New issues -
🇴🇲 Oman Post -
29 November 2024 - ‘International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people’, joint issue with other Arab postal administrations - 1 stamp issued in sheetlets of 8 and 1 miniature sheet containing a single stamp. Lithographed. Rating:- ***.
🇶🇦 Qatar Post -
28 November 2024 - ‘International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People’ - 1 stamp issued in sheetlets of four. Lithographed, probably in a miniature sheet of 4 identical stamps. Rating:- ***.
A similar stamp has also been issued by the postal service of Jordan (the British Protectorate of Transjordan from 11 April 1921 to 17 June 1946) -
Other Arab postal administrations with no links to the Commonwealth or the former British Empire including Morocco, Algeria, Syria and Tunisia have also participated in this omnibus issue.
🇬🇬 Guernsey Post -
6 January 2025 - Chinese new year - 6 stamps and 1 miniature sheet containing all 6 stamps. Finally, and what a relief, this tiresome 12 year series of generally unattractive and expensive stamps comes to an end with the issue commemorating the Year of the Snake. The theme has no real significance to Guernsey and I hope that Guernsey Post will not consider starting a fresh sequence of Chinese new year stamps. More details and more illustrations to follow. Rating:- 0.
🇮🇳 India Post -
2024 - My Stamp (Personalised stamp sold directly by India Post), First Foundation Day of IIM (Indian Institute of Management) Mumbai. Issued in sheetlets of 12 with attached labels and sold at a premium) 1 stamp.
🇬🇧 British Overseas Territories -
An organisation called the Friends of the British Overseas Territories, otherwise known as FOTBOT, regularly reports news about what is happening in the remaining British territories overseas and such information may give pointers to upcoming stamp issues. A recent list of upcoming events and anniversaries in the various territories pinpoints a significant anniversary of a significant event - the 250th anniversary of the British claim by Captain James Cook in the name of King George III on the island of South Georgia in the South Atlantic Ocean (he named it the ‘Island of Georgia’ after the king). I expect that the postal administration of South Georgia And The South Sandwich Islands will not want to overlook the anniversary as an opportunity to release stamps to commemorate the anniversary as well as to emphasise British sovereignty over the islands.
South Georgia 1975 issue commemorating the Bicentenary of the possession of South Georgia -
King George III was depicted on a Royal Mail stamp issued in 2011 -
🇱🇹 Stamperija (Exploitative Lithuania-based producer and purveyor of philatelic items holding contracts with various impoverished (or otherwise) African countries including Sierra Leone and Togo allowing it to release products with the names of those countries printed on them. It is highly unlikely that any such products are sold across post office counters in most or all of those countries or even arrive in those countries. Although the products often have high face values they are of no real value. These products are no better than ‘Fantasy labels’. Caveat emptor) -
🇸🇱 Items with the name of Sierra Leone printed on them -
Stated date of issue (as shown by the cancellation of ‘first day covers’ clearly not manufactured and ‘postmarked’ in Sierra Leone). All items, of course, rated 0.
5 November 2024 (the date of the USA Presidential election, clearly it is impossible that these products were produced in Lithuania and released in Sierra Leone on that date) - Election of Donald Trump as President of the United States - 2 sheetlets each containing 8 different ‘stamps’ and one single ‘stamp’ miniature sheet previously issued in 2016 but reissued with overprint applied -
2024 - 75th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China, China 2024 Asian International Stamp Exhibition - 3 miniature sheets, one containing 3 different ‘stamps’, the second containing a single ‘stamp’ and the third (described rather unfortunately as ‘Siamese’) containing 6 different ‘stamps’ - 3 inscribed ‘Sierra Leone’ and the others inscribed ‘Liberia’.
Commonwealth countries and territories which are not yet known to have issued, or had issued on their behalf, any legitimate postage stamps during 2024 up until the end of November -
Anguilla
Bahamas
Belize
British Indian Ocean Territory
British Virgin Islands
Cameroon
Cook Islands including Rarotonga
Cook Islands Aitutaki
Cook Islands Penrhyn
Gabon
Grenada Carriacou and Petite Martinique
Kenya
Lesotho
Maldives
Montserrat
Mozambique
Nauru
Niue
Rwanda
Samoa
Solomon Islands
Tokelau
Tonga
Tonga Niuafo’ou
Trinidad And Tobago
Tuvalu
Uganda
United Republic Of Tanzania
Vanuatu
Therefore, by the end of November, 29 (32.6%) out of the 89 Commonwealth philatelic entities are not yet known to have issued, or had issued on their behalf, any legitimate postage stamps during 2024. This contrasts with the figure of 31 (34.8%) at the end of October 2024 and the figure of 27 out of 88 (30.7%) at the end of November 2023. As the end of the year approaches there is very little evidence of a major dropping off of issuing at least one set of stamps of year by the Commonwealth group of countries although it is true the number of issues from some of them is very sparse.
