257. Australia Goes A Whole Month Without A Stamp Issue.

Australia Post's latest issue was released on 11 June 2013 and was on the subject of State Government Houses. The 4 stamps were issued in gummed form as well as self-adhesive from both coils and booklets, so, as usual, 4 designs made 12 different stamps for the collector to buy. The designs by Sonia Young feature the Government Houses in Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales and Tasmania. The designs are well executed and quite attractive but are generally unremarkable. What is remarkable is that this is the first Australia Post issue since 11 May 2013 - the organisation has actually allowed a whole month to elapse between 2 consecutive stamp issues. Australian collectors must have been developing withdrawal symptoms but presumably Australia Post's profits made from sales at the Australia 2013 exhibition were great enough to allow the philatelic programme planners to feel relaxed about not issuing any new stamps for a whole 4 week period.

  From Gibraltar a surprisingly understated and cheap  issue (face value 52p) to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the Treaty Of Utrecht - just 2 stamps to commemorate possibly the most significant event in the history of the territory since it was by that treaty that Great Britain gained control of the Rock from Spain. The 42p value has a quotation from the treaty, "for ever, without any exception or impediment whatever", thus illustrating the political point that Spain having ceded the territory to the British crown has no claim to Gibraltar now, which may be fair enough but the Treaty also has another few lines in it which say, quite remarkably and quite unacceptably, in this modern age, "And Her Britannic Majesty, at the request of the Catholic King, does consent and agree, that no leave shall be given under any pretence whatsoever, either to Jews or Moors, to reside or have their dwellings in the said town of Gibraltar...". Clearly if the Gibraltar government followed that provision in the treaty then it would be behaving in a flagrantly racist manner and find itself in trouble with the European Court of Human Rights. So, one presumes, Gibraltar is likely to be in breach of the Treaty Of Utrecht if it allows Jewish or African people to live in the town so if Gibraltar breaks the terms of the treaty, no matter how reasonable the reason, then Spain may too. How very complicated it is to adhere to a 300 year old treaty - perhaps that is why the commemorative issue is so minimalist but it does not seem like a good idea to me to have placed a quote from the treaty on the stamp. The stamps were designed by Stephen Perera and lithographed by Cartor and will be issued on 20 June 2013:-

Also to be issued on the same date, are 4 stamps which are Gibraltar's contribution to the 2013 Europa theme - postal vehicles. These are excellent designs by the artist John Batchelor whose work has been arranged to the stamp format by Stephen Perera and again lithographed by Cartor. The postal vehicles featured are historical and very interesting. I like these stamps most of all the Commonwealth country Europa designs for 2013.

256. New Issues From New Zealand, Singapore, Cyprus And Solomon Islands.

New Zealand Post's next stamp issued will be released on 3 July 2013 and will consist of 5 stamps and 1 miniature sheet which depict honey bees. The stamps were designed by Strategy And Design, Wellington and printed in lithography by Southern Colour Print:-

The next issue from Singapore will be released on 17 June 2013 and consists of 5 greetings stamps which depict sign language. There is also an accompanying $2.55 booklet which contains 10 1st Local stamps (2 of each design).  The stamps were designed by Tiang Wen Cheng and printed in lithography by Secura, Singapore:-

  Other recent new issues from Singapore are:-

  20 March 2013 - 2 new definitive stamps (1st and 2nd Local) in gummed form from ordinary sheets with the 1st local also sold in booklets in self-adhesive form. Designed by Eric Kang and printed in rotogravure by Enschede:

  10 May 2013 - "Australia 2013" International Philatelic Exhibition (1 miniature sheet). This is a very clever item because it includes the Year Of The Snake stamps with 2 boomarangs in the background, their shape and colour closely resembling the snakes featured on the stamps - an excellent design:

  28 May 2013 - The Marine Bay Skyline (4 stamps and 1 "Collector's Sheet"). Designed by Brainwave Design and lithographed by Southern Colour Print:

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  Cyprus issued a set of three stamps on 5 June 2013 on the subject of "Organisms of The Mediterranean Marine Environment Cyprus"which is quite a long-winded title for 3 modest little stamps which nevertheless are interesting and attractive as is usually the case of the issues of The Republic Of Cyprus:-

