576. Maltese Stamp Spelling Error.

  I have noticed an error in the design of one of the stamps issued by Malta Post on 21 April 2015 which I have not seen reported previously though I suspect it must have been recognised locally in Malta itself. The error appears in the inscription of the €1.55 value of the Aqueducts set which commemorates the 400th anniversary of the Wignacourt Water Tower in Floriana but the stamp inscription incorrectly names the building to be the Wingacourt Water Tower. Since I have not seen any reports of this spelling mistake I have naturally not seen any report that Malta Post intends to issue a corrected version:-

  Hong Kong Post issued a set of 6 stamps, a $50 3 pane prestige booklet, a $55.80c "mini-pane" containing 3 sets of stamps in se-tenant blocks of 6 and 1 miniature sheet on 21 May 2015 on the subject of government local vessels. The issue was designed by Chun-hong Wong and lithographed by Enschede:-

Miniature sheet.

"Mini-pane"

  As mentioned in Blog 567, the US-based philatelic agency, IGPC, released a sheetlet and accompanying miniature sheet inscribed "Tuvalu" with a stated date of issue of 13 April 2015 on the subject of Europhilex Stamp Exhibition 2015. The theme of the philatelic product was "Sites and Scenes of London" and the sheetlet is now depicted below (the miniature sheet was shown in Blog 567):-

  Another much-loved philatelic agency, Stamperija, has released a sheetlet of 4 different stamps and 1 miniature sheet to commemorate another philatelic exhibition, this time the one held in Taiwan from 24 to 28 April 2015, Taipei 2015. The circular designs depict Taiwanese wildlife. For the record, the name of Solomon Islands is inscribed on these items:-

573. Royal Mail's New Horizon Label; Heraldic Beasts, New Norfolk Island Booklet.

  I have received the cover with the new Royal Mail Horizon label fixed to it which I sent to myself from the post office situated in the Design Centre in Islington in London where the Europhilex Stamp Exhibition 2015 was held. The new label was illustrated in Blog 571 but this illustration shows the label with the 2nd class large value inscribed on it. It was postmarked at the exhibition and has an additional "Mount Pleasant Mail Centre" machine cancellation and makes a nice example of the new label which will be a workhorse stamp of the UK postal system used on cover.

Entire cover

  I visited the post office in Pinfold Street in Birmingham a couple of days ago to obtain my set of NMR kiosk-printed "Heraldic Beasts" Post And Go stamps which were being sold from 2 of the machines there. Of course these are genuine postage stamps since the dispensed items are freely available to the general public for use on their mail unlike the items dispensed from the IAR kiosks situated in a single site only in the recent Europhilex Stamp Exhibition for a limited period of 4 days. The latter are merely exhibition souvenirs but I was still pleased to buy a Collectors' strip of them as a souvenir of my visit to the exhibition. Below I depict the stamps obtained from the NMR kiosk at the left and the IAR labels at the right to contrast the difference between the styles of the inscriptions on the items from the two different sources. Below the NMR/IAR pairs I depict the 6 items from the pack sold by the Philatelic Bureau with the inscriptions printed in lithography by International Security Printers along with the rest of the stamp:-

NMR at left, IAR at right.

Inscription lithographed by ISP.

  Norfolk Island Post issued an excellent booklet of 10 different self-adhesive stamps on 19 March 2015 on the subject of the wreck of HMS Sirius on 19 March 1790 and the recovery of artefacts from the wreck:-

  Malta Post issued a single stamp with an attached label on 7 May 2015 to mark its attendance at the Essen Philatelic Exhibition 2015:-

572. St. Vincent Commemorates Queen Elizabeth II's Record Reign.

  Pos Malaysia will issue 4 stamps on 8 June 2015 which will be a joint issue with Thailand and on the subject of marine life:-

  The postal service of Ireland, An Post, issued a pair of stamps on 14 May 2015 as its contribution to the Europa omnibus series. The stamps were designed by Design Factory from paintings by the artist Comhghall Casey, a specialist in still life paintings and portraiture, from Omagh in County Tyrone. The stamps were lithographed by Cartor:-

  This week's issue from Australia Post is a block of 4 x 70c gummed stamps, 1 miniature sheet and a coil of 4 self-adhesive 70c stamps on the subject of items from Australian museum collections. The items will be released on 19 May 2015 and were designed by Gary Domoney of Visua and lithographed by McKellar Renown:-

    While visiting Europhilex Stamp Exhibition 2015 I visited the IGPC stand on the first 2 days of the show. There was not a lot on display to see - apparently many of the items for sale had been held up at Customs - but I did notice that an issue for St. Vincent And The Grenadines was on show which commemorated the achievement of Queen Elizabeth II in becoming the longest reigning English monarch - the issue consists of a sheetlet of 6 different stamps and 1 miniature sheet:-

