Commonwealth Stamps Opinion

Tuesday, 8 August 2023

2351. 🇬🇧 🇫🇰 🇬🇧🇧🇸🇬🇸🇸🇭 Coronation Celebration Issues From Bahamas, Antarctica And The South Atlantic.

New issues.

🇬🇧 Postal service of British Antarctic Territory -

21 August 2023 - Coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla - 4 stamps and 1 miniature sheet containing a single stamp. Designed by Bee Design and lithographed by Cartor and perforated 13.5. Rating:- *****.

🇫🇰 Postal service of Falkland Islands -

🇬🇧 Postal service of Ascension Island -

7 September 2023 - Coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla - 4 stamps and 1 miniature sheet containing a single stamp. Designed by Bee Design and lithographed by Cartor and perforated 13.5. Rating:- *****.

🇧🇸 Bahamas Post Office -

🇬🇸 Postal service of South Georgia And The South Sandwich Islands -

🇸🇭 Postal service of Tristan Da Cunha -

Production co-ordination of the above issues was by Creative Direction. Thanks to Juliet Warner of Pobjoy Stamps for information about these issues.

🇧🇩 Bangladesh Post -

5 August 2023 - 74th anniversary of the birth of ‘Great Freedom Fighter Martyr’ Captain Sheikh Kamal - 1 stamp and 1 miniature sheet containing 3 circular stamps. Designed by Bani Adam (stamp) and Sanjiv Kanti Das (miniature sheet). Lithographed by Security Printing Corporation (Bangladesh), Gazipur. Perforated 12.5. Rating:- ***.

Saturday, 5 August 2023

2348. 🇸🇬 Singapore Celebrates National Day.

New issues.

🇸🇬 Singapore Post -

8 August 2023 - National Day at the Padang - 5 stamps and 1 miniature sheet containing a single. Designed by Pinch design Pte Ltd and lithographed with spot UV (to highlight the fireworks) by Secura and perforated 13. Rating:- *****.

🇬🇬 Guernsey Post -

Tweets reporting Post and Go issues with additional one day only additional inscriptions to commemorate visiting cruise ships -

4 August 2023 - Return of the Ventura.

Opening of the Trinbago Commonwealth Games -

4 August 2023 - The 7th Commonwealth Youth Games, known as Trinbago 2023 was opened in Port of Spain by the President of Trinidad and Tobago, Christine Kangaloo on this date. The Games involves 7 sports with 93 events and over 1000 competitors and will take place until 11 August. Following the precedent set at the highly successful Commonwealth Games held in Birmingham in 2022, events include those for both athletes and para-athletes.

There is no news that I can find yet of a special stamp issue to commemorate what is a big event in Trinidad and Tobago but I expect that such an issue will emerge given the Games’ importance to ‘Trinbago’

The Youth Games were first hosted by Edinburgh in 2000 but no special stamps were issued by Royal Mail to commemorate the event (at the time Royal Mail was issuing nothing but a dreadful series of issues to commemorate the new Millenium). Subsequent Commonwealth Youth Games were held in Bendigo (Australia, 2004), Pune (India, 2008), Douglas (Isle of Man, 2011), Apia (Samoa, 2015) and Nassau (Bahamas, 2017).

India Post issued a set of 4 stamps and a miniature sheet containing the 4 stamps on 12 October 2008 to commemorate the Puna Games:-

The mascot featured on the Indian stamps was a tiger and another cat mascot, this time a particularly unappealing Manx cat called Tosha (clearly designed by someone who did not like cats), appeared on a set of 8 stamps (1 stamp plus a se-tenant strip of 7 in a miniature sheet) issued by the Isle Of Man Post Office on 1 September 2011:-

The postal service of Samoa issued a sheetlet of 9 different stamps on 2 September 2015 to commemorate the 5th Youth Games held in Apia. With Samoa’s stamp design and production then in the hand# of the notorious Philatelic Collector Inc., the designs of the individual stamps were uninspired to say the least.

Surprisingly perhaps, the postal service of Bahamas did not commemorate the Games hosted at Nassau in 2017 with a stamp issue. It will be interesting to see if any stamps appear for the 2023 Games.

Friday, 4 August 2023

2350. 🇧🇲 New Bermuda Stamps Will Feature ‘Backyard Birds’.

New issues.

🇧🇲 Bermuda Post Office -

21 September 2023 - ‘Backyard birds’ - 6 stamps. Further details awaited. Rating:- *****.

🇲🇹 MaltaPost -

8 August 2023 - SEPAC, Traditional markets - 2 stamps. Designed by MaltaPost from illustrations by Daniel Spiteri and lithographed by Printex and perforated 14. Rating:- *****.

Nam Post (postal service of Namibia) -

1 August 2023 - Sengis (elephant shrews) - 3 stamps. Designed by Helge Denker & lithographed. Rating:- *****.

Thursday, 3 August 2023

2349. 🇸🇭🇬🇧 Penguins From Tristan And Pratchett’s Discworld From Royal Mail.

New issues.

🇸🇭 Tristan Da Cunha postal service -

9 August 2023 - Penguins - 4 stamps. Designed by Andrew Robinson and lithographed by Cartor and perforated 13 x 13.5. Production by Creative Direction. Thanks to Angela Warner of Pobjoy Stamps for information about this issue. Rating:- *****.

🇬🇧 Royal Mail -

10 August 2023 - 40th anniversary of the first publication of a Terry Pratchett Discworld novel - 8 stamps (total face value £12.60pm) and 1 ‘Collectors sheet’ containing 10 stamps and attached labels and sold for £16.00. Designed by So design consultants and lithographed by Cartor and perforated 14.5 x 14. Rating:- **. These were mentioned in Blog 2342 but better quality illustrations are now included here.