I illustrate below some of the latest items produced by Stamperija, a Lithuania-based philatelic agency, on behalf of the Solomon Islands Post Office as I detailed on Blog 255. The first 2 items are the sheetlets which commemorate the Royal Visit by The Duke and Duchess Of Cambridge which took place in 2012. The stamps, as I have previously written, look as though they could quite easily be used on real mail and it will be interesting to see if genuine commercial mail turns up with them applied to the envelopes:-

I also feature two other items - the first is the sheetlet which is devoted to the former South African President, Nelson Mandela, but has the added theme so that he is shown with "African minerals" though what the link between the two is I can not imagine and why Solomon Islands should be chosen to link the two subjects together will probably remain a mystery for ever:-

An equally perplexing riddle is why Solomon Islands was chosen to feature English medieval castles on its philatelic items, there being no connection between the country whose name appears on these philatelic items with the subject matter whatsoever, as far as I can see:-

255. New Guyana Surcharges and Fiji Paralympics Gold Medal Winner Stamps.

Yet another Commonwealth country has been forced to issue overprinted and surcharged stamps to provide stamps for use on ordinary mail even though it is the client of a large international philatelic agent which produces scores of philatelic items with the country's name printed on them every year. This time the country in question is Guyana which is the client state of a large New York-based philatelic agency. Collectors of Commonwealth stamps will know that this is not the first time that the Guyana Post Office has been reduced to overprinting and surcharging stamps - in the 1980's through to the beginning of the 90's hundreds of stamps were produced by doing so as "austerity" measures. Clearly the philatelic agency it uses may produce hundreds of stamps in its name - including the notorious "King Edward XIII" stamps which appeared last year - but those particular items do not appear to address the mail service's postal needs.

  I have recently obtained from Steven Zirinsky's Internet shop, 6 different old Guyana stamps all surcharged $20 in different formats as depicted at the head of this blog and also below. The stamp pictured above is one of the 2 values ($6) which comprised a set to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Guyana Defence Force and which was originally issued on 1 December 1995. Immediately below is the $6 value depicting a lapwing which was part of a 12 value definitive set which featured birds and was originally issued on 8 May 1995. Beside it is what I think must be SG no. 944 which was issued on 17 May 1982, an "Essequibo Is Ours" overprint with 40c surcharge on 2c value.

Below are the 40c Great Kiskadee value from the 15 value definitive set which was first issued on 4 March 1968 (SG457) and the 40c Tiger Beard revenue stamp (SG F5):-

The final stamp depicted below with the a new $20 surcharge applied is SG923 which was originally issued on 27 April 1982 as an overprint of "1982" on the 40c value of 4 value set which commemorated the 1400th anniversary of the Koran which itself had first been released on 9 October 1968:-

It is interesting that all the stamps which have been surcharged in this currant wave of production of 20c stamps have an original face value of 40c/$40. Presumably that value is not required for use in Guyana and so is being used up to deal with a shortage of 20c stamps. Interesting too to think what a huge number of very old postage and fiscal stamps the Guyana Post Office must have in stock. Of course, one of the most memorable surcharges on an old stamp occurred in Guyana in 1983 when a $4.80c British Guiana  fiscal stamp from the Victorian period was reissued on 17 March 1983 with an overprint applied to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the International Maritime Organisation (SG no. 1071).

  I have previously mentioned a recent set from Fiji which was on the subject of the Fiji Paralympic team. Now that I have received a set myself I can depict the designs below:-

  The set consists of 4 stamps each of which has a 10c surcharge which represents a contribution to the funding of the Fiji Paralympic Team and actually commemorates Iliese Delana who competed in the 2012 London Paralympic Games where he won Fiji's first ever Paralympics gold medal in the men's High Jump F42 class. All 4 values, as can be seen, depict the athlete but none of them name him just as Jamaica's recent Olympic winners set failed to identify the athletes who were depicted on their stamps. Doubtless all are known locally in the respective countries for which they won their medals but it is a shame that the designers of the respective sets did not think about collectors abroad who may wonder who is being shown in the stamp designs.

