2637. 🇮🇲 Isle Of Man Continues Relentless New Issues In 2025.

 

New Issues -

🇮🇲 Isle Of Man Post Office -

2 January 2025 - Links With China, NanSha - 4 se-tenant stamps issued in sheetlets of 12. Designed by Emma Cooke of The 572 from artwork by Bang Ma and lithographed by bpost and perforated 11.5. Rating:- 0.

8 January 2025 - Chinese New Year, Year of the Snake - 4 stamps (reported and illustrated in Blog 2629) and1 miniature sheet containing one of each of the stamps and sold for £11.04. Rating:- 0.

14 January 2025 - 60th anniversary of the Isle Of Man Arts Council - 10 stamps issued in 2 sheetlets of 20 (each containing 4 se-tenant strips of 5). Designed by EJC design and lithographed by bpost and perforated 11.5. Rating:- *.

🇲🇾 Pos Malaysia -

 

1 January 2025 - Assumption of the Chairmanship of ASEAN by Malaysia - 2 se-tenant stamps and 1 miniature sheet containing a single stamp. Rating:- ***.

2635. 🇫🇯 Fiji Christmas Stamps.

🇫🇯 Fiji Post -

26 November 2024 - Christmas, ‘Festive symbols’ - 6 stamps. Lithographed. Rating:- **.

🇮🇳 India Post -

25 December 2024 - Birth centenary of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, firmer prime minister of India and poet - 1 stamp. Rating:-***.

25 December 2024 - 2800th Nirvan Khalyanak (anniversary of death) of Bhagwan Parshvanath 23rd Tirthankara of Jainism - 1 stamp. Rating:- ***.

25 December 2024 - 2900th Janm Kalyanak (birth anniversary) of Bhagwan Parshvanath - 1 stamp. Rating:- ***.

🇲🇲 Myanmar Post -

6 December 2024 - Butterflies of Myanmar - the Kaiser. Designed by Cho San Lin and Ahmonoo and lithographed by Security Printing Works (Myanmar) and perforated 14. Rating:- *****.

🇦🇪 Emirates Post (postal service of United Arab Emirates) - 

19 December 2024 - Mohamed Bin Sayed University of Artificial Intelligence - 1 miniature sheet containing 2 different stamps. Lithographed. Rating:- ****.

2636. 🎄 Merry Christmas!

 

The world’s first Christmas stamp.

🎄 Merry Christmas!

Scenes from the BBC children’s television programme Blue Peter in which the two children who provided the designs for the first British Christmas stamps in 1966 were interviewed. 

  And a recent broadcast of an Antiques television programme, Bargain Hunt, by the BBC featured the 1966 Christmas stamps and told the story of their development though when talk turned to the subject of King George V and his magnificent stamp collection  the item was illustrated with a photograph showing George VI with his stamps.

  So once.more, Merry Christmas!

2634. 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka Post Commemorates Radio Communications.

🇱🇰 Sri Lanka Post -

16 December 2024 - Centenary of radio communication in Sri Lanka - 1 stamp. Lithographed. Rating:- ***.

🇮🇳 India Post - 

2024 - My stamp, personalised stamps with attached labels sold by India Post in sheetlets of 12 at a premium price. -

30th anniversary of IndusInd Bank - 1 stamp -

Nada Mantana, ‘Hall of Musical Tones’, Avadhoota Datta Peetham, Sri Ganathapi Sachachidananda Ashram in Mysuru - 1 stamp - 

60th anniversary of Engineers India Limited - 1 stamp - 

125th anniversary of manganese mining by MOIL Limited - 1 stamp - 

🇨🇦 Canada Post -

After a month-long strike of postal workers, Canada Post resumed activity earlier this week after the Canada Industrial Relations Board determined on 17 December that negotiations between the workers and the crown corporation were in a stalemate and therefore ordered the employees to return to work under their existing contracts which have been extended to May 2025 to allow more time for negotiations to take place.

🇬🇧 Royal Mail -

14 January 2025 - first issue of the year. Comments in Stamp Boards reveal that the issue will be made up of 8 stamps (4 se-tenant pairs - 2 x 2nd Class domestic rate, 2 x £1, 2 x 1st Class domestic rate and 2 x Airmail rate with a total cost of £12.60) plus 1 miniature sheet containing 4 different 1st Class stamps costing a total of £6.60p.

This combination of values is similar to that of previous issues commemorating television programme anniversaries, children’s books or entertainment anniversaries and the ilk.

A comment by Henry Gilbert in Blog 2631 has indicated that the next issue will be released on -

18 February 2025 - yet another Music Giants issue commemorating, apparently,AC/DC, another aged popular music group. this time Australian but, apparently, with members of it born in Great Britain. That being the case, there will doubtless be a multitude of tiresome products associated with the issue including the basic set, a miniature sheet, a 4 stamp self-adhesive booklet, a Prestige booklet with an accompanying highly expensive ‘deluxe limited edition’ version, ‘Collectors sheets’, ‘Fan sheets’ etc etc etc.

Australia Post previously commemorated this musical ensemble on 2 occasions - firstly, in 2018 when it released one of its dreadful, exorbitant ‘Stamp packs’ which drew criticism because some of the labels attached to the Greetings stamps which made up the sheet showed American versions of the featured album covers rather than the Australian versions.

A single stamp, of uninspiring design, had been issued previously as part of the 2013 ‘Australian Legends’ set.