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:-

539. The Hundred Days, Cream Crackers And Jaffa Cakes.

Waterloo stamp 2015 - haven't I seen this somewhere before?

  Isle Of Man Stamps And Coins issued a single £1 stamp on 9 March 2015 to commemorate the bicentenary of Bonaparte's return to France from exile on Elba and the beginning of the 100 days campaign which ended with the French tyrant's defeat at the Battle of Waterloo and his subsequent exile on St. Helena. His defeat meant that Europe which had been ravaged by war for more than 20 years was finally able to heave a sigh of relief and return to the peace that Bonaparte had long denied it.

  The stamp depicts The Duke Of Wellington, British commander at the Battle of Waterloo, and Major Caesar Bacon, a Manxman who fought at Waterloo. The excellent, straight-forward and colourful design is by Paul Hannon and the stamp was lithographed by BDT International. Full marks to Isle Of Man Stamps And Coins for this excellent, sensibly-priced stamp which gives collectors a snippet of information about Manx history as well as being of more general interest but....

  Just one thing, this is a recycled stamp design which has been redrawn to include the Waterloo 200 logo. The design was originally used as one of the  6 values of the set issued on 22 May 2000 on the subject of "Mann At War". Isn't it just a little annoying that those responsible for Manx new issues did not think that collectors who spend £1 on a little bit of paper had the right to expect something new rather than recycled? The original stamp's face value was 26p - just about a quarter of the sum collectors are expected to pay this time around. Still perhaps they might give us a Jaffa Cake with the stamp as compensation for not providing us with an original design (see Blog 538).

Waterloo stamp 2000

  If collectors are unlucky enough not to receive their Jaffa cakes from Isle Of Man Stamps And Coins, the new stamp issue from Singapore Post should fill the gap. A set of 6 stamps will be released on 25 March 2015 on the subject of "Biscuits". Perhaps Singapore Post should have prepared one of their regular joint issues and linked up on this occasion with the Isle Of Man and its Jaffa Cakes. Regardless, the Singaporean biscuits look delicious (apart from the cream cracker) but, in stamp format at least, probably do not taste so good:-

Complete set with Cream Cracker postmark

  Namibia Post's upcoming issues are all very attractive and, as usual, very well designed and printed and, unlike the latest Manx issue, are all new designs:-

  21 March 2015 - 25th anniversary of Independence - 1 miniature sheet:-

  21 March 2015 - Inauguration of Dr. Hage Geingob as the 3rd Namibian President - 1 stamp:-

  15 May 2015 - Bee-eaters of Namibia - 5 stamps:-

  22 June 2015 - Small antelopes of Namibia, the Klipspringer - 1 stamp:-

  19 August 2015 - Sharks of Namibian waters - 4 stamps:-

538. Many More New Issues Relegated To Gibbons Catalogue Appendix Section.

Grenada's Downton Abbey issue - doomed to spend eternity in the Catalogue Appendix Section.

 In the April supplement of Gibbons Stamp Monthly the editor of Stanley Gibbons Commonwealth Stamps Catalogue has pleasingly increased the number of excessive stamp issues from various Commonwealth philatelic entities to be placed in the Appendix section of the catalogue. This month 7 issues from The Gambia,  22 issues from Grenada and 4 issues from St. Vincent And The Grenadines have been consigned to the Catalogue appendix, doomed to exist without a formal catalogue number, and this represents the first real recognition by the Gibbons editor that many of the issues produced by the US-based agency, IGPC, should not be included in the part of the catalogue which lists "proper" stamps. This brings its listing of IGPC products very much into line with the way it approaches the listing of Stamperija products.

 The Catalogue editor deserves immense praise for this new approach to excessive issues by these abusive philatelic agencies but....

  There remains a debate to be had about what is and what is not finding its way into the Appendix. The editor's approach as to which issues are placed in the Appendix at the very least can be said to be inconsistent. The Catalogue states that issues are relegated to the Appendix if they "are either issued in excess of postal needs, or have not been made available to the public in reasonable quantities....." but let us examine what has happened in the Catalogue Supplement section of the latest (April 2015) edition of Stanley Gibbons Stamp Monthly.
  The catalogue listings of, as mentioned above, The Gambia, Grenada and St. Vincent And The Grenadines have been updated covering the periods August - December 2013, July 2012 - April 2014 and November 2013 - July 2014 respectively. It is not hard to see whymost of the issues exiled to the appendix have suffered that fate - quite obviously the subject matter of most of the stamps has little or no relevance to the countries whose names are printed on them. 