  It is strange how elusive some new stamps may be. On 15 March 1994, Uganda issued 6 stamps and 1 miniature sheet to commemorate World Meteorological Day. At the time I could not find any dealer who was selling these items and it was only several years afterwards that I was able to obtain a set of the stamps but not the miniature sheet. There has been a blank space in my Uganda collection waiting for that miniature sheet for almost 20 years. But no longer! I have finally added the item to my collection after an internet purchase for a very modest price. This was the first time that I had ever seen the miniature sheet being offered for sale by anyone. Quite why this item has proved to be so elusive for such a long time, I have no idea. Perhaps it is just very rare for some reason. An example of it at least is at long last sitting comfortably on one of my Uganda album pages:-

  Finally, the Lithuanian philatelic agency, Stamperija, has announced its latest productions for the Solomon Islands Post Office. The agency says that it issued a series of philatelic items on 3 May 2013 under the title "Various Stamps" and this issue consisted of 2 sheetlets each containing 9 different philatelic items all of which commemorated the Royal Visit of The Duke and Duchess Of Cambridge to the islands in 2012 as part of the celebrations of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, and there were also sheetlets of 4 philatelic items and accompanying miniature sheets each comprising sub-issues on the the subject of the Lunar New Year, Pacific region frogs, Nelson Mandela and African minerals (!), "Australia 2013" Philatelic Exhibition - Australian wildlife, English castles and Golf Players of the Pacific islands. This issue comprises therefore 42 "stamps" and 6 miniature sheets which means that, at the beginning of May, 186 stamps and 43 miniature sheets (total 209 items) have been produced in the name of the Solomon Islands Post Office so far in 2013.

  I am waiting to see how these philatelic items get used in The Solomon Islands themselves. One excellent source of information is Steven Zirinsky's shop website as he features many examples of modern postal history which he has for sale. Although he has a number of covers from Solomon Islands on sale which bear postmarks from early 2012, I do not think that I have seen any covers there yet which are dated after 5 June 2012 which is when Stamperija say that they released their first stamps for Solomon Islands. It will be interesting to see when and if true commercial covers with Stamperija products appear on the market.  It will also be interesting to see which sub-sets are used on real mail - certainly the Royal Visit issue mentioned above does look as though it could be used practically on mail and as it has a strictly local theme may well be intended for use on real mail. Has anyone been to Solomon Islands recently and bought any of these stamps across the post office counter?

254. Tuvalu With Just 100 Catholic Residents Commemorates Pope Francis.

If Wikipedia is to be believed, only 1% of the 10000 inhabitants of Tuvalu adhere to the Catholic religion - just 100 people or so - and yet its New York-based philatelic agency has prepared a sheetlet of 4 stamps and a single "gold" stamp to commemorate the election of the new Pope, Francis. The stamps were issued on 3 June 2013 and an official at the Tuvalu Philatelic Bureau at the end of 2012 acknowledged that the Tuvalu Post Office did not have sufficient money to be able to produce new stamps itself so it relied on its agents to supply it with new issues and Tuvalu really therefore has little or no say in what subjects are depicted on these philatelic items which bear the country's name. Presumably, native Tuvaluans would like to see a set of stamps which commemorate the Church of Tuvalu, which is the most adhered to religion in the islands. Meanwhile the 100 people on Tuvalu to whom the election of a new pope is of great importance will be pleased to see what the New York-based agents have produced to commemorate the papal election.

Also issued on 3 June 2013 was a sheetlet of 5 stamps which depict "Pacific seashells" though whether or not they can all be collected on the beaches of Tuvalu itself is not made at all clear.

Previously featured, but worth mentioning again, is the set of 4 stamps issued by South Georgia And The South Sandwich Islands which was released on 4 June 2013 and was titled "Star Trails". This is a simple but lovely set which depicts the movement of stars over the barren scenery of South Georgia and the excellent designs contrast spectacularly with the dull and unattractive sheetlet of 6 stamps and single-stamp miniature sheet produced in the name of Antigua And Barbuda which are also on a star-related theme, this time "Constellations", The date of issue of the Antigua sheetlet is not yet known (see below):-

Finally, Pakistan's latest new issues:-

11 May 2013: The Pakistan general election (1 stamp):-

24 May 2013:-  Pioneers of Freedom: Nawab Saddiq Muhammad Khan Abbasi V (1 stamp):-

29 May 2013:- Men of Letters - Syed Zamir Jaffri (1 stamp):-

253. New Issue Subjects Get Sillier - Jersey Superman, Cook Islands Elephant and Montserrat Celebrates The Burning of the Globe Theatre!

