1607. 🇬🇧 James Bond Makes Another Philatelic Appearance.

🇬🇧 Royal Mail will issue a large number of philatelic items on 17 March 2020 on the subject of the character James Bond created by Ian Fleming in a long series of novels and subsequently an even longer series of films. The release of the 25th movie of this film series is the excuse provided by Royal Mail for issuing this latest expensive philatelic extravaganza dealing with yet another aspect of  popular modern British and, sometimes, foreign culture.
 The issue is made up of 6 stamps, 1 miniature sheet containing 4 different stamps with additional hidden features, 1 counter booklet containing 4 x 1st class rate Machin Head definitives and 2 x 1st class rate stamps from the set, along with 1 Prestige booklet costing £16.99 and containing the stamps from the set and miniature sheet as well as a pane containing 2 x 2nd class rate Scotland regional stamps, 2 x 1st class Union Jack greetings stamps and 2 x 2p and 2 x 2nd class rate Machin Head definitives the definitives have code M19L MPIL. As well as all these there is also a ‘Collectors sheet’ containing 5 x 1st class and 5 x £1.60 Machin Head definitives with attached labels and costing £12.60 and there is also, inevitably I suppose, a ‘Limited edition’ premium priced special edition of the Prestige booklet costing £64.99 .
An exciting set nicely designed by Interabang and lithographed by International Security Printers and perforated 14.5. Rating:- ***** (for the basic items of this issue)

  Royal Mail previously commemorated the James Bod character when it issued a set of 6 stamps, 1 miniature sheet and a Prestige booklet on 8 January 2008. The stamps depicted covers of various editions of some of the books and were designed by A2 and lithographed by De La Rue.

  Subsequently a ‘Collectors sheet’ was released in 2012 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the publication of the first James Bond book. The sheet contained 10 Union Jack stamps with attached labels each depicting a different poster from 10 of the movies.

  Guernsey Post issued a set of 6 stamps, 1 miniature sheet and a gold foil miniature sheet (‘sealed in acrylic crystal’ and sold in a ‘limited edition’ of 500 for a preposterous £95) on 30 July 2014 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death of the character’s creator, Ian Fleming. The issue was designed by Two Degrees North and lithographed by BDT International Printers.

542. Not So Much Jam And Jerusalem As Jaffa Cakes And The Smell Of Roses.

  After a recent promotion by Isle Of Man Stamps which involved the offer of some Jaffa Cakes (orange-flavoured biscuits) (see Blog 538) to the first 100 purchasers of a special cover it has now been announced that a new issue of 6 stamps to be released on the subject of the Centenary of The Women's Institute will be marked by the use of rose-scented paper on which the stamps are printed. 

  There seems to be an increasing use of gimmicks in stamp design, production and sales promotion - hardly an edition of this Blog goes by now without mentioning stamps printed on strange materials (gold, silver, wood, textiles, silk) or with strange aromas attached to them (rose, chocolate and so on) as a way of trying to get hold of collectors' attention. The need for these rather tiresome gimmicks would not arise if modern stamps were well designed and sold at reasonable face values instead of being nothing more than rather randomly selected photographs manipulated by a computer programme to include some text and the face value.

  The increasing use of gimmicks is consistent with a failing new issue market where regular collectors are so overwhelmed by the constant outpouring of expensive sets of stamps that they have effectively given up buying these items while postal administrations are so increasingly desperate to extract money from collectors that they need to draw buyers' attention to thir products by adding unusual features to them - except that now almost every issue seems to have to have an unusual feature.

  These latest aromatic Manx masterpieces are a long way from the "Jam And Jerusalem" view of the Women's Institute - each design depicts members of the WI carrying out some sort of demonstration related to a campaign of interest to the members. The issue was designed by Isle Of Man Advertising and lithographed by Lowe Martin and will be released on 25 April 2015:-

  

  On the subject of the importance of great, original design, I found 6 stamp designs by the graphic designer, T. Greenwood, on the Internet which are on the subject of the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta along with a depiction of a first day cover with an inscription "Royal Mail First Day Cover". I am guessing that these are submitted designs or essays which are indeed very interesting and original with their  shape - basically square but with a circular shape breaking out of the square giving the appearance of the royal seal applied to the charter. Each stamp has the name of one of the towns to which a copy of the charter was sent and gives a fact about the history of Magna Carta. What an exciting set of designs (and not a single strange smell attached to them):-

  Moving from exquisite design to the sort of philatelic products which involve "randomly selected photographs manipulated by a computer programme to include some text and the face value", I  depict some new philatelic items released by IGPC with the names of client postal administrations printed on them:-

  2015 (date of issue not yet known) - Antigua And Barbuda - "Horses in Art" - 2 sheetlets, 1 of 6 different stamps and the other of 4 different stamps plus 2 miniature sheets:-

  2015 (date of issue not yet known) - Valentina Tereshkova, First woman in space - 1 sheetlet of 4 different stamps and 1 miniature sheet:-

  2015 (date not yet known):- Sierra Leone - Big cats of Africa - 2 sheetlets each of 4 different stamps stamps and 2 miniature sheets:-

  2015 (date not yet known):- National Parks of Africa (none of the parks appear to be located in Sierra Leone) - 2 sheetlets each of 4 different stamps and 2 miniature sheets:-

  Meanwhile Samoa has followed in the footsteps of the other countries for which Philatelic Collector Inc. is the philatelic agent - Cook Islands and Tonga - by issuing 3 high value definitive stamps in a se- tenant block with a total face value of $63.75c (currently equal to £17.35). I do not yet know the date of issue:-