  I also noted an issue from Grenada which consisted of a sheetlet of 4 different stamps and 1 miniature sheet on the subject of the British contribution to modern popular music, issued to commemorate the Europhilex exhibition:-

  Stamperija released 10 sheetlets each of 4 different "stamps" and 10 accompanying miniature sheets with a stated "date of issue" of 22 April 2015 on the subject of "World of sport" - the individual subjects being tennis, cricket, table tennis, water sports, rugby, football, baseball, cycling, golf and Formula 1 motor racing. The country whose name was printed on these items is Maldives:-

    Stamperija has also produced 2 items on behalf of Mozambique to commemorate its participation in the Europhilex Stamp Exhibition 2015 in London. The curious designs depict a "British bulldog" - one item is a miniature sheet of 3 different stamps and the other is a miniature sheet containing a single stamp:-

  Stamperija has also produced 2 further items connected to the Europhilex exhibition with the name of Solomon Islands printed on them - a sheetlet of 4 different "stamps" and an accompanying miniature sheet which commemorated the 175th anniversary of the Penny Black:-

570. Europhilex 2015 Stamp Exhibition - Attack Of The Post And Go's.

  Despite my extreme dislike of London I packed my bag, put collar and lead on the dog and together we set out on the train journey to spend a couple of nights in the big city so that I could pay a visit or two to the Europhilex Stamp Exhibition 2015 at the Design Centre in Islington.

  After the dog had had a good hour or so walking around Regents Park and was settled in our hotel for a pleasant snooze, I set off for the exhibition and arrived there about 4.15PM. It was late in the day and if it had been busy there earlier in the day, an air of late afternoon calm had settled on the place. I guess the entrance price of £10 was not terribly attractive to visitors who would be allowed to enter for free in the subsequent days of the show.

  One advantage of arriving in mid to late afternoon was that there were no queues for anything, particularly at the Royal Mail stand with its attached array of Post And Go kiosks. I was able to buy the items I wanted from the Royal Mail stand with less bother than I have ever experienced at any stamp exhibition I have visited in the past. I bought a pack of the new heraldic beast Post And Go labels and requested a penny black miniature sheet overprinted Europhilex pack (see Blog 557). The counter assistant had clearly misunderstood my request as he handed over 3 of the packs - this surprised me as publicity had suggested that collectors (and dealers) would be allowed to buy only one of these packs per day - I did not really want three but, in the expectation that they may be relatively rare in the future, I accepted the 3 packs offered to me and paid up. 

  I then paid my attention to the Post And Go kiosks. Their usage was explained to me by the charming young ladies present there - like everyone I met at the exhibition they were extremely helpful, friendly and courteous. While I was at the Post And Go area, only one other buyer made use of the machines. Apparently most of the buyers had been using them earlier in the day but I was surprised that they were receiving such little attention and I could not help wondering if this suggested that there had been a slump in enthusiasm for Post And Go products. I bought labels from all 6 kiosks in use there - starting with the machine which supplied the new Gibraltar labels (depicted below). 

  The 6 kiosks supplied Gibraltar Flag labels (with no Europhilex inscription plus Union Jack with no added inscription), Guernsey flag with added inscription and Union Jack with no added inscription, Jersey flag with added inscription and Union Jack with no added inscription with the remaining kiosks supplying Union Jack and Heraldic Beasts with no added inscription plus Machin Head (MA13) with added Europhilex/Penny Black inscription. The Gibraltar flags came in the following postal rates:- Local Standard, UK Letter up to 20g, UK Letter up to 40g, EU Letter up to 20g, Worldwide up to 20g and Registered Fee.

Guernsey kiosk

Gibraltar kiosk.

2 of the Heraldic Beasts set.

  For collectors of the theme of flags on stamps there was a veritable surfeit of these exhibition souvenirs for them to add to their collection even if the only items among them to have postal validity in London were the Union Jack stamps:-

   I shall give further details of the Europhilex exhibition over the next couple of days.

  The Mozambique Post Office has issued a single stamp to commemorate the 800th anniversary of the Portuguese language. The stamp depicted above was recently offered for sale on cover on an Internet auction site and confirms the issue of this stamp about which I speculated in Blog 519. I presume, as stated in Blog 519, that the date of issue was 9 October 2014 and the confirmation of its existence suggests that the other Lusophone territories did indeed participate in this omnibus issue - I shall be particularly interested to see if a stamp from Timor Leste in this same series also appears on mail or on the philatelic market.

   Interestingly, the Stamperija stand at Europhilex had no information about the above Mozambique stamp and did not know that it even existed. Likewise the polite man at the stand could tell me nothing about the Maldives dolphin and turtle tourist postcard stamps which I have mentioned several times in the past (Blog 519).He told me that Stamperija did not really deal with definitive stamps. I guess that tells us a lot about the relationship between Stamperija and its client postal administrations.