Jersey strikes again! It's a long way from Metropolis to the English Channel but Jersey Post Office has found a reason to issue a set of 6 stamps and 1 miniature sheet to commemorate the release of the new Superman movie. Henry Cavill, the 30 year old actor who plays the eponymous hero, was born on the island of Jersey and this fact provides the Jersey Post Office with a perfect excuse to feature the All-American hero on the new set, though one doubts that Superman has yet paid a visit to the small island. Perhaps DC Comics, which publishes the comic, will produce an edition which features such a visit and give some publicity to Jersey's tourist trade as Jersey is giving publicity to the movie. No doubt Jersey Post hopes that Superman will sell as many stamps for them as Dr Who has done for Royal Mail. The date of issue for the new stamps is 7 June 2013:-

While Superman is commemorated with 6 stamps and 1 miniature sheet by Jersey, Queen Elizabeth II must settle for just 2 stamps and 1 miniature sheet which commemorate the 60th anniversary of her Coronation. But what Jersey lacks in number of stamps issued, it makes up for in face value - each stamp has a face value of £2 and the miniature sheet costs £4. To gain extra money the stamps are sold in sheetlets of four which of course cost £8. These items were released on 2 June 2013. 

Papua New Guinea's latest stamp issue was released on 8 May 2013 and consisted of 4 stamps, a sheetlet of 4 different stamps and a miniature sheet containing a single stamp, all on the subject of orchids:-

Philatelic Collector Inc. has announced a large number of issues it is producing for Samoa, Cook Islands and Tonga. Samoa has had 12 definitive stamps produced on its behalf and released on 29 May 2013. The designs feature 12 different species of birds and bats which are described as "endangered" and have been spotted at least once in the islands. Interestingly, no sheetlet which combines all 12 stamps has been announced yet. The designs are by Maria Karchevskaya:-

From The Cook Islands come 12 stamps and 1 miniature sheet which depict sailing vessels of the South Pacific area although I guess that they do not all originate in the Cook Islands which gives me an excuse not to spend my money on these items as I only buy stamps with strict local relevance from this territory:-

The "resized" definitives were reissued on 9 April 2013 with 40c surcharges applied to them:-

Yes, the illustration is upside down - this is how it is shown on the Cook Islands Philatelic bureau website!

and 6 stamps appeared on 31 May 2013 which depict "Global wildlife"; one value, for instance depicts African elephants which seem to be a rather silly subject for a small South Pacific islands state to feature on its postage stamps:-

Another set of definitive stamps has been produced which is inscribed "Aitutaki Cook Islands" consisting of 12 stamps which feature whales, dolphins and ships. These stamps, along with a sheetlet which contains all 12 values thus doubling the cost of the issue, were released on 5 June 2013, which is less than 12 months since the previous definitive set was released (another 12 stamps and a sheetlet combining them all which also depicted whales, issued 22 June 2012). This raises the question of how definitive is a definitive?:-

Tonga too has benefitted from an outpouring of new issues:-

  4 June 2013:- The Blowhole, a tourist sight in Tonga - 1 sheetlet of 6 different stamps:-

 6 June 2013:- Second Bird Definitive series:- 12 stamps and 1 sheetlet which combines all the designs (the "First" bird definitive series of Philatelic Collector Inc.'s reign was issued on 8 January 2012 and consisted of 12 stamps and 1 sheetlet which contained all 12 designs):-

 10 May 2013:- "Australia 2013" Philatelic Exhibition:- 1 souvenir sheet of 3 different stamps depicting Australian wildlife.

  Perhaps one of the daftest subjects I have ever seen put forward as a reason to issue a stamp by a little island in the West Indies is that which is being used for the latest set of 4 stamps and 1 miniature sheet from Montserrat - the 400th anniversary of the burning down of William Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London. This issue is ridiculous for so many reasons and will not appear in my collection:-

  Just for the record, the latest philatelic items to be produced by the Lithuanian philatelic agency, Stamperija, with the name of Mozambique printed on them are said to have been issued on 20 February 2013 under the intriguing title "Part 1". The product consists of 15 sheetlets each containing 4 different philatelic items and 15 miniature sheets, each sheetlet and associated m.s. being dedicated to a different subject which are, as usual, various and all irrelevant to Mozambique itself:- Japanese fast trains, Chinese new year, Unmanned aircraft, Medieval ships, World War II submarines, World War II tanks, Table tennis, Rugby, Reef fish, Impressionist painters, 125th Birth anniversary of the artist Marc Chagall, Christmas paintings, 50th death anniversary of physicist Niels Bohr, 2012 Nobel Prize winners and 230th anniversary of the birth of Italian music composer Niccolo Paganini. I wonder if philatelic items will be produced by Stamperija to commemorate the burning of The Globe Theatre as well!