2842. 🇸🇴 Somaliland Finally Receives International Recognition (By Israel) But Still No Stamps.

 

🇸🇴 Somaliland Recognised By Israel.

  The former British protectorate of British Somaliland which declared itself to be the independent state of Somaliland on 18 May 1991 and since then, apart from a functioning postal service, has been a fully operative de facto sovereign state, has finally received its first recognition as an independent state by the government of Israel (also of course a former British protectorate, then known as Palestine).

  Somaliland had previously been a sovereign state from 26 June 1960, when it received its independence from the United Kingdom, until 1 July 1960 when it was absorbed into the Republic of Somalia, after Italian Somaliland had received its independence from Italy. A rebellion against the communist dictator of Somalia, Siad Barre, began in Somaliland in May 1988 and Barre was overthrown in January 1991 and the result was violent chaos right across Somalia and Somaliland’s secession from Somalia on 18 May 1991 as mentioned above. Since then, Somaliland has remained separate and relatively peaceful and sought international recognition but without success until 26 December 2025 when the Israeli government announced its formal recognition of Somaliland as a fully independent sovereign state. Given Somaliland’s strategic location at the mouth of the Red Sea, Israel doubtless sees influence with the breakaway state as being highly advantageous to it but this represents an important step in Somaliland becoming Africa’s 55th country and, who knows, developing a postal service which actually issues postage stamps. Will any African states now follow? Look out for recognition by Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates.

Independent Somaliland’s only 3 stamps (issued 26 June 1960) -

post scriptum - the flag emoji shows the flag of Somalia, no emoji of Somaliland’s flag is available. This is also true of Turkish Cyprus, Alderney (but one exists for Sark), British Antarctic Territory, Tristan Da Cunha and Ascension.

🇮🇴 Chagosians form a government in exile.

With the British Indian Ocean Territory (the Chagos Islands) still not yet under Mauritian sovereignty (though if the Starmer government has its way, it soon will be despite the objections of those of Chagossian descent) the Chagossians formed a ‘government-in-exile’ on 17 December 2025 with Midley Mandarin as interim First Minister. Philatelically, it will be interesting to see where this one goes - will, for instance, the Chagossian government-in-exile issue propaganda stamps to highlight its cause as the Tibetan government-in-exile did after the Dalai Lama was exiled in India (two sets of four - the first issued in 1972 and the second in 1974)? They were very collectable and historically interesting even though their significance as postage stamps was highly questionable. The story of the Chagos Islands may not yet have reached the final page, even in the stamp album.

Midley Mandarin, interim Chief Minister of Chagos government-in-exile

Commonwealth countries which are not known to have issued, or had issued on their behalf, any legitimate postage stamps during 2025 -

Anguilla

Antigua and Barbuda 

Belize 

British Indian Ocean Territory 

British Virgin Islands

Cameroon

Cayman Islands

Cook Islands including Rarotonga 

Cook Islands Aitutaki 

Cook Islands Penrhyn

Dominica

Gabon

Ghana 

Grenada Carriacou and Petite Martinique 

Kingdom of eSwatini 

Lesotho 

Montserrat 

Nauru

Nevis

Nigeria

Niue

Papua New Guinea 

Rwanda

St Kitts or St Kitts and Nevis

Saint Lucia

St Vincent and The Grenadines

Solomon Islands

Tokelau 

Tonga

Tonga Niuafo’ou

Turks and Caicos Islands 

Tuvalu

Uganda

United Republic of Tanzania 

Vanuatu 

Zambia

Therefore at the end of the year 36 out of 89 (40.5%) Commonwealth philatelic entities are not known to have issued, or had issued on their behalf, any legitimate postage stamps during 2025. This compares with the figure for 2024 at the end of that year of 28 out of 89 or 31.5%.

.

2474. 🇮🇲 New Isle Man Stamps Feature Bees and Boats.

 

New issues.

🇮🇲 Isle Of Man Post Office -

12 April 2024 - ‘The Life of Bees’, 150th anniversary of the British Beekeepers Association - 6 stamps (total face value £10.85 and I ‘Commemorate sheet’ containing the stamps in self-adhesive format sold for £20. Designed by EJC Design and lithographed by bpost and perforated 11.5. Rating:- **.

13 May 2024 - Peel traditional boats - 6 stamps. Designed by EJC Design from illustrations by Nicola Dixon and lithographed by Cartor and perforated 13.5. Total face values £10.76. Rating:- **.

🇦🇺 Australia Post - 

Postal rates will rise in Australia  from 2 April 2024 including the basic domestic rate which will rise from $1.20 by an enormous 25% to $1.50. The price of ‘Concession stamps’ will remain unchanged at $3 for a booklet of five and the seasonal greeting card rate will remain at 65c.