  Those issues which are given Catalogue numbers and listed in the main body of the work often have direct relevance to the issuing territory although sometimes the relevance of the subject matter is rather more tenuous. However the listed stamps and appendicised stamps seem to have been allocated their type of listing not so much on the grounds normally stated by the Catalogue editor detailed at the end of the last paragraph but rather more on the grounds of relevance which therefore becomes a new criterion for relegation to the appendix.

  I say this because some of the fully listed items are as equally issued in "excess of postal needs" as those included in the appendix. Let us look at some of the stamps which are fully listed and some which are appendicised. 

  Despite the editor's apparent worthy attempt to include in the main listing only stamps which are relevant to the country of issue, he does tend to include stamps of regional rather than strictly local relevance and these frequently have no local relevance at all. One such set is that which is made up of 4 stamps and 1 miniature sheet from Grenada on the subject of "Turtles". Wikipedia tells us that there are 4 local species of turtle in the waters around Grenada but this set of stamps depicts only 2 of them while the other 3 species are not found in Grenada (local but not featured:- Caretta caretta, Chelonia mydas, local and featured:- Eretmochelys imbricata and Dermochelys coriaceia, non-local but featured:- Chelus fimbriata, Trachemys Terrapen and Lepidochelys Kempis). Sixty percent of this issue is therefore irrelevant to Grenada and might as well also be relegated to the appendix. The pattern is repeated with other issues.

Grenada Turtles issues.

  Worst of all is the full listing of the set of 12 parrot stamps of 2014 from Grenada because there is not a single local species of wild parrot on the island (see Blog 322). The subject of these stamps is completely irrelevant to Grenada but it does pose a problem since these parrot stamps seem to make up the new definitive series and of all the issues featured including many which appear in the main listing these 12 stamps are the ones which are most likely to be used on mail. So we can hardly complain about their inclusion in the main catalogue listing even if the subject matter of the entire set is irrelevant to Grenada (it would be the same if the next Royal Mail definitive set featured "Wildlife of China"). 

  

  But I do think the editor could be even more strict about assigning issues to the appendix - why for instance would the following "Taekwondo of South Korea" issue from St. Vincent And The Grenadines find a place in the main list while "Elvis Presley in Canada" and the "World's Most Famous Trains" do not?:-

  A catalogue listing is so very important because there are many collectors who feel their collections are not complete if they are missing a stamp given full listing in a reputable catalogue whereas a justified relegation to an appendix will make them feel far less anxious about not including the item in their collection. 

  And why are only Stamperija and IGPC issues being singled out as candidates for the appendix? It is difficult to argue that many other territories such as Jersey, Guernsey and The Isle Of Man are not involved in releasing a number of issues "in excess of postal needs" and it is about time that the editor took action against some of the stamps from those postal administrations. Of course it's a problem for Gibbons since those offshore British islands advertise considerably in the Gibbons magazine and may not like to see their products sinking to the depths of the appendix. Still, what's sauce for the goose....

  Maybe it's time for the editor to get even braver and not only place some of the excessive issues of small island states in the appendix but also recognise that some of the bigger countries are equally guilty of releasing issues "in excess of postal needs". Australia Post springs to mind as does, sadly, Royal Mail. It will be interesting to see how the listing of new issues goes forward.

   I think collectors need a new approach to the collection of new issues - many stamps are no longer issued by countries - instead they are released by postal businesses which may be privately owned with national governments having varying levels of influence over them or by private philatelic agents which have contracts with certain postal administrations who may or may not have any say in what stamps the philatelic agents release with the names of the clients printed on them. So really it is quite inaccurate to label stamps as being issued by "Great Britain" - they are issued by Royal Mail (usually royally approved admittedly) or Universal Mail United Kingdom (these receive no recognition in Gibbons Catalogue at present). 

