420. The World Cup.

  There are only five Commonwealth countries which will be participating in the 2014 Finals of the FIFA Football World Cup which will begin in Brazil on 12 June:- Australia, England, Cameroon, Ghana and Nigeria.

  Only two Commonwealth countries have hosted the World Cup  finals - England in 1966 (an event which remains as much in the English consciousness as the defeat of the Spanish Armada or the Battle of Agincourt) and South Africa in 2010.

  Only one Commonwealth country has ever won the World Cup - England - when the finals were held in the country.

  Not many reasons therefore, you might think, for there to be many Commonwealth stamp issues to collect on the subject of the World Cup. Wrong! Fuelled partly by the English perpetually over-optimistic confidence that their team will actually win the World Cup again, no matter how much evidence exists to the contrary, and also by the fact that football is, simply, the most popular sport in the world, there are in fact numerous stamp issues from a large number of Commonwealth countries on the subject.

  It all starts in 1966 with the holding of the World Cup Finals in England. Great Britain's Post Office, as we usually called it then, issued 3 stamps to commemorate the hosting of the Finals in England. The 4d value was designed by the great stamp designer, David Gentleman, the 6d by William Kempster and the 1/6d by David Caplin. 120 million copies of the 4d value were sold together with 17 million of the 6d and almost 9 million of the 1/6d (all 3 values were available with and without phosphor coating on the paper). The stamps were printed in photogravure by Harrison and Sons.

  In the finals of the tournament, held on 30 July 1966, England beat Germany in extra-time by 4 goals to 2. The colossal morale-boosting effect for an England which was then in a post-World War II, post-imperial decline is probably impossible to fully comprehend by those who have been born since that event.

  The Post Office commemorated England's memorable victory over Germany by overprinting the 4d value of the original set with the inscription "ENGLAND WINNERS" and releasing it in England, Wales, Isle Of Man and The Channel Islands on 18 August 1966. It was not felt tactful to issue the stamp in Scotland or Northern Ireland since the stamp celebrated an English rather than a Britsh success and it was felt that the Scots and Irish would not have experienced the same sort of pleasure at an English victory as the inhabitants of the southern part of Great Britain did. The stamp was finally put on sale in Scotland on 22 August 1966 (depicted above).

As mentioned above, the English have had a ridiculously optimistic belief since 1966 that their team could win the World Cup again. This has led to the British postal service releasing stamp issues repeatedly for World Cup Finals held abroad.

  In 2002, for the World Cup Finals held in Japan and Korea, a miniature sheet was released which included 4 stamps which made a composite picture of the flag of St.George with a football on each stamp and a 5th stamp which depicted a heraldic lion holding a shield with the Cross of St. George placed on it. The item was issued on 21 May 2002 and designed by Howard Brown and printed in photogravure by Walsall Security Printers:-

  The miniature sheet was accompanied by a £1.62p self-adhesive booklet which contained 4 x 1st class orange Machin Head definitives and 2 stamps from the miniature sheet:- the upper left and upper right designs. The booklet was also printed by Walsall Security Printers:-

  Not content with all of the above, Royal Mail also released a 20 stamp "Smilers" generic sheet with only the bottom right design included in it, all stamps having labels attached to them mostly showing enthusiastic England football supporters some of whom had gone so far as to paint their faces in the national colours:-

Despite this patriotic philatelic sporting extravaganza, the English team only reached the quarter finals where they were defeated 2-1 by Brazil.

  Nothing daunted, Royal Mail was quite prepared to try it all over again by issuing on 6 June 2006, a set of 6 stamps to commemorate the 2006 World Cup Finals which were held in Germany. The designs depicted football kit of the 6 nations which had won the World Cup trophy previously, with England  featured on the 1st class value. The stamps were designed by Madeleine Bennett and lithographed By Walsall Security Printers.

  A "Smilers" Generic sheet was also issued and this time again included 20 of the 1st class value with the attached labels depicting the story of the 1966 final:-

  The label designs included the nationally famous quote from the BBC television commentary, "Some people are on the pitch, they think it's all over...it is now" and a depiction of Geoff Hurst scoring the 4th English goal which ensured England's victory:-

  The bottom right label of the sheet depicted the English captain, Bobby Moore, held aloft by his teammates with his right hand raised clutching the Jules Rimet Cup:-

  2006 proved to be a rather less heady year for English football as England lost in the quarter finals to Portugal by 3-1 in penalties.

  After that, Royal Mail began to realise that the hopes of England supporters were usually based on optimism rather than realism and failed to issue stamps for the 2010 and 2014 World Cup Finals.

