1255. 🇬🇧 England Winners Stamps Next Week?

  🇬🇧 In Blog 420 I wrote at considerable length about the stamps issued by the British postal service and other Commonwealth countries, particularly those which had hosted or participated in the Finals, to commemorate the football World Cup which takes up a month of a good number of peoples' lives every four years. Now we are approaching the final stages of another one of these Championships and the team representing England has reached the semi-finals which is an achievement longed hope for by a sizeable percentage of that Commonwealth nation. The English usually have a quite unjustified belief in their team's ability to win the World Cup but on this occasion the team has done so particularly well as to put Royal Mail in a position where it must surely be preparing a set of stamps, probably in miniature sheet format, to release as soon as possible after any English victory in the Final of the Championship as to catch the maximum number of purchasers of such a set while they are still in the throws of their victorious patriotic fervour.

  Blog 420 points out that the British Post Office issued a single stamp in 1966 to commemorate the previous and only time when the English football team won the World Cup in the year that England was the host country. The Post Office had issued 3 stamps to commemorate the hosting of the Championships and the lowest value was overprinted 'ENGLAND WINNERS' to commemorate the victory. Rarely has there been such a rush by the English general public to buy a stamp as occurred then and the stamp was soon selling, I recall, for 10/- (50p) compared with a face value of 4d (less than 2p). Of course anyone who bought this very common stamp for 10/- was soon to find that they had seriously overpaid to obtain their Victory souvenir.

  Since 1966, The Post Office/Royal Mail has never had another chance to commemorate a second World Cup victory. Nevertheless several opportunities have been seized to issue stamps which recall the famous victory of 1966.

  1999 - Millenium series, The Entertainer's Tale - 1 stamp depicting the 1966 England team captain holding the Jules Rimet Cup.

  2006 - World Cup Finals hosted by Germany - 1 stamp noting the 1966 winning team.

  2012 - The House Of Windsor, England World Cup winning team of 1966 - 1 stamp from a miniature sheet of 4.

  2013 - Famous footballers - 3 stamps depicting members of the 1966 World Cup winning team - Bobby Moore, Gordon Banks and Bobby Charlton.

  We must of course wait for the outcome of the upcoming semi-final in which the English team will play against that of Croatia and the final which will be against either Belgium or France but it will be interesting to see what Royal Mail comes up with if the English team captain Harry Kane finds himself holding the World Cup aloft next weekend.

1254. 🇳🇿 New Zealand Post Issue Foresees Removal Of Threat To Local Creatures.

  🇳🇿 New Zealand Post will issue a set of 5 stamps and 1 miniature sheet on 1 August 2018 on the subject of the Predator Free NZ Trust which aims to remove all introduced mammalian species which threaten the country's own native species by the year 2050 though it appears the goal does not include the most threatening and dangerous introduced species of all - Homo Sapiens.

  The issue was designed by Stephen Fuller and lithographed by Southern Colour Print and perforated 14.5 x 14. Rating:- ****.

  Meanwhile, some predators themselves get their philatelic say:-

  🇳🇦 Nam Post, the postal service of Namibia, will issue a set of 3 stamps on 18 July 2018 on the subject of small felines of Namibia. The 3 species featured are the caracal, the serval and the small spotted cat. As always these are excellent stamps from Nam Post, designed by the excellent Helge Denver. Rating:- *****.

1253. 🇯🇪 Jersey Post Rounds Off Its First World War Centenary Commemoration..

  🇯🇪 Jersey Post will mark the Centenary of the end of the First World War with a superb set of 6 stamps and 2 miniature sheets to be issued on 4 August 2018. The issue, designed by Olga Shirnina and lithographed by Enschedé, is titled 'Armistice and Remembrance' and depicts portraits of 6 Jersey people who contributed to the war effort that led to the defeat of Germany and the victory of The British Empire and its allies.

  The 50p value and £2 miniature sheet depict the Jerseyman, Private Charles Moody, who joined the Post Office Rifles and the issue ties up beautifully the series of stamps issued by Jersey Post over the past few years which have commemorated the events of the First World War. A tasteful and worthy issue. Rating:- ******.

  🇬🇬 On 8 June 2018 Guernsey Stamps 'tweeted' that its Post and Go machine GG03 situated in the  Guernsey Information Centre in St Peter Port was dispensing on that date strips of its 'Flowers' stamps with additional inscriptions applied to welcome the passengers of the cruise Ventura which was in port on that date.

  🇨🇾 Cyprus Post will issue 2 stamps on 9 July 2018 with the instantly recognisable Cypriot look to them - the first represents Cyprus Post's contribution to the 2018 Euromed omnibus which is on the subject of Houses of the Mediterranean area (see below) while the second commemorates the 25th anniversary of the Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy. I like these stamps very much. Rating:- ****.

  🇲🇹 MaltaPost will issue a pair of stamps on 9 July 2018 on the subject of 'Houses in the Mediterranean' as its 2018 contribution to the Euromed omnibus issue. This is a series of stamps issued annually by member postal administrations of The Postal Union for the Mediterranean (PUMed). The mildly interesting stamps were designed by David P Attard and lithographed by Printex and perforated 14. Rating:- ***.

