1388. 🇫🇯🇸🇭 New Issues From Fiji And Tristan Da Cunha.

  🇫🇯 Fiji Post issued a set of 4 stamps on 20 December 2018 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Maharma Gandhi. The issue was lithographed by Southern Colour Print. Rating:- *****.

  🇸🇭 News of the first issue of the year to emanate from the excellent Pobjoy Stamps/Creative Direction stable. Not surprisingly it is another fine set of 4 stamps from the Tristan Da Cunha postal service which, this time, is on the subject of Whales. The attractive and interesting designs, to be released on 11 February 2019, are by the masterly Andrew Robinson and the issue was lithographed by Cartor and perforated 13.5. Rating:- *****.

  Thanks to Juliet Warner of Pobjoy Stamps for information about this issue.

1387. 🇬🇮 Gibraltar Releases Europa Bird Issue.

  🇬🇮 The Royal Gibraltar Post Office released its second issue of 2019 on 5 February with its contribution to this year's Europa omnibus series which is on the subject of National Birds. The issue is made up of 2 stamps and 1 miniature sheet which combines the 2 stamps and features the Barbary partridge, the national bird of Gibraltar (see Blog 1263). By scanning the stamp the bird's call can be heard. Rating:- ***.

  🇮🇳 India Post issued a single stamp to commemorate the Kumbh Mela Festival at Prayagra on 2 February 2019. The stamp was wet offset printed by the Security Printing Press at Hyderabad. Another colourful and interesting new stamp from India Post. Rating:- ***.

  🇲🇼 The postal service of Malawi was said to be planning to issue a sheetlet of 6 stamps plus some single stamp miniature sheets on the subject of Insects on 5 February 2019 and an example of the sheetlet is being offered for sale on an Internet auction site. The stamps are inscribed with the date '2018' which begs the question of whether or not the issue was actually released last year. However the 2018 issue of 'Translocation of elephants ' was made up of stamps dated '2017' so it is not possible to know reliably which year recent Malawi stamps have been issued if one solely accepts the evidence of the year imprinted on the stamps. Rating:- ***.

1361. Commonwealth PhilatelIc Entities Which Have Not Issued StampsDuring 2019.

 One of my favourite threads on Stampboards is that which identifies which countries have or have not issued stamps during the course of the ongoing year. It's great fun seeing if one of those infrequent issuers has finally released a stamp after, in some cases, some years of philatelic abstinence. 

 There are 88 current Commonwealth philatelic entities, 16 of which, indicated by having a full stop after their names, are not yet known to have issued any stamps during 2018. Of course we should really list not countries but postal administrations/philatelic agencies and so on which have released stamps but for this particular exercise of identifying which Commonwealth philatelic entities have released stamps I'll make it a little simpler by just identifying country names unless they have more than one permitted issuer of postage stamps of some sort.

   The country name is presented in the same way as in the Stampboards world issue thread but here
when a Commonwealth philatelic entity has been known to issue a stamp I will remove a country's name from the list and add it to a second list which will be started below the first one. 

  An e after an entity's name indicates that forthcoming issues have been announced but not yet released.

  Commonwealth philatelic entities which have not issued stamps during 2019:-

Aitutaki (Cook Islands)

Anguilla .

Barbados

British Antarctic Territory 

British Indian Ocean Territory 

British Virgin Islands 

Cameroon .

Cayman Islands 

Cook Islands

Dominica .

Eswatini

Ghana .

Gibraltar (Swiss Post) .

Lesotho .

Montserrat 

Niue

Penrhyn (Cook Islands)

Ross Dependency

Rwanda .

St Helena

St Kitts .

Samoa .

Seychelles . e

Solomon Islands .

Tanzania 

Trinidad and Tobago 

Turks And Caicos Islands .

United Kingdom Universal Mail

Vanuatu 

Zambia

total - 29

  Commonwealth philatelic entities which have issued stamps during 2019:-

Alderney (Guernsey)

Antigua And Barbuda
Ascension

Australiau

Australian Antarctic Territory
Bahamas

Bangladesh
Belize

Bermuda

Botswana
Brunei Darussalam

Canada

Christmas Island (Australia)
Cocos (Keeling) Islands (Australia)

Cyprus
Turkish Republic Of Northern Cyprus 

Falkland Islands

Fiji

The Gambia

Gibraltar
Grenada

Grenada Carriacou And Petite Martinique 

Guernsey

Guyana

India

Isle Of Man
Jamaica

Jersey
Kenya
Kiribati

Malawi

Malaysia

Malta

Mauritius 

Mozambique 

Namibia

Nevis

Nauru

New Zealand

Nigeria

Niuafo'ou (Tonga)

Norfolk Island (Australia) 

Pakistan

Papua New Guinea

Pitcairn Islands

Saint Lucia .

St Vincent And The Grenadines

Sierra Leone

Singapore

South Africa

South Georgia And The South Sandwich Islands

Sri Lanka

Tokelau

Tonga

Tristan Da Cunha

Tuvalu

Uganda .

United Kingdom

total - 57

1386. 🇬🇮 Gibraltar Adds To Year Of The Pig Deluge.

