1175. 🇸🇭 Tristan Da Cunha Features Visiting RN Ships On Latest Issue.

  🇸🇭 The postal service of Tristan Da Cunha will release an excellent set of 4 stamps on 20 February 2018 on the subject of Royal Navy ships which have visited the island. The issue was designed by Robin Carter and lithographed by Cartor and perforated 13 x 13.5. Rating:- *****.

  Thanks to Juliet Warner of Pobjoy Stamps for information about this issue. 

  This seems to be a popular theme for 2018 given that the upcoming Post and Go stamps from Jersey Post will also Royal Navy vessels which have visited that island (See Blog 1165).

  🇬🇮 The design of the Year of The Dog Post and Go stamps which the Royal Gibraltar Post Office will put on sale from kiosk GI01 at Spring Stampex 2018 is depicted below (see Blog 1167):-

  🇱🇹 🇸🇧 Following on from Blog 1171 there are more paraphilatelic products from Stamperija with the name of the Solomon Islands printed on them. To add to the 12 sheetlets and 12 miniature sheets recorded in Blog 1171 there are a further 13 sheetlets each containing 4 different 'stamps' and 13 miniature sheets announced this week as having been'issued' on 7 December 2017. As usual most of the subjects featured on the stamps have little or nothing to do with Solomon Islands.

  Thus if you have nothing better to do with your money you may choose to buy the products which feature:- the 75th Birthday of Paul McCartney (British musician), 2017 Nobel Prize winners, Military aircraft, Chess Village Marottichel, German and Austrian music composers, World Athletics 2017 Championships winners, Charles de Gaulle (former French President), 135th anniversary of the death of Charles Darwin, 170th birth anniversary of Thomas Edison (American inventor), 95th anniversary of Alexander Fleming (discoverer of penicillin), 80th Birth anniversary of Valentina Tereshkova (Soviet cosmonaut), 70th anniversary of the death of Paul Harris (founder of Rotary) and 35th anniversary of the death of Grace Kelly (US actress). 

  The total 'face value' is 1040 Solomon Islands dollars which is equivalent to £96.87p. We might therefore conclude that Solomon Islands issued 100 stamps and 25 miniature sheets on 7 December 2017 and that these items had a total face value of 2000 Solomon Islands dollars or £186.36p. Not a bad achievement for a small Pacific island state. These figures do not include varieties which are usually released at premium prices in imperforate format.  Rating:- 0.

  🇸🇱 Also on an internet auction site is a set of 4 stamps, each issued in a sheetlet of 9 stamps which commemorate the 2018 Football World Cup which is to be held in Russia. Each stamp features the competition Mascot called Zabivaka. I presume that this issue does emanate from Stamperija but on this occasion the agency has gone to the expense of paying for the right to depict the Mascot on the stamps. I do not yet know the stated date of issue. Rating:- 0.

  Addendum:- It's worth noting that Stamperija has not yet listed these items, along with similar products from Togo and Central African Republic, on its website so these could possibly be bogus issues. Either way I wouldn't buy them.

  🇯🇪 The Jersey Post Post and Go stamps mentioned in Blog 1157 which will be sold at Spring Stampex 2018 in London are depicted below. Rating:- 0.

  The new Visiting Naval Ships stamps also to go on sale on 14 February 2018 have previously been depicted in Blog 1165.

690. Beatles' George Harrison Depicted On New Bangladesh Issue.

  The Bangladesh postal administration has issued 2 new miniature sheets, in perforate and imperforate format, which commemorate the Concert for Bangladesh which was actually 2 concerts held at Madison Square Gardens in New York on 1 August 1971. The concerts were organised by George Harrison, former guitarist with the then popular British musical group, The Beatles, and Ravi Shankar, a Bengali musician. The aim of the concerts was to raise international awareness of and raise funds for refugees from East Pakistan following the Bangladesh liberation war.

  I do not yet know the date of issue of these interesting sheets. Rating:- *****.

  The postal administration of Bangladesh has also issued 4 stamps and 1 miniature sheet on the subject of traditional boats of Bangladesh. Again, I do not yet know the date of issue.

  Finally, a single stamp was issued to commemorate "Victory Day" but as yet I do not know the date of issue. Rating:- ***.

