1561. 🇬🇭 Gibbons Catalogue Editor’s Problem Solved.

🇬🇭 In the new edition of Gibbons Stamp Monthly (January 2020) the editor of the Stanley Gibbons Catalogue raises a question about a pair of stamps from Ghana featuring the US boxer Muhammad Ali (see below). The stamps are used on a commercial cover from Ghana dated 7 August 2017 and the editor confesses that the stamps are unknown to him. My Commonwealth new issue note books used for this Blog reveal that the question is easily answered - the stamps are part of a 4 stamp miniature sheet issued on 30 October 2012.
   For several years the Ghana postal service had been issuing its own stamps printed locally but unfortunately the printers failed financially and the postal service consequently resumed allowing the notorious New York-based philatelic agency, IGPC, to issue stamps on its behalf and this issue was one of 13 sets with Ghana’s name printed on them to pour out of the New York agency after 9 July 2012 during that year. 
  There - mystery solved. I hope the Catalogue editor reads this.

🇮🇳 India Post issued a single stamp on 14 December 2019 commemorating the ‘Force Multiplier’ which I believe is the Indian Armed Forces Veterinary Service (certainly the design would bear that out). The issue was lithographed by Security Printing Press, Hyderabad. A grand little stamp for animal lovers. Rating:- ****.

🇮🇲 Regrettably the Isle Of Man Post Office intends to issue yet another 8 ‘Space’ stamps as part of its 2020 new issue programme and will commemorate the Apollo 13 lunar mission, the Space Shuttle, the Space Station and the Spacelab. Isle Of Man Post Office describes the issue as “phenomenal”. Ho hum.

1507. 🇨🇦 Canada Post Commemorates Leonard Cohen.

🇨🇦 After Royal Mail’s recent Elton John Stamps, Canada Post issued 3 self-adhesive stamps (issued in booklets of 9 - 3 x 3 different stamps) and a gummed sheetlet of 6 (2 x 3 different stamps) to commemorate a somewhat different popular musician - the late Leonard Cohen - on 21 September 2019. The issue was designed by Paprika. Cohen died in 2016 and the issue is released to mark the 85th anniversary of his birth. Rating:- ***.

🇲🇾 Pos Malaysia issued 3 stamps and 1 miniature sheet on 16 September 2019 to mark Malaysia Day and featuring local food. The attractive issue was designed by KY Lim of Reign Associates. Rating:- ***.

🇬🇭 It has been more than 2 years since Gibbons Stamp Monthly added information to its Catalogue supplement about a client territory of the New York-based philatelic agents IGPC which in the past has labelled itself the ‘World’s most respected philatelic agency’. Now, in the October edition of Gibbons Stamp Monthly, the supplement brings the issues of Ghana up to date giving catalogue numbers to philatelic items said to have been issued between 2 December 2015 (Christmas paintings stamps) and 25 December 2017 (Christmas). At the end of this month’s entry in the supplement is an Appendix which lists 32 issues considered to have “been issued in excess of postal needs, or have not been made available to the public in reasonable quantities at face value....” Issues consigned to the Appendix include sets which commemorate the British television series Downton Abbey, Obama’s visit to Japan, Trump’s visit to Britain, Chinese New Year and ‘Edible mushrooms’.
  These issues are quite rightly left to languish unnumbered in the Appendix but this does not solve the problem. Clearly the subjects featured on these excessive sheets of gummed paper are almost entirely irrelevant to Ghana but the editor’s policy is inconsistent so that stamps featuring African wildlife not necessarily found in Ghana, the British royal family including the late Diana Princess Of Wales, US President Kennedy and William Shakespeare all make it into the main numbered listing. As some of these issues are listed up to 2 years after they were ‘issued’ one wonders how collectors can know what to buy at the actual time of issue and which of their purchases will receive full catalogue recognition which may affect their long-term financial value.
  The one real issue which the Ghana postal service has put out in the past few years - that released in 2016 to promote peaceful elections - doesn’t even get a mention. Gibbons seems incapable of dealing consistently with new issues. It’s fair enough to appendicise the excessive issues but to be consistent such products from Jersey Post, Isle Of Man Post Office, Australia Post, Royal Gibraltar Post Office, Guernsey Post and even Royal Mail should all suffer the same fate. Collectors should reach their own conclusions about what and what not to include in their collection and use the Catalogue as a useful guide rather than a tablet written in stone.