The first new issue in the new rate will be - 

28 March 2024 - Marine state emblems - 3 gummed stamps, 1 miniature sheet containing all 3 stamps and self-adhesive stamps from booklets of 10 or 20 featuring the Leafy sand dragon stamp andd from coils.. Designed by Simone Sakinofsky .using illustrations by Roger Swinton. Lithographed by RA Print or Rapid Labels and perforated 14 x 14.5. Rating:- ***.

 🇸🇴 Somaliland - Fake Machin Head surcharges.

   I have dealt with these items before (see Blogs - that of 10 July 2010 and Blog no. 1683). Since it declared itself to be an independent state on 18 May 1991 the Republic of Somaliland has failed to receive formal international recognition by any single country and continues to be considered to be a part of sovereign Somalia. This is despite the fact that Somaliland has functioned completely separately as a political entity since 1991 and may be viewed as a successor state to the former Somaliland which came into being on 26 June 1960 after the British granted independence to the former protectorate of British Somaliland which Britain had ruled since 1884. Somaliland ceased to exist as an independent state when it was joined to the former Italian Somaliland on 1 July 1960 to form the State of Somalia, meaning that Somaliland was a sovereign state for just four days, one of the shortest periods of existence of an independent country in modern times.

  During its brief existence in 1960, the Somaliland postal service used three overprinted Somalia stamps for any mail that was sent by local residents. Subsequently, of course, the stamps of the State of Somalia were used in the former British territory.

  At no time since Somaliland attempted to establish itself as an independent country in 1991 has it had a functioning postal service although in recent years there have been reports of developments which may, or may not, lead to one. The United Arab Emirates has played a role in these developments and, like a number of other countries has diplomatic relations with the Somaliland government though it does not recognise formally Somaliland as an independent state. Doubtless these moves by the regionally expansionist UAE government are linked to its agreement to have a military basis at Hargeisa, the Somaliland capital.

  With no postal service, Somaliland has never required postage stamps. A number of nonsensical fake stamps came on to the market in 1998 and this has been covered in the previous blogs noted above. The most notorious of these items were the surcharges in Somaliland currency on Machin Head 1p definitives. For a long time, and probably even presently, some collectors of Machin Head stamps tended to believe the fantastical background story concocted about the genesis of these items. It is without doubt pure fabrication and there is nothing to suggest, and there is no reason to believe, that these surcharges were ever sold in Somaliland. To reemphasise, there was no functioning postal service in Somaliland when these confections first appeared on the philatelic market. They appear to have originated in Britain and were produced here and sold here and they are nothing but fantastical.

  It is surprising therefore that these items continue to be offered for sale without it being made clear that they are fakes. These items are presently being sold on an internet auction site at the remarkable price of £499 (or best offer!) for an example of the 2 surcharges - “with and without stars”. The seller repeats the original information about them put out in 1998 and I can only think that he is unaware that these items were described untruthfully 25 years ago. I suspect there are many others who are also unaware of the nature of these products.

The two varieties - 

2236. Are these Somaliland postage stamps?

 

Somaliland.

As detailed originally in the Blog published on 10 July 2010, Somaliland was established as a British protectorate in 1884. On 26 June 1960 the British granted independence to its former protectorate and Somaliland became a sovereign state. On 1 July 1960, its larger neighbour, Italian Somaliland, was also granted independence becoming the republic of Somalia and Somaliland merged with Somalia to become a single sovereign state and gave up its own sovereignty in doing so. 

  Following the overthrow of the dictator of Somalia, Siad Barre, in July 1991 a state of anarchy spread across the country. Civil war had already broken out in May 1998 between the armed forces of the then central government of President Barre and the fighters of the Somali National Movement (SNM) of the former Somaliland. On 18 May 1991 Somaliland was declared to once more be a sovereign republic separate from the collapsing state of Somalia. It has maintained its independence from the troubled Somalia ever since and has sought to obtain international recognition of its de facto independent status but has so far failed to obtain recognition of it as a sovereign state from any foreign countries. The Somaliland government has held to the line that it is a thriving democratic state with a history separate from that of Somalia and it has been a sovereign state in its own right during its previous history.

  For decades after the one sided declaration of independence Somaliland had no functioning postal service. In recent years however it has set up a service within the country (see Blog 1683) and in the last few months has set up a postcode system in the capital Hargeisa to enable home deliveries to carried out more efficiently.

  Becasuse there was no postal system there was no valid reason for there to be any postage stamps. Postage stamps are of course not just useful as receipts for the prepayment of postage but also as one means of underlining a country’s sovereignty. It has been said that there are two items that a sovereign state needs to affirm its sovereignty - a national flag and national postage stamps. For most of its existence  trying to obtain international recognition, Somaliland has not had one of those prerequisites - stamps with its name printed on them.

  Now it is possible - though I might be completely wrong about this - that Somaliland does indeed have its own postage stamps, perhaps necessitated at last by the developments of recent years in establishing a national postal service. On its Facebook page, Somaliland Postal Service includes in an illustration repeated several times on the site a picture of what may possibly be 4 postage stamps (see illustration at the head of this piece). Unfortunately the text in the various segments of the illustration is all in Somali without a translation so I do not understand it. I can not find any further illustrations or news of an issue of postage stamps elsewhere.