  But the above issues are not the only British stamps to take notice of the 1966 England victory. A set of 5 stamps and a £6.48p prestige booklet were issued on 14 May 1996 to commemorate England's hosting of the European Football Championships and the designs by Howard Brown featured "Football Legends" with the 25p value depicting Bobby Moore in action but not in his England captain role:-

  Another stamp depicting Bobby Moore, this time with him holding the Jules Rimet Trophy and with Wembley Stadium in the background, was issued on 1 June 1999 as part of the "Entertainer's Tale" Millenium set (the other designs featured, bizarrely, the pop group "Queen", Charlie Chaplin and a photograph by the Queen's brother-in-law, Lord Snowden, of a Dalek!). The Bobby Moore design was titled "World Cup" and designed by Mike White:-

  On 17 May 2007, Royal Mail issued a "Smilers" generic sheet of 20 of the stamps which had been originally included in the 2002 World Cup miniature sheet and one of the attached labels depicted the same image of Bobby Moore holding the Jules Rimet Cup:-

  A new image from the 1966 World Cup Final appeared on one of the 4 stamps included in the "Age Of Windsors And Saxe-Coburg-Gotha" miniature sheet which was issued on 2 February 2012. This particular stamp depicted the England team lined up standing to attention during the playing of the National Anthem before the start of the match:-

  Three England heroes of the 1966 World Cup Final were featured on stamps from the set of 11 which was issued on 9 May 2013 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of The Football Association. The three World Cup winning players were Bobby Moore, Gordon Banks the goalkeeper, and Bobby Charlton:-

  The stamps were designed by True North and printed in lithography by Cartor on gummed paper  as was a miniature sheet which combined all the values but a £11.11p prestige booklet contained the stamps printed on 2 self-adhesive panes which were lithographed by Walsall Security Printers.  The Bobby Moore stamp, again self-adhesive, was also issued in a 6 value £3.60p counter booklet (with 4 orange Machin Head definitives and the stamp which depicted George Best, a Northern Ireland player).

Miniature sheet

Counter booklet

 The photograph in the margins of Pane 1 of the prestige booklet depicted a scene from the 1970 World Cup Finals which were held in Mexico and shows the England goalkeeper, Gordon Banks, saving a goal attempt from the Brazilian player, the immortal Pele, in England's 1st round group match which they lost 1-0. In the Mexico tournament, England's progress was ended when they lost their quarter finals match against Germany 3-2 at the end of extra time:-

  A number of British territories participated in an omnibus series produced by the Crown Agents to commemorate the holding of the 1966 World Cup Finals in England. Each territory released  2 stamps in the same design which was the work of Victor Whiteley with printing being carried out in  lithography by Harrison And Sons. The participating territories were:- Antigua, Ascension, Bahamas, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Fiji, Gibraltar, Gilbert And Ellice Islands, Grenada, New Hebrides, Pitcairn, St. Helena, St. Kitts-Nevis, St. Lucia, Seychelles, Solomon Islands and Tristan Da Cunha. The issues from Gibraltar and Bermuda are depicted below:-

  Since 1966, Gibraltar has issued further stamps on the subject of England's World Cup victory. The World Cup issue of 1998 consisted of 4 stamps and 1 miniature sheet and 1 stamp depicted a scene from the 1966 final:-

   One miniature sheet comprised of 7 different stamps was issued on 4 May 2006 to commemorate the 2006 World Cup and adopted the subject of children with face paintings in the colours of countries which had won the World Cup. This was a similar idea to that mentioned above for the designs of some of the labels of the Royal Mail 2007 "Smilers" sheet:-

  A set of 4 stamps and 1 miniature sheet had been issued on 29 April 2002 to commemorate the World Cup Finals in Japan and Korea. The subject, "World Cup History 1966 - 2002", was actually devoted to the 1966 Final and Bobby Moore was depicted on all 4 stamps including a design which showed Bobby Moore with Queen Elizabeth II after she had presented him with the Jules Rimet Cup:-

  Like Gibraltar, the independent postal administrations off Britain's shores have tried to cash in with stamp issues which arbitrarily feature England's 1966 World Cup success. 