  The Trinidad And Tobago postal service issued a set of 4 stamps and 2 miniature sheets contained in a special pack on 20 June 2014 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the country's diplomatic relations with The People's Republic of China. This issue was reported in a previous blog some time ago but, apart from seeing it offered by one Internet dealer, I have not seen any dealers offering it for sale. This remains the case but I now have better illustrations of the issue which features Chinese and Trinidadian flowers and birds. The illustrations below also show the front cover of the pack and the 2 pages which each hold one of the miniature sheets. It makes a very attractive issue. Rating:- ****.

Front cover of pack.

First page of pack.

Second page of pack.

  India Post issued a single stamp on 30 December 2015 to commemorate the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. Rating:- *.

  Four days into the new year and Stamperija has wasted no time in announcing its latest release of philatelic products with the name of Sierra Leone printed on them. Said to have been "issued" on 23 October 2015 the collective subject of these items is Birds and, as usual, there are 10 "sheetlets", each consisting of 4 different stamps plus 10 " miniature sheets". These products are similar in format to most of the items emanating from Stamperija and so are really not worth illustrating. For the record the subjects of the sub-sets are Ibises, African Penguins, Pigeons and doves, Birds of Paradise, Warblers, Protected birds, Ducks, Flamingos, Tropical birds and Peacocks. Rating:- 0

  Finally, I depict below the miniature sheet which Guernsey Post will issue on 20 January 2016 to commemorate the Lunar new year of the Year of the Monkey (see Blog 684 and the new Commonwealth Stamps Opinion Catalogue 2016 blog):-

526. Exciting New Issues From Malaysia.

  Pos Malaysia will issue 2 stamps and 1 miniature sheet on 25 February 2015 to commemorate the International Co-operative Project on Giant Panda Conservation being carried out by Malaysia and The People's Republic of China. This is a lovely issue and I will be delighted to add it to my collection. Malaysia seems at the top of its game at the moment in terms of issuing interesting and attractive new issues. I also very much like the 3 Farm Animals stamps which were issued on 16 February 2015 (depicted below) which were accompanied by 2 miniature sheets - 1 ordinary sheet depicting a domestic goat and a second Rm 15 sheet printed on wood to fit in with the Lunar New Year - the Year of the Wood Goat. Again, another interesting and attractive issue:-

  Another interesting recent issue was the miniature sheet issued by Pos Malaysia on 1 December 2014 which contained a Rm 50 stamp which was printed as 22k gold on copper (see Blog 512) but I was not aware that this was accompanied by a similar miniature sheet, face value Rm 35, with the main stamp design produced in an embroidered form. This may be a little gimmicky but it is still a very attractive miniature sheet. For other recent Malaysian new issues see Blogs 511 and 517. I think that Malaysia is producing some wonderful stamp issues at present and they are a great pleasure to collect:-

  Singapore Post issued 6 new definitive stamps on 26 November 2014 - four values made up the second part of the Vanishing Trades set and two stamps were new values of the Past Street Scenes definitive series. A Collectors' Sheet, sold for $28, featuring all the Past Street Scenes stamps issued so far was also released as was a second Collectors' Sheet which contained all 14 Vanishing Trades stamps and was sold for $12.80c. The stamps were designed by Ms. Lim An-ling:-

The postal service of The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus issued 4 very attractive stamps on 19 September 2014 on the subject of fruit tree blossoms. The set was designed by Gorel Korol Sonmezer and Huseyin Billur and was printed in lithography by the State Printing Works, Lefkosa:-

    The Malawi Post Corporation issued a set of 5 stamps and 1 miniature sheet to commemorate Christmas 2014. I do not yet know the date of issue of this set. The central theme of the issue seems to be that of the Christmas tree:-

  India Post issued a single stamp on 14 February 2015 to commemorate Project Rukmani, a dedicated Indian Navy satellite system:-

  Stamperija's first philatelic products of 2015 with the name of Maldives printed on them consist of the usual 10 sheetlets, each containing 4 different "stamps", as well as 10 miniature sheets. The various subjects of these items are:- 75th birth anniversary of John Lennon (British popular musician), Nobel Prize Winners of 2014, Lunar New Year (Year of the Goat), 75th anniversary of the D Day landings in Normandy, 175th birth anniversary of Piotr Tchaikovsky (Russian music composer), Mars Orbiter mission, 70th anniversary of the liberation of Paris, 135th birth anniversary of Albert Einstein (physicist), 40th birthday of Tiger Woods (US golf player), 80th birthday of Sophia Loren (Italian actress). The stated "day of issue" of these items was 13 January 2015:-