2651. 🇬🇬 New Guernsey Post And Go Will Depict Seashore Life.

New Issues -

🇬🇬 Guernsey Post -

19 February 2025 - New Post and Go stamps featuring Seashore life - 6 basic stamps issued in coils. Designed by Guernsey artist Chris Griffiths. Rating:- ****.

🇸🇸 Postal service of South Sudan -

16 January 2025 - Definitive series of 2024, new sheetlet containing 2 se-tenant blocks each of 6 x new SSP 1 00 stamps. Lithographed. This is being offered for sale on an internet auction site by Aurescollections and the stated date of issue is reported in the sale information. 

See Blogs 2527, 2533, 2508 and 1706.

🇴🇲🇸🇬 Oman Post and Singapore Post -

21 February 2025, Joint issue, 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Oman and Singapore - 1 miniature sheet (apparently) from Oman Post. Further information from Singapore Post awaited.

1847. 🇱🇰 🇲🇾 Sri Lanka Lion And Malaysia Cattle.

 

🇱🇰 Sri Lanka Post has released its first two new issues of 2021. The first stamp (illustrated above) was issued on 16 March and is what is termed a ‘high value’, with a face value Rs500 (which is actually only the equivalent of £1.81p which by modern standards is not really a high value at all). The design features a Yaphuwa lion and the stamp, like the rest of Sri Lanka’s new stamps, was lithographed by the Department of Government Printing. Rating:- ***.

  The second new issue is another single stamp released the following day on 17 March 2021 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Sri Lanka national crickets team’s victory in the 1996 ICC Cricket World Cup. Fewer stamps than ever seem to feature sporting events and anniversaries presently so collectors of cricket on stamps themed collections will welcome this modest little stamp. Rating:- ****.

  🇲🇾 Pos Malaysia will issue a set of 4 stamps and 1 miniature sheet containing a single stamp on 18 March 2021 on the subject of Breeds of cattle of Malaysia. I assume the subject is to tie in with the Lunar new year which is the Year of the Ox. This is a very attractive set featuring some lovely art. The issue was lithographed with additional embossing and metal ink used on the miniature sheet. Rating:- *****.

1712. 🇬🇧 The Return Of Sherlock Holmes.

🇬🇧 Royal Mail has revealed the designs of its set of 6 stamps and other items due for release on 18 August 2020 to commemorate the what I would have thought was the wholly insignificant 10th anniversary of the BBC television series Sherlock which is a modern reworking of Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories about the fictional Victorian era detective, Sherlock Holmes.

  The issue is made up of 6 stamps (total face value £7.72p) issued in se-tenant pairs which have secret inscriptions on them when the stamps are viewed under ultraviolet light and which feature scenes and characters from the programme, a miniature sheet containing 4 different stamps (total face value £4.88p) depicting scenes from the original novels, a retail booklet (cost £4.56) containing self-adhesive versions of 4 x 1st Machin Head stamps and 2 of the stamps from the miniature sheet and a Collectors sheet containing 10 stamps plus 10 attached labels costing £11.95p.

  This is a well-designed set by So Design Consultants and NB Studio (miniature sheet) and was lithographed by International Security Printers and is perforated 14.5. This is just another money spinning issue commemorating no particular event or anniversary of significance released against a background of excessive issuing by Royal Mail and so, even though I like the stamps, rating is *.

  By the way it seems a shame that Mrs Hudson, played by the fabulous Una Stubbs, and Inpector Lestrade, played by Rupert Graves, are not featured in the set.

🇸🇬 Sing Post, the postal service of Singapore, will issue a set of 5 stamps and 1 miniature sheet on 7 August 2020 on the subject of ‘Quirks in the island state’. The issue commemorates Singapore’s 55th anniversary of independence and is centred on what is seen to be uniquely Singaporean traits such as the use of the phrase “Kopi-o-kosong” when ordering coffee and what is viewed as Singapore's national pastime - queueing. Also featured is another modern-day obsession - the need to photograph oneself which in Singapore is called the ‘wefie’. The issue also reflects the way Singaporeans have adapted their ways of life to deal with the present COVID-19 pandemic featuring social distancing and face mask-wearing. The miniature sheet features a visual summary of the present Singaporean lifestyle as it copes with the day-to-day COVID-19 situation.

  This is a witty little issue which could be of immense interest to future social historians studying life in Singapore in the early 2020s. The issue was designed by Toby Tan Xun Pinch Design Pte Ltd and lithographed with gold hot stamping (miniature sheet) by Secura Singapore Pte Ltd and perforated 13. Rating:- ****.