  Isle Of Man issued 6 stamps on 4 July 2013 to commemorate the 225th anniversary of The Times newspaper and featured historic headlines from the newspaper in the designs. The 42p value was centred on England's 1966 World Cup victory with the headline "Ramsey Proved Right In World Cup" which gave credit to the England team manager, Alf Ramsey, for his part in guiding the team to victory:-

  Alf Ramsey has not been depicted on a British stamp but his successor, Joe Mercer, who was caretaker England manager in 1974, was included in the "Remarkable Lives" set of 10 stamps issued on 25 March 2014:-

  Guernsey issued a £1.75p miniature sheet on 7 May 1998 which commemorated the "150th anniversary of Football" and the stamp contained in the sheet depicted, once more, Bobby Moore holding the Jules Rimet Cup with Queen Elizabeth II:-

  And so, to the second of the World Cup Finals held in a Commonwealth country - the 2010 competition held in South Africa. South Africa joined with 8 other Commonwealth countries to produce the third joint SAPOA issue which, having previously depicted birds and mammals of the respective countries in the first 2 issues, was dedicated to the World Cup Finals in South Africa. Sheetlets of 9 different stamps were issued - each stamp depicting the flag of one of the countries participating in the omnibus - and each participating country issued a sheetlet. The participating countries were South Africa, Namibia, Mauritius, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Swaziland, Botswana, Lesotho and Zambia. The stamps were designed by Anja Denker, a regular designer of Namibian stamps.

  The sets were all issued on 9 April 2010 except the Malawi set which was released on 20 December 2010 and the issue from Zambia the date of issue of which is usually stated to be 9 April 2010 although its release was actually delayed until June 2010. In addition to the gold foil sheetlets, Botswana, Malawi and Zimbabwe issued all 9 values in separate sheets without the gold foil background while Zambia issued 3 values (South Africa, Namibia and Zambia(0) as separate non-gold foil values and Mauritius released its Mauritius stamp separately again without gold foil.

  The announcement that South Africa had been awarded the 2010 Finals was made by FIFA on 15 May 2004 and the country released its first commemorative stamp to mark its hosting of the Finals on 7 July 2006. The issue took the form of a miniature sheet which contained one stamp which depicted a Cape hunting dog standing with its forepaws resting on a football (perhaps this design was felt appropriate because dogs like chasing balls!):-

  Subsequent issues followed:-

  23 November 2008 - 1 miniature sheet:-

  5 September 2008 - 1 miniature sheet:-

  14 June 2009 - 1 miniature sheet:-

  9 April 2010 - Joint SAPOA issue as described above;

  11 June 2010 - 5 stamps depicting the mascot Zakumi issued in a sheetlet of 10 (2x5 designs):-

  11 June 2010 - 6 stamps (2x3 designs) issued in a circular miniature sheet:-

  Among the Commonwealth countries which commemorated the 2010 World Cup with a stamp issue was Malta. Two stamps and 1 miniature sheet were released on 11 June 2010 and were designed by Frank Azzopardi and lithographed by Printex. One of the designs featured the mascot  Zakumi:-

  The Commonwealth countries other than England which are to participate in the 2014 Finals in Brazil have all issued stamps to commemorate previous World Cup competitions. Since it joined The Commonwealth in 1995, Cameroon has issued World Cup stamps in 1998 and 2002. The 2002 issue comprised 2 stamps and a circular miniature sheet. President Biya of Cameroon is featured prominently on one of the stamps. The miniature sheet is particularly rare and expensive:-

  Ghana, influenced by its foreign philatelic agents has released numerous World Cup issues over the years but its participation in the 2006 and 2010 finals had more local relevance. The 2006 set consisted of 10 stamps and 2 miniature sheets and the latter were later overprinted in the sheet margins with the results and scores of the games Ghana played in the Finals:-

Overprinted with match results

Overprinted with match results

  The 2010 World Cup issue featured Ghana's national and Under 20 football teams and though the date of issue was said to be in 2010 the stamps certainly did not appear on the international philatelic market till about 2012:-

  Nigeria issued a set of 3 stamps with a 2009 imprint to commemorate its team's participation in the 2010 World Cup Finals:-

  Australia issued a set of 4 stamps and (yet another) circular miniature sheet to commemorate its participation in the 2006 World Cup Finals in Germany. I do dislike large circular miniature sheets purely on the grounds that they are so difficult to mount properly on an ordinary album page:-

  So far, I have not seen any news of new stamp issues to commemorate the 2014 Finals from any of the 5 participating Commonwealth countries but I expect that we will eventually have news of issues from Ghana and Nigeria at least.