  On the following day, 10 July 2018, MaltaPost will issue 3 stamps to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily by the Allies during World War II for which Malta provided a base for a number of the ships involved in the assault. The issue was designed by MaltaPost using photographs of Heritage Malta. Rating:- **.

1252. 🇬🇧 Gibbons Catalogue Supplement Lists No IGPC Stamps for 12 Months.

  🇬🇧 I have been looking back through my copies of Gibbons Stamp Monthly dating as far back as the June 2017 edition and have surprised myself to realise that the Stanley Gibbons Catalogue editor has NOT included any 'stamps' issued by IGPC in the Catalogue supplements since that particular edition. The only exception has been the inclusion of some issues from Tanzania in the June 2018 edition - those which seem to have been prepared locally by the Tanzanian Post Office - and others 'issued' from 2014 to 2017 which have been included in the Appendix section (21 sets in all).

  The June 2017 edition included issues from both St Kitts and Nevis with some allocated rather unpredictably to the main catalogue section and others to the appendices. Thus sets commemorating Lighthouses of England, Macaws, Volcanoes of the world, Singapore sites and scenes and US former President Kennedy find their way into the main section of the catalogue and allocated catalogue numbers while stamps depicting Domestic cats, Sunflowers, Famous battles of the First World War and Olympic champions are considered worthy of only being included in the appendix.

  I do hope that the editor has decided to apportion a blanket banishment to the Appendix of ALL IGPC issues (as he appears to have done for all Stamperija products), notably those from Antigua And Barbuda, The Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Grenada Grenadines, Guyana, Nevis, St Kitts, St 
Vincent And The Grenadines, Tanzania and Tuvalu unless the issue is clearly one of local
production and likely to receive usage on real mail such as the Guyana President Jagan Centenary issue of earlier this year. It isn't hard to work out which of the stamps promoted by IGPC are real ones. Such a decision would at least give consistency to the catalogue listing and enable collectors to know at an early stage which new issues they wish to buy particularly if they are those sort of collectors who are rigid in their opinions that the Catalogue editor knows best.

  Perhaps this 12 month-long absence of IGPC issues from the Catalogue supplements is indicative of the editor's intentions to be more strict on what finds its way into the main body of the Catalogue. I do hope so. 

  Recently Ian Billings in his indispensable Norvic Philatelics Blog drew attention to the Royal Mail Click and Drop labels printed directly from computers and used by senders on E Bay or Amazon and so on instead of conventional postage stamps. In a comment, I questioned actually 90% seriously, if such labels should really be called 'stamps' as they are adhesive pieces of paper which act as receipts for the prepayment of postage and indicate that the payment has been made when applied to an item of mail which seems to me to be a very good definition of what exactly a postage stamp is. They may not be at all decorative but, unlike many 'commemorative' stamps issued by numerous postal services and philatelic agencies at the present time, they do actually function in the same role as conventional postage stamps on everyday mail.

  I certainly have a space at the back of my 'Great Britain' collection where the Horizon labels/stamps are to be found for one or two of them to illustrate the continuing development as technology progresses of the labels applied to British mail to indicate the prepayment of postage. Or do I mean stamps?

  🇮🇲  The Isle Of Man Post Office issued 4 new counter-printed stamps on 30 June 2018 in the style of Post and Go stamps and which commemorated the 125th anniversary of the Manx Electric Railway for which a large number of more conventional philatelic products (stamps, £15.60p Prestige booklet, self-adhesive pane of 6) have also been issued. Rating:- ***.

  🇮🇳 India Post issued a single stamp on 3 July 2018 to commemorate the 90th birth anniversary of the singer ML Vasanthakumari. Rating:- ***.

1251. 🇵🇬 Fragrant Coffee Stamps From Papua New Guinea.

  🇵🇬 PNG Post, the postal service of Papua New Guinea, issued a set of 4 stamps and 2 miniature sheets on 21 May 2018 to commemorate the country's coffee industry. The issue was designed by Billy John Telek and lithographed by Southern Colour Print and the stamps have a coffee fragrance attached to them.

The designs are not really very exciting sadly. Rating:- **.

  🇸🇬 Earlier this year - I do not know the precise date of issue - Singapore Post issued a My Stamp sheetlet of 12 identical stamps with attached appropriate labels to commemorate Chinese New Year, the Year of The Dog. This is a cheerful enough issue for any one who still collects Smilers/My Stamps and so on. Rating :- ***.

  🇮🇳 There are few subjects of stamp issues more exciting than that of the single stamp released by India Post on 1 July 2018 which commemorated the 70th anniversary of the Institute Of Chartered Accountants Of India. Note the hint of sarcasm in the previous sentence. The awful design does nothing to increase the collector's need to add this item to his or her collection. Rating:-*.

  🇬🇬 Guernsey Stamps, in 2 'tweets', has revealed that it has dispensed more Post and Go stamps from its machine GG03 situated in the Guernsey Information Centre to commemorate the visits of cruise ships to Guernsey. A strip of 6 Flowers stamps was issued on 30 June 2018 to mark the visit of the visit of the Cunard liner Queen Elizabeth and a further strip on 1 July 2018 noting the visits of Royal Princess and Brilliance Of The Seas.