whose economy is so blighted that the situation has brought down the country’s president, as regards the future of its postal service and the issue of new stamps. Even the ‘big hitters’ - Royal Mail, Australia Post and so on - may see a big fall in their sales of philatelic items and collectables to the point where they are no longer worth producing as more and more people decide it’s more important to be able to heat their homes this coming winter than it is to possess an expensive ‘Collectors sheet’ depicting comic book characters. 

  The truth is that postage stamps are no longer needed to any great extent as letter writing gives way to the sending of the cheaper, faster, easier E-mail and if they are mainly produced for stamp collectors or collectible hoarders who can no longer afford them or have greater priorities such as the price of basic necessities then we may see many other postal administrations go the way that Steven Zirinsky tells us that Zambia has taken and go years without a new stamp issue or perhaps never ever issue one again.

  Take for instance this fascinating cover I received yesterday from Pakistan. It is a small package which contained a modest number of new stamps. Firstly, there are no postage stamps used on it but there is an interesting bar coded label inscribed PAKISTAN POST which I assume to be related to the packet’s registration. And secondly (though this digresses from the subject) there is some lovely tape inscribed ‘Home Office and ‘Border Force’ applied at one end where customs officials must have opened the packet to ensure there were no dubious items therein as well, I guess, to ascertain the true value of the contents. While I am basically a  stamp collector I am always delighted to add a few interesting covers to my collection if they contribute to telling the story of a country’s postal services.

:



๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ฌ Guernsey Post -

Issues inscribed’Alderney’ - 

24 August 2022 - 175th anniversary of the Alderney breakwater - 4 stamps and 1 miniature sheet containing all 4 stamps. The miniature sheet of the previously reported issue (see Blog 2118) is now illustrated below. Rating:- ****.




๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ฌ Singapore Post -

8 August 2022 - ‘A Green and Resilient Singapore’ - further details awaited.



2125. ๐Ÿด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ The Commonwealth Games Open In Birmingham.

 


Events.

๐Ÿด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ England

  The Opening Ceremony of the Commonwealth Games took place in Birmingham, the second largest city in England with a total population of about 1,115,000, on the evening of 28 July 2022, with the participation of 72 Commonwealth countries and territories. The city is located in the English Midlands and was the centre of the industrial revolution during the 18th and 19th centuries. 

  There is evidence of occupation of various sites in the Birmingham area dating back to the Stone Age and Bronze Age and the Romans established a large fortress at Metchley, near the site of the present day Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Edgbaston, as part of their campaign to subdue the Welsh tribes to the west.

 In Anglo-Saxon times the southern part of what is now Birmingham was part of the territory of the Hwicce people while the northern part was part of the Angle Kingdom of Mercia which eventually subsumed Hwicce. When the Vikings occupied large swathes of England, the area which is now Birmingham remained in the free part of West Mercia which supported the West Saxons in their fight to free England. 

  After the Norman conquest of England, Birmingham was described in the Domesday Book of 1086 as, ‘Richard holds of William [Fitz Ansculf of Dudley] four hides in Birmingham. Land for six ploughs: one is in the lordship. There are five villagers and four small holders, with two ploughs. Woodland half a mile long and two furlongs wide, it was and is worth 20s. Wulfine held it freely’. The lords of the manor became known as the de Birmingham family and in 1166 Peter de Birmingham bought the right to hold a weekly market in his castle from King Henry II. A confirmation charter was granted for the market in 1189. The town began to grow and there is evidence that as early as 1308 that Birmingham was a place of production of metal goods.

The reference to Birmingham in the 1086 Domesday Book - 


  By 1538 one traveller described the town, “…There be many smiths in the towne that use to make knives and all mannour of cuttinge tooles, and many lorimers that make bittes, and a great many naylors. Some say that a great part of the towne is maintained by smithes, who have their iron and sea-cole out of Staffordshire”. Subsequent visitors all mentioned how busy the town was, full of the deafening sound of metal-bashing. Industry continued to grow and in the meantime, during the Civil War, the inhabitants opposed the Royalists and found themselves being attacked by the forces of Charles I.

The Bull Ring, Birmingham, late 18th century:-


  As the town grew more prominent, citizens debated their often radical politics and the town found itself at the cutting edge of the Enlightenment when men such as the inventors and industrialists James Watt and Matthew Boulton, the physician William Withering (who discovered digoxin), Erasmus Darwin (physician, philosopher and grandfather of Charles Darwin), Joseph Priestley (the discoverer of oxygen) and Josiah Wedgwood the pottery manufacturer from Stoke, founded the Lunar Society.

Royal Mail issue 10 March 2009 - members of the Lunar Society - Matthew Boulton, James Watt and Josiah Wedgwood -




Statue of the ‘Golden Boys- Boulton, Watt and Murdoch, Centenary Square, Birmingham -



 The town turned itself into an enormous workshop as the industrial revolution proceeded and thousands of people from the surrounding counties moved there to work in its numerous industries. Slum housing and poor living conditions were often the lot of the factory workers but in 1873 the radical liberal industrialist, Joseph Chamberlain, was elected Mayor of the town and began a vast programme of slum clearance and improvements in the town including the building of Corporation Street in the town’s very centre. Eventually Birmingham received its Charter as a city in 1889.

Joseph Chamberlain - 


  The city gradually spread out to engulf more areas and thereby increase its population. The city was a frequent victim of German air raids in the first part of the Second World War and then, after the war, as Britain entered a new post-colonial era tens of thousands of immigrants from around the Commonwealth and elsewhere began to arrive, settle and bring up families in the city which brought the city to where it is today - a diverse, multi-cultural, tolerant society and a very apt place to host the Commonwealth Games.