  🇬🇮 The unending number of Year of The Pig stamps is becoming duller than the ceaseless chatter of media pundits on the subject of Brexit. And it never seems to come to a close. Now the Royal Gibraltar Post Office has announced the release of a pair of £2.60p stamps on 30 January 2019 to commemorate the Chinese New Year. Ho hum. This expensive issue with no obvious relevance to Gibraltar was designed by Stephen Perera from illustrations by bajena and siewhoong @ istockphoto.com and lithographed by Cartor. Rating:- 0.

  🇧🇼 The set of 5 stamps and accompanying miniature sheet on the subject of the Big Five from Botswana Post which I mentioned in Blog 1369 were issued on 22 November 2018.

  🇬🇧 The Royal Mail stand at Spring Stampex 2019 will sell from 13 February 2019 the 'Stamp Classics' miniature issued earlier this year with an additional inscription at the lower left and in a limited edition of 6000 stamps. Similar items have been sold at recent previous Stampexes and from what I could see the sales of the items seemed to be particularly slow. Rating:- 0.

  The complete pane containing Machin Head definitives from the Da Vinci booklet due to be issued on 13 February 2019 (see Blog 1383) is depicted below. The code on the stamps will be M18L MPIL:-

  🇧🇹 Bhutan Post issued a miniature sheet containing 4 different stamps and another containing a single stamp on 1 February 2019 on the subject of Mammals of Bhutan. As usual this is an attractive set on a strictly local theme. Rating:- *****.

1385. 🇨🇰🇫🇯🇹🇴 New Issues From The Pacific.

  🇨🇰🇹🇴 There is further news of philatelic products issued recently or about to be issued by the USA-based philatelic agency, Philatelic Collector Inc..

  As regards the numerous - and expensive - issues depicting Birds of Prey which were featured and illustrated in Blogs 1375 to 1379) the 'dates of issue' have now been stated by the agency and the inevitable Christmas 2018 stamps seem to have been released for the main territories alone rather than the numerous associated philatelic entities.

  

  🇨🇰 Cook Islands - 

  14 December 2018 - Christmas - 2 sheetlets each containing 6 different stamps. Rating:- 0.

  20 December 2018 - Birds of Prey (see Blogs 1375 and 1377).

  🇨🇰 Aitutaki Cook Islands -

  27 December 2018 - Birds of Prey (see Blog 1378).

  🇨🇰 Penrhyn Cook Islands -

  27 December 2018 - Birds of Prey (see Blog 1379).

  🇨🇰 Rarotonga Cook Islands - 

  20 December 2018 - Birds of Prey (see Blog 1378).

  🇹🇴 Tonga - 

  10 December 2018 - Birds of Prey (see Blog 1376).

  17 December 2018 - Christmas - 2 sheetlets each containing 6 different stamps. Rating:- 0.

  8 February 2019 - Animals of the world - 4 stamps. Rating:- 0.

  🇹🇴 Niuafo'ou (Tonga) - 

  18 December 2018 - Birds of Prey (see Blog 1379).

   8 February 2019 - Animals of the world - 4 stamps. Rating:- 0.

  🇫🇯 Fiji Post issued a set of 4 stamps on 2 February 2018 to commemorate Chinese New Year in another joint project with the government of The People's Republic Of China. The set was described as being representative of "innovation of oriental humanistic spirit to present an international and contemporary aesthetics" (which sounds a little overblown to me). The Chinese designers, Xu Lixian and Zhang Tao from Shenzen, are said to have also represented "the Chinese sprightly and contemporary artistic expression, fused with Fijian totems of humanities, natural environment and national symbols." Strangely I don't really get that from these stamps but what do I know? Rating:- *.

1384. 🇻🇺 Philatelic Collector Produces Another Issue For Vanuatu.

  🇨🇰🇹🇴🇻🇺 The US-based philatelic agency, Philatelic Collector Inc., has released details of the mini-omnibus issue it has produced on the subject of Chinese New Year on behalf of its client postal administrations and their subsidiary territories. The various items are colourful and cheerful if nothing else and are all stated by the agency to have been issued on 10 December 2018. The philatelic items have the names of the following entities printed on them - Cook Islands, Aitutaki Cook Islands, Penrhyn Cook Islands, Tonga, Niuafo'ou and for the second consecutive year, an issue for Vanuatu which up until now has not been a regular customer of Philatelic Collector Inc.. The agency website is currently depicting only 2 ordinary stamps as having been released for each territory but it seems unlikely that the agency will have missed the chance of making more money from this issue by the production of various miniature sheets - time will tell I suppose. Rating:- 0.

  🇮🇳  India Post issued a single stamp with an interesting and unusual design on 30 January 2019 on the subject of 'Financial Inclusion'. I have no idea what the abstract design is trying to say but I do like the stamp when I compare it with most of the dull and dreary new issues which usually emanate from India Post. Rating:- *****.

  India Post released a Rs2 addition to its present definitive series on the subject of notable Indians which depicts the former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who led the country from 16 - 1 June 1996, and 19 March 1998 to 22 May 2004. The stamp is said to have been released in the latter part of December 2018. Rating:- **.