  Likewise "Australia" does not issue stamps - that is the role of Australia Post just as Australia Post also issues stamps on behalf of Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island. Now we really should not have separate sections in our albums for new issues from Australia, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Australian Antarctic Territory and Christmas Island rather we should have a single combined section titled "Australia Post" - that is the stamp-issuing entity for all 4 philatelic entities. 

  In the case of Mozambique, Solomon Islands, Maldives and Uganda, almost all of their issues are released by Stamperija and see no use at all on ordinary mail in the 4 countries so it is illogical to label most new issues which appear on the stamp market from these territories as anything other than being new issues from the entity "Stamperija" rather than from, say, Mozambique or Maldives. 

  It is rare or even close to unknown to find Stamperija-produced stamps being used on non-philatelic postal items from the above 4 territories - an example of this is illustrated by 2 covers I recently bought from Steven Zirinsky which are genuine postal items from Solomon Islands - the first dated 05-09-13 and the second dated very recently on 18-11-14. Old, even very old stamps, have been used on the covers with not a hint of a Stampeija-produced "stamp" being fixed to the covers. 

  There are several other similar covers from Solomon Islands to be seen on Steven Zirinsky's website and none of them have had a stamp originating from the Stamperija stable applied to them. There has to be a reason for that and it is likely to be that the Solomon Islands Post Office has to use up stocks of old stamps for use on ordinary mail because the hundreds of philatelic items produced by Stamperija are not available in ordinary post offices for use on mail sent by the general public. Certainly I observed this to be the case in Uganda a couple of years ago when I found that their Stamperija-produced "stamps" were actually only sold at the philatelic counter in the main post office in Kampala.

  Stamps are used increasingly less often on mail, even by Stanley Gibbons itself (see Blog 500 - "Stamps....The End"), and it is arguable that the majority of new stamps which appear on the market are being issued "in excess of postal needs" because most new issues are never used for genuine postage reasons. This is a dilemma for the Catalogue editor and what eventually ends up in the main listing of the Catalogue and what turns up in the Appendix is ultimately the matter of opinion of the editor but it is an opinion which has great importance to collectors of new issues - on that single opinion hundreds or even thousands of collectors may base their decision as to whether or not to spend money on a new issue. Stamp-producing departments of postal administrations and philatelic agencies could be made or broken on the decision of a single influential catalogue editor.

  Or it is possible that stamp issuers could be influenced in a positive way not to issue excessive and ridiculously irrelevant stamp issues when they find that collectors are not buying their products because they are not included in the Catalogue's main listing:- no Catalogue number - no sale. It is pleasing to find that the Stanley Gibbons Catalogue editor is being more ardent in excluding excessive issues from the main body of the catalogue and it would be even more pleasing to find some of the undoubtedly excessive issue from larger countries being treated in the same way. Hopefully we will eventually return to a more reasonable situation for purchasers of new issues and this more brisk use of the catalogue appendix may help to bring forward that day.

  Meanwhile, a promotion from Isle Of Man Stamps And Coins shows us to what ridiculous lengths some postal administrations are being driven to unload their philatelic items on to collectors. The promotion depicted below offers the first 100 buyers of a new cover on the subject of the solar eclipse some free Jaffa Cakes (a type of biscuit)! (this promotion did not appear on April Fool's Day). The pressure for sales to bolster the failing fortunes of the Manx Post Office must be enormous but this promotion smacks of desperation and is astonishing...you could say that it "takes the biscuit". 

  That is the real problem with new stamp issues at this present time - people with a marketing background are much more likely to influence what philatelic products appear for sale rather than people who know what stamp collectors want - stamp collectors themselves. The Jaffa Cake Cover is an excruciatingly daft example of how far the stamps and collectables market has sunk - if you need to give away biscuits to sell an item then really you ought to think twice about issuing it. Maybe the Gibbons Catalogue editor's greater use of the Appendix section can help to stem the flood of new issues for which these marketing experts are responsible. It would be helpful if the editor began to consider seriously if some of the issues of these British offshore islands should be listed in the Appendix rather than automatically placing them in the main body of the Catalogue.