Birmingham’s Chamberlain Square, the Central Library and Selfridge’s building depicted previously on Royal Mail stamps:-




  Scenes from the Opening Ceremony, 28 July 2022 - 

The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall arrive -


The Red Arrows - 


The Raging bull - 





New Zealand, Lesotho and Rwanda teams - 




The England team - 




Wednesday 27 July 2022

2123. ๐Ÿ‡ด๐Ÿ‡ฒ Oman Post - It’s A Date.

 


New issues.

๐Ÿ‡ด๐Ÿ‡ฒ Oman Post -

21 July 2022 - Omani dates - 4 stamps produced in sheets of 8 (2 sets of 4) and 1 miniature sheet containing 4 different stamps. Rating:- ***.







๐Ÿ‡ต๐Ÿ‡ฐ Pakistan Post -

25 July 2022 - Centenary of Attock Refinery Ltd - 1 stamp. Lithographed. Rating:- **.



๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ฌ Guernsey Post:-

24 August 2022 - ‘Quartet - Heart of the Forest’ part 3 - 1 stamp. Designed by Gail Armstrong. Rating:- *.


๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡บ Niue postal service -

New Zealand Post has produced postage stamps on behalf of the postal service of Niue for several years and sold them through its internet site. No issue is known to have been released since 7 April 2021 and New Zealand Post no longer features any of the territory’s issues on its site. Whether this means that Niue is another inert philatelic entity or if some other philatelic agency has got its hands on the right to produce stamps in its name remains to be seen. 


๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ‡ฐ Tokelau postal service - 

In contrast, stamps from Tokelau, for which territory New Zealand Post has also produced stamps for a number of years, are still depicted on NZ Post’s internet site but they are only the 2012 definitive issue and, on closer scrutiny, are all described as ‘out of stock’. There have been no new stamps issued since the Christmas set was released on 4 November 2020. It seems likely that whatever is happening with the  new issues of Niue is also probably happening with those from Tokelau. We will see.



Sunday 24 July 2022

2122. ๐Ÿ‡ฟ๐Ÿ‡ฒ Zambia - New Surcharges.

 


New issues.

๐Ÿ‡ฟ๐Ÿ‡ฒ Zambia Post -

?2021 ?2022  - Surcharges - 3 stamps. Many postal services are now inert, if not quite dead, as regards to the release of new issues. Some now take the view that if any new postal need does arise then surcharges on previously issued stamps are all that are required to address that need. Such a postal entity is Zambia Post which, to my best knowledge, has not released any new stamps apart from occasional surcharges since 2014. In addition, these surcharges are not, as far as I am aware, publicised to the stamp collecting community or, for that matter, to the general public. The postal service views these stamps as workhorses produced to meet a postal need not to be used up by collectors mounting them in stamp albums.

  Fortunately, a handful of dealers have contacts with these territories and are able to keep track of and often eventually obtain some of these items. The US dealer Steven Zirinsky has drawn attention to these new Zambian surcharges recently (along with some previously issued stamps) and had them for sale on his internet shop site but I had not noticed because they are surcharges on the same stamps as those to which previous surcharges were applied but these are new values. It was only by chance, when looking through my Zambia album, that I realised that these were new items which I had not seen featured anywhere before. 

- K5.00 on K4,950 on K2,700 Aardwolf.


This stamp has now been released and rereleased with various surcharges:-

Original issue, one of a set of four on the subject of dog-like mammals, issued 2007 (also included in a miniature sheet - 


1 December 2009 - K4950 on K2700 - 


the same with small ‘targets’ scattered across it - 




2013 - K4.95 on K4,950 on K2,700 - 




2013 - K1.50 on K2,700 - As with many of these surcharges from Zambia as well as from other countries such as Malawi there are various errors of surcharge including the previously illustrated target stamp and it is clear that inverted surcharges must be relatively common. The illustration below shows a pair of an inverted surcharge K1.50 on K2,700 used nonchalantly on an ordinary commercial cover dated 21 July 2017 at Ndola - 





K5.00 on K4950 - one of three 2010 Football World Cup stamps with Flag of South Africa - 


  Surcharges had been applied previously to the version of this stamp which depicted the flag of Namibia - 

2014 - K4.95 on K4,950 -



?2019 - K5.00 on K4.590 - 


K10.00 on K3,500 on K2,700 (one of a set of 2 issued singly and in a miniature sheet on 27 July 2005 originally) - Birth centenary of Dag Hammarskjold, former UN Secretary-General - 



  This stamp too has been released and rereleased with surcharges applied - 

27 July 2005 - Original issue - 


1 December 2009 - K3,500 on K2,700 - 


2013 - K1.50 on K2,700 - 


  See also Blogs 1352, 1631, 1642, 1643 and don’t forget this predictive posting which caught out one or two people the first time I published it - 


๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ฒ Isle Of Man Post Office -

12 August 2022 - Isle of Man’s hosting of the International Olympiad in Linguistics at King William’s College, 24 - 30 July 2022 - 7 different stamps in sheetlets of 20 for £14. (the sheet contains 4 se-tenant strips each containing 5 different stamps, each strip being made up of various combinations of the stamps so that 6 of the designs appear three times in the sheet but one stamp occurs only twice meaning that each sheet contains only 2 complete sets). Designed from the artwork of competition-winning secondary school students. Self-adhesive. Rating:- *.


๐Ÿ‡ฒ๐Ÿ‡น MaltaPost -

12 August 2022 - Festa 2022 - 10 stamps. Designed by Design MaltaPostplc from photography by Mark Micallef Perconte and lithographed by Printex. Perforated 14. Illustration awaited.