2559. 🇬🇬 Guernsey Withdraws SEPAC Issue.

 

New issues -

25 July 2024 - SEPAC, Guernsey’s main tourist attractions - 4 stamps. A message has been received from Guernsey Post saying, “Dear Customer, We regret to inform you that the Guernsey SEPAC (Main Tourist Attractions) stamp issue, originally scheduled for release on July 25th, has been withdrawn due to unforeseen circumstances. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and hope you enjoy the other issues released this July….”

Guernsey Post’s internet site also now shows that the issue was withdrawn.

I think this issue must have been withdrawn prior to issue, rather than after some had been sold, because there is no evidence of the issue being offered for sale by anyone on the usual internet auction sites even at a premium price.

🇮🇳 India Post -

30 August 2024 - 75th anniversary of the Supreme Court of India - 1 stamp and 1 miniature sheet containing the single stamp. Rating:- ****.

2024 - My Stamp, personalised stamp, 75th anniversary of Savitribi Phule Pune University, Pune - 1 stamp with attached label sold in sheetlet of 12 at a premium price.

 

2344.. 🇦🇮🇦🇬🇩🇲🇬🇩🇲🇸🇰🇳🇱🇨🇻🇨 Eastern Caribbean Omnibus In September.

 

🇦🇮🇦🇬🇩🇲🇬🇩🇲🇸🇰🇳🇱🇨🇻🇨 Postal services of the Eastern Caribbean States (Anguilla, Antigua And Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St Kitts And Nevis, Saint Lucia and St Vincent And The Grenadines) -

Expected date of issue - September 2023 - 40th anniversary of the Eastern Caribbean Community Bank, winning competition designs - 3 values. Competition winners - 1st  (age 5-11) - Vedant Shetty of St Vincent And The Grenadines, (turtle), 1st (age 12-17) Mea Emmanuel of Saint Lucia and 1st (age 18 and over) (signing of the ECCB agreement). Each postal administration will issue the stamps in the denominations most used in the respected territory.

🇳🇿 New Zealand Post -

3 August 2023 - 150th anniversary of the first postage stamp to be printed in New Zealand - the 1873 1/2d Newspaper stamp - 1 miniature sheet containing a single stamp. Designed by Caitlin McArthur and lithographed by Brebner Print and perforated 14.5. Rating:- *****.

Withdrawn issue.

🇬🇧 Royal Mail - 

13 July 2023 - River wildlife - strip of 5 x 1st Class values. As reported by the indispensable Norvic Philatelic Blog, these stamps were printed in error with a single phosphor band (normally used on 2nd Class domestic rate stamps). The strip of five different stamps and the presentation packs have been removed from sale on the Royal Mail Stamps and Collectables internet site. These are the affected stamps:-

2128. 🇳🇿 New Zealand Post Withdraws Issue Prior To Release.

New issues.

🇮🇳 India Post -

2 August  2022  - 75th anniversary of the Independence of India, the history of the national flag  - 1 miniature sheet containing a single circular stamp. Rating:- *****.

🇳🇿 New Zealand Post -

Withdrawn prior to issue - the set of 4 stamps and 1 miniature sheet commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Maori Language petition due to have been released on 3 August 2022. New Zealand Post Collectables released the statement shown below on 3 August 2022 and announced that the issue would not now take place having received “additional feedback from stakeholders that was received after the products were printed. While extensive consultation took place in the development of the designs, some expectations were not met and as a results the stamps cannot be issued in their current form or on the planned date”.  

  NZ Post has form on producing designs ostensibly to honour the Maori community in the country but instead producing designs which offend rather than please. The previous such case occurred in 2006 when NZ Post prepared an issue celebrating Māori performing arts - the kapa haka - which was made up of 5 stamps and 1 miniature sheet containing the 5 stamps. Unfortunately the designs used cartoons to depict performers in the kapa haka and the depiction of the Maori people in the designs was judged by some to be offensive. As a result the issue was withdrawn, as with the present issue, prior to release but 8 people did receive copies of the stamps and so they do exist in collectors’ hands but are of course very rare. 

  It is quite amazing that New Zealand Post has once more got itself into this situation. Postal administrations in liberal democracies really should steer away from releasing stamps which have a racial theme. In this era when many people rejoice in being given the opportunity to be offended, it’s a recipe for disaster. Perhaps NZ Post will finally learn its lesson.

The 2006 issue - 

1999. 🇮🇶 Iraq Commemorates Its Centenary.

 

🇮🇶 Given the events of the first 20 years of this 21st century, the British involvement in the Middle East in the first part of the 20th Century has to be recognised as laying a road which lead directly to those events - wars and terrorist outrages - which haunted us most of all in the modern world before the COVID-19 pandemic took over as the present subject of our greatest concern. This involvement included setting up the State of Iraq, previously Mesopotamia, which this year commemorates its Centenary and the postal service of which has just released a stamp issue to celebrate this notable anniversary even though its hundred years of life have been frequently very troubled.

  The early history of Iraq and the British involvement with it and the stamps associated with the period of British rule are covered in Blog 424 (16 June 2014) and I will not therefore cover old ground again here but the new stamps (1 stamp from a sheetlet of 16 and 1 miniature sheet), issued by the Iraq postal service on 20 December 2021, are indeed very colourful and attractive and make an interesting footnote to a collection of stamps covering the British imperial period which lasted from the period of military occupation in the First World War (starting with Basra in November 1914), through to the establishment of King Faisal I on 22 August 1921)  and then to the ending of the League of Nations Mandate on 3 October 1932 when Iraq became a fully independent state. The right hand border of the sheetlet includes a portrait of King Faisal. Rating:- *****.

  🇱🇰 Sri Lanka Post issued a single stamp on 18 December 2021 to commemorate the State Vesak Festival. Rating:- ***.

🇧🇩 The stamp issued by Bangladesh Post on 27 July 2021 (see Blog 1916) to commemorate the 50th Birthday of Sajeeb Ahmed Wazed Joy, the son of the country’s prime minister Sheikh Hasina and a prominent politician in his own right, was withdrawn from sale very quickly after its issue on the orders of Sheikh Hasina from an unknown reason. The stamp has now been reissued in a redrawn format as shown below (the upper illustration shows the redrawn stamp):-