  Certainly the illustrations are very suggestive of them being postage stamps - the illustrations are poor quality but the main features of the designs include a pictorial element (a camel, a large pot, men (perhaps farmers) with another large vessel and. Cattle. The items appear to have monetary values printed on them (in, I presume, Somaliland shillins) and clearly bear the name ‘SOMALILAND’ in capital letters as well, I think, in Arabic.

  If anyone who reads this piece is able to read Somali then a translation of the text above the four stamps would be greatly appreciated. Google translates “Samaynta tigidhada boosta” as “making tickets post” (“boosta” is “post” and “tigidhada” is ticket so I guess that post tickets are postage stamps which is consistent with the illustrated items being Somaliland’s first postage stamps. 

This is the entire post as it appears on Facebook - 

As can be seen the illustration of the possible stamps is only a small part of the item which seems to inform readers of the activities of Somaliland Postal Service. As far as I can see the item has appeared seven times on the Facebook page, the first occasion being 3 April 2021 and so if these are indeed postage stamps we might assume that they were first issued about two years ago.

So that’s something to look out for.

Post scriptum - following Stewie1980’s comment in the comments section I tracked down the photograph he mentions of the 10000 shillin stamp (if it is a stamp) which appeared in a post on the Somaliland Postal Service Facebook page dated 21 April 2022. It certainly makes this particular item much easier to assess. It looks as though it is imperforate and possibly self-adhesive. Very interesting. It appears that 10000 shillins converts to £14.69p (but see Stewie1980’s comment below). Note that the ‘stamp’ with the samedesign featured in the previous illustration is a 15000 shillin value. The stamp is dated ‘2020’ which I assume was the year of issue and this also seems to be the case with the other values though the illustration is more indistinct. Thanks to Stewie1980 for this very helpful input.

The French company, Busch Collectibles, is selling sheets of ‘stamps’ from two Commonwealth countries - Guyana and Dominica - which commemorate the late Queen Elizabeth II by depicting a portrait by Matej Gabris of The Queen as a young woman. The company states that these items are exclusive to the company and by the look of them I think they have been produced as Personalised stamps rather than being official products of the two respective postal services. They are quite attractive items though the portrait looks to me rather like a cross between the late Princess Margaret and Elizabeth Taylor rather than The Queen herself.  Each sheet contains 12 identical ‘stamps’ and are sold for €20 per sheet.

1897. 🇬🇧 Royal Mail’s New Stamp Star Gnasher Bites Postmen.

 

🇮🇳 India Post issued a single stamp on 20 June 2021 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Shantikunj in the area of Gayatri Teerth in Haridwar. It is the headquarters of the spiritual and social organisation All World Gayatri Pariwar. Rating:- **.

  🇸🇴 I came across this interesting photograph on Twitter posted by a Mr Stuart Brown of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office who is the United Kingdom’s most senior diplomat in the self-declared Republic of Somaliland, the former Somaliland Protectorate, which is seeking to gain international recognition as an independent state and as such to join The Commonwealth. The photograph shows him in front of a display in the privately owned Sarayan Museum in Hargeisa, capital of Somaliland, of enlarged photographs of postage stamps released during the period under which Somaliland was under British rule. 

  But at the bottom left there’s an interesting item which has been discussed here in previous Blogs - the bogus Queen Elizabeth II Machin Head 1p stamp with a surcharge applied in Somaliland shillins. I am fascinated that a photograph of it has found its way into this display of otherwise legal issues and clearly the curator of the museum when putting together a collection of photographs of the stamps issued during the period of British rule there must have come across the illustration of the stamp said to have been ‘issued’ in 1997 though at the time the Somaliland Republic did not have a postal service and still, 30 years after its unilateral Declaration of Independence, does not. But here it is - featured in a museum in Hargeisa with lots of legitimate stamps - gaining credibility as a genuine stamp issue which is the way falsities gain credibility as time goes by.

  Mr Brown’s tweet also includes a photograph of an old postbox in Hargeisa which dates back to the days of British rule.

  🇬🇧 Those who choose the subjects to be featured on Royal Mail stamps really should take more care. The upcoming issue due out on 1 July 2022 is to feature the comic character Dennis The Menace along with his charmless canine companion, Gnasher, who together have also appeared in television animated cartoon programmes. In one episode Gnasher is much admired for bringing fame to his local neighbourhood for holding the world record for BITING POSTMEN - his aggressive chasing of and assault on a postman is depicted vividly in one sequence and generally thought to be a cause of general hilarity. How does, I wonder, featuring this beast on a postage stamp square with Royal Mail’s annual campaign of dog awareness which is aimed at getting the public to take action to prevent their dogs from biting postmen?