419. Papua New Guinea's Greetings Stamps.

 A few weeks ago I obtained a set of 24 Personalised Greetings stamps from Papua New Guinea which I illustrate above and below. I do not know the date of issue of these interesting items or details of designer and printer but they are certainly fascinating because they depict many aspects of Papua New Guinea including its wildlife, flora, culture, marine life, buildings, scenery and (on the attached labels) flags - multiple themes in one issue but all relevant to the country issuing them:-

  For several years, Papua New Guinea has been in the habit of releasing 12 special sets per year, usually 10 of them being of local interest with the remainder being clearly prepared by their New York-based philatelic agents and usually of little or no local relevance (I have never bothered to obtain such items). Now the local issues seem to have come to an end with the total number of issues for 2013 being reduced to nine and some planned sets, including an issue to commemorate the South Pacific Games, apparently having been cancelled. There have been no locally relevant issues released so far in 2014 and the 2 sets that have appeared - the inevitable Chinese New Year issue and a set commemorating the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War which has designs which do not feature the War as it affected Papua New Guinea - seem to be products emanating from its foreign agents. Two of the Chinese New Year stamps have been surcharged as mentioned in Blog 416 but these were probably necessitated by local postal requirements.

  I can not help but suspect that after years of excessive numbers of stamp issues, collectors have been put off from buying Papua New Guinea stamps and that it is no longer cost effective for the Papua New Guinea to produce the local issues and that all that we will be stuck with now are the stamps of foreign origin. A pity - I thoroughly enjoyed the local stamps even if I groaned at the cost of them and I regret the likelihood that all we will see in the future is a diet of products featuring Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, US presidents Obama, Kennedy and Lincoln, Sister Theresa and Diana, Princess Of Wales and subjects related to China aimed at boosting philatelic sales in that country.

  Is Papua New Guinea's philatelic goose (perhaps I should say bird of paradise) cooked? If so it's fitting that the last of the local issues to appear towards the end of 2013 was on the subject of local cooking methods. A goose (or even a bird of paradise) looks as though it would fit nicely in the pan illustrated on the stamp:-

418. Post And Go Stamps and $100 Stamp From Grenada.

  Yesterday I visited the main Birmingham post office in Pinfold Street to find that 9 new NCR "Post And Go" machines have been installed there to replace the previous Wincor-Nixdorf machines and I took the opportunity to purchase a 6 value "Collectors Set" from one of the machines. I was told by a couple of the assistants there that only the Machin Head design was available in all of the machines at present and I found the machine that I used dispensed stamps with the MA13 security date code.

  One day after my visit to the post office, Norvic Philatelics Blog informs us that the 97p value has been altered so that it now reads "Euro 20g World 10g". This change was made today, the 5 June 2014, so another early return to the post office is needed to obtain the reinscribed value!

  Below I include illustrations of the new Europe 60g and Worldwide 60g rates with the new NCR-dispensed stamps placed over the Wincor-Nixdorf-dispensed stamps for comparison:-

NCR

Wincor Nixdorf

NCR

Wincor Nixdorf

 The machines are sited in a spacious area of the post office and using the machines certainly is preferable to queuing up at a counter and  waiting to be served with the numerous other customers who are there to make use of the much more time-consuming services offered by The Post Office.

 It seems that the sale of postage stamps, even for use on parcels, is work that can be performed completely satisfactorily by these machines and eventually, I assume, will not be an over-the-counter service that need be offered to the customer. 

  I can see that we can not be far away from commemorative stamps, in a suitable format, being  sold solely by "Post And Go" machines - the attractive and popular pictorial issues of the past few years are the forerunners - with any miniature sheets that come along being sold as collectables as one of the few philatelic items that will be sold by counter clerks. Philately has always been tied to technology and a new chapter in the history of postage stamps is opening up with the arrival of these impressive new machines:-

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  The Turkish Republic Of Northern Cyprus issued 2 stamps and 1 miniature sheet on  23 March 2014 as part of the annual Europa omnibus series and the deigns depicted traditional local musical instruments in line with the chosen theme for 2014:-

  In addition to the new issues of Grenada mentioned in Blog 417 a new value of the contemporary definitive series has recently appeared - a $100 (£22.10p) - again depicting a parrot which, as I have mentioned before, is not a type of bird that can be found on the island. The face value is 4.5 times greater than that of the most expensive stamp issued by Royal Mail and one can not help but ask oneself that if such a high face value is not needed by the British postal service then why is it needed in this small Caribbean island?

  Grenada has also issued another sheetlet of 3 different stamps and 1 miniature sheet to add to the sheetlet of 3 stamps and 1 m.s. which I featured in Blog 393 on the subject of "World Famous Paintings". Ho hum:-

  Namibia will issue 5 attractive stamps on 1 October 2014 on the subject of kingfishers. The designs are by Anja Denker:-