791. Attack Of The Surcharges.

  In a comment at the end of Blog 790, Stewie1911 mentioned the difficulties in obtaining modern surcharged issues and notably the 2014 - 15 provisional issues of Papua New Guinea. I had previously mentioned that Steven Zirinsky had a number for sale on his website and that I had obtained three of them from the British dealer, Nigel Haworth. His newsletter had stated that there were a total of 35 new stamps in the issue. 

  I have now found an article which fully details these Papua New Guinea stamps ( i-enorg/background-information/papua-new-guinea-postage-stamps/ueberdrucke-2014-2015/) which has been published by Interssengemeinschaft Neuguinea, an international study group for collectors of the stamps of PNG. The article illustrates all 35 of the new stamps using scans supplied by Steven Zirinsky.

The issues are broken up into 4 groups - 

1. 2014 - 8 stamps - all K1.30 surcharges on previous K1.25 stamps thus providing stamps in the new postal rate by using up stamps with face values of the previous postal rate (see Blog 750).

2. 2015 - 11 stamps - previous commemoratives surcharged with high face values for use on heavier overseas mail :- 3 x K15, 3 x K25 (see Blog 788), 2 x K40 and 3 x K90.

3. 2015 - 6 stamps - new stamps in 5t denomination used to make up values of unsurcharged K1.25 stamps to K1.30 value. Printed in sheets of  50. 

4. 2015 - new stamps printed in sheets of 20 and 20 attached labels - 2 x 5t.

5. 2015 - new stamps without attached labels printed in sheets of 40 - 6 x 5t and 2 x 20t.

  These stamps are said to have not been distributed to philatelic dealers. Although I suppose that the surcharged stamps will be necessarily very difficult to find at an affordable price, I can not help but suspect that the new stamps must eventually turn up somewhere or the other.

  I strongly recommend visiting the I-NG site to see the various stamps that make up this important issue.

  Quite recently a seller on one of the Internet auction sites was offering 6 recent Fiji surcharges for sale. At the time I was distracted and thought no more about these stamps but now realise that 3 of them at least are new to me and presumably have been issued in early 2016. They are the 1c on 44c Purple Swamphen definitive, a 1c on 81c Kadavu fantail definitive and the 20c on 63c Goshawk stamp which I have not otherwise seen being offered for sale elsewhere but have mentioned in previous Blog 743. No doubt they will pop up again. Will this series of surcharges never end (it has been going on for 10 years now)?

  Nigel Haworth has been selling another interesting new item recently - the British Indian Ocean Territory miniature sheet released on 12 February 2016 on the subject of the BIOT Pelagic Expedition of 2012 and depicting 6 different sharks but with reversed watermark. In the normal sheet the tops of the multiple crowns point to the right of the sheet when viewed from the obverse but in the error they point to the left. Watermark errors are rare nowadays. Rating:- *****.

  On 21 July 2016 An Post, the Post office of Ireland increased its National and International Airmail postal rates and this has resulted in the need for definitives in the new postal rates, the result being a 72c Easter Rising self-adhesive from booklets of 10 (previous rate being 70c), a €1.10 Easter Rising self-adhesive stamp from booklets of 10 (previous rate being €1.05c) and 2 x 72c Easter Rising self-adhesive stamps from coils. Rating:- *****.

  I depicted the 6 stamps of Jersey Post's new First World War set in Blog 787 and I now depict below the accompanying £2 miniature sheet. The theme of the set is "Battles of the Great War" and the battle depicted on the miniature sheet is the Battle of Cambrai. The issue will be released on 4 August 2016. Rating:- *****.

  In Blog 418 (5 June 2014) I mentioned a $100 Parrot definitive stamp from Grenada which was on sale on an Internet auction site but since then nothing has really been heard about this item. I have not seen it being sold on the IGPC website and I can't recall any dealers offering it for sale. Currently, however, a number of the stamps are being sold by another Internet auction site dealer - in Russia - so it seems as though this particular stamp is out there if you look for it. I wonder why it has not been offered for sale by some of the big western dealers.

Post scriptum:- the helpful comment by Birdstamper below tells me that the parrot stamp has indeed appeared on the IGPC website - I have certainly overlooked it up to now and had wondered if the stamp had actually been issued. Clearly, as I wrote above, it's out there.