1252. 🇬🇧 Gibbons Catalogue Supplement Lists No IGPC Stamps for 12 Months.

  🇬🇧 I have been looking back through my copies of Gibbons Stamp Monthly dating as far back as the June 2017 edition and have surprised myself to realise that the Stanley Gibbons Catalogue editor has NOT included any 'stamps' issued by IGPC in the Catalogue supplements since that particular edition. The only exception has been the inclusion of some issues from Tanzania in the June 2018 edition - those which seem to have been prepared locally by the Tanzanian Post Office - and others 'issued' from 2014 to 2017 which have been included in the Appendix section (21 sets in all).

  The June 2017 edition included issues from both St Kitts and Nevis with some allocated rather unpredictably to the main catalogue section and others to the appendices. Thus sets commemorating Lighthouses of England, Macaws, Volcanoes of the world, Singapore sites and scenes and US former President Kennedy find their way into the main section of the catalogue and allocated catalogue numbers while stamps depicting Domestic cats, Sunflowers, Famous battles of the First World War and Olympic champions are considered worthy of only being included in the appendix.

  I do hope that the editor has decided to apportion a blanket banishment to the Appendix of ALL IGPC issues (as he appears to have done for all Stamperija products), notably those from Antigua And Barbuda, The Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Grenada Grenadines, Guyana, Nevis, St Kitts, St 
Vincent And The Grenadines, Tanzania and Tuvalu unless the issue is clearly one of local
production and likely to receive usage on real mail such as the Guyana President Jagan Centenary issue of earlier this year. It isn't hard to work out which of the stamps promoted by IGPC are real ones. Such a decision would at least give consistency to the catalogue listing and enable collectors to know at an early stage which new issues they wish to buy particularly if they are those sort of collectors who are rigid in their opinions that the Catalogue editor knows best.

  Perhaps this 12 month-long absence of IGPC issues from the Catalogue supplements is indicative of the editor's intentions to be more strict on what finds its way into the main body of the Catalogue. I do hope so. 

  Recently Ian Billings in his indispensable Norvic Philatelics Blog drew attention to the Royal Mail Click and Drop labels printed directly from computers and used by senders on E Bay or Amazon and so on instead of conventional postage stamps. In a comment, I questioned actually 90% seriously, if such labels should really be called 'stamps' as they are adhesive pieces of paper which act as receipts for the prepayment of postage and indicate that the payment has been made when applied to an item of mail which seems to me to be a very good definition of what exactly a postage stamp is. They may not be at all decorative but, unlike many 'commemorative' stamps issued by numerous postal services and philatelic agencies at the present time, they do actually function in the same role as conventional postage stamps on everyday mail.

  I certainly have a space at the back of my 'Great Britain' collection where the Horizon labels/stamps are to be found for one or two of them to illustrate the continuing development as technology progresses of the labels applied to British mail to indicate the prepayment of postage. Or do I mean stamps?

  🇮🇲  The Isle Of Man Post Office issued 4 new counter-printed stamps on 30 June 2018 in the style of Post and Go stamps and which commemorated the 125th anniversary of the Manx Electric Railway for which a large number of more conventional philatelic products (stamps, £15.60p Prestige booklet, self-adhesive pane of 6) have also been issued. Rating:- ***.

  🇮🇳 India Post issued a single stamp on 3 July 2018 to commemorate the 90th birth anniversary of the singer ML Vasanthakumari. Rating:- ***.