556. New Tongan Cardinal Features On New Items Issued By Philatelic Collector.

  Philatelic Collector Inc. has announced its latest philatelic products produced in the name of its client territories in the Pacific Ocean area. For Tonga it released a set of 3 stamps and 1 miniature sheet on 1 April 2015 which commemorate the appointment of the first ever Tongan cardinal of the Catholic Church on 14 February 2015 - Soane Patita Paini Cardinal Mafi. These items were designed by Alison Bjertnes:-

  Two miniature sheets have also been released for Tonga to commemorate Easter - both contain 4 different stamps which depict old painings and each has the face value of 9 Tongan dollars and are said to have been issued on 3 April 2015. One of the miniature shees is inscribed "Niuafo'ou":-

  Philatelic Collector has also issued a further sheetlet for Easter (more old paintings said to have been released on 2 April 2015 and designed by Melissa Cato), again containing 4 different stamps, in the name of Samoa:-

  We will not be surprised to find that further items have been produced in the name of The Cook Islands Post Office and equally unsurprised to find that they make up an Easter issue for this country - or rather - 3 Easter issues. The 3 miniature sheets each consist of 4 different stamps which depict old paintings and are inscribed Cook Islands, Aitutaki Cook Islands and Penrhyn Cook Islands, each having a face value of 8 New Zealand dollars:-

  Pakistan Post suddenly withdrew a recent issue from sale, that commemorating the Executive Council Meeting of the APPU in Islamabad (see Blog 543), when an error was discovered in which the logo of the meeting at the upper left part of the stamp has the inscription "AAPU-EC" placed In it rather than the correct acronym "APPU-EC". As detailed in Blog 543 the issue was released on 24 March 2015 so that the stamp was on sale for about 3 weeks in total:-

  Images of the set of 6 stamps which Royal Mail will issue on 2 June 2015 to commemorate the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta can now be viewed on the Internet. Details of the subjects of the designs were listed in Blog 554. This is a very interesting set and cleverly illustrates many of the landmark developments in the history of Freedom firstly in England, then Great Britain and then its former colonies and in The Commonwealth. 

  The illustrations are original and even though very few children collect stamps in these present times, this is a set of which school teachers should be made aware so that they could be used as educational tools to teach their pupils about some of the landmarks of Freedom. There can be no more apt a set of new stamps than this at a time when the British are once more celebrating their Freedom by preparing to go to the polls to freely elect a new government:-

  India Post issued a single stamp on 18 April 2015 to commemorate the centenary of Patna High Court:-

  I have now received my New Zealand Post pack of personalised stamps of 2015. There are a few interesting items in it which would interest thematic collectors - for instance 3 gummed stamps feature birds (the Purple swamphen, a South Island robin and a Bellbird) while a self-adhesive features an Australasian gannet with another featuring the logo of the South Auckland Philatelic Society which features a bird in flight. There are also 2 booklets (each of 10 different 70c stamps) which commemorate the twinning of Wellington with Sakai in Japan and one of the stamps depicts a crane of some sort:-

Purple swamphen

Bellbird

South Island Robin

Australasian gannet

555. Five More Australia Post Issues In May And June.

Singapore Post issued a set of 4 stamps on 18 April 2015 to commemorate the opening of the Lee Kong Chan Natural History Museum. The interesting set was designed by Brainwave Design Co. and lithographed by Secura:-

  Australia Post will release 5 more stamp issues in May and June 2015. The first of these is a set on the subject of "Cats" which will be issued on 5 May 2015. The issue consists of 5 se-tenant gummed 70c stamps, 5 different booklets each containing 10 x 70c self-adhesive stamps with each booklet housing a different design and a coil strip of 5 x 70c self-adhesive stamps giving us a total of 15 new stamps with the total cost of the issue, including booklets, being $42. The stamps were designed by Jonathan Chong and lithographed printed by McKellar Renown with the coil being printed by Pemara.

  The next issue to appear on 19 May 2015 and will be made up of 4 different designs on the subject of objects in Australian museums. The designs depicted will be the anchor of HMR Endeavour, a replica of the Welcome Stranger gold nugget, an automatic totaliser model and a piece of "indigenous art" - the sculpture of a turtle made by Ellarose Savage in 2012. Naturally the issue comes in numerous formats - a se-tenant block of 4 gummed stamps, 1 gummed miniature sheet and a coil of 4 self-adhesive stamps but on this occasion there appears to be no accompanying booklets bringing the grand total of the issue's face value to a mere $8.40c - modest by Australia Post's usual standards. The stamps were designed by Gary Domaney of Visua and lithographed by McKellar Renown.

  Australia Post will then release an issue inscribed "Australian Antarctic Territory" on 26 May 2015 which is called "Colours of AAT". This set consists of just 4 stamps (2 x 70c and 2 x $1.40c) plus a miniature sheet which contains one of each stamp. The total cost is therefore again just $8.40c. The set was designed by Jo Mure and lithographed by RA Printing.

  The fourth set to be mentioned will be released on 2 June 2015 on the subject of "Islands of Australia". Again, 4 stamps make up the set - 2 x 70c, 1 x $ 1.40c and 1 x $2.10c sold as 4 gummed stamps and the 70c additionally being sold in self-adhesive format in a booklet of 10 x 70c. The cost of these therefore amounts to $11.90c. The issue was designed by Jo Mure and lithographed by EGO.

  Finally a 5th issue - "Centenary of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research" - will be released on 30 June 2015 as a single gummed 70c stamp (produced in sheetlets of 10) with an accompanying "Prestige Booklet" ($14.95c) giving the issue a total price of $15.65c). The issue was designed by Nicholas Girling and lithographed by RA Printing.

  The total face value for May to June 2015 therefore weighs in at $86.35c (presently equal to £45.04p). 

  Zimpost, the postal administration of Zimbabwe, issued a set of 4 stamps on 24 February 2015 which depicted important drystone ruins of Zimbabwe - the sites featured are Chisvingo, Dhlo Dhlo, Khami and Nalatale. These were the settlements of the elite in pre-colonial Shona states between 1300 AD and 1830. The face values are pleasingly modest - 40c, 75c, 85c and $1.

  The excellent website, Joint Stamp Issues, has reported that the postal administration of Portuguese-speaking Timor Leste, which is a country said to be interested in joining The Commonwealth, has agreed to participate in a joint issue with other Portuguese-speaking territories to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Association of Postal and Telecommunications Operators of the Portuguese-speaking Countries and Territories (AICEP) (see Blogs 275 and 519).

  The date of issue is said to be 25 April 2015 and the other countries participating in the issue are Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Macao, Portugal and the Commonwealth country of Mozambique whose postal administration usually allows the Stamperija philatelic agency to issue hundreds of stamps annually in its name but I suspect the AICEP issue will not originate from that source. So far the designs of the Brazil and Macao issues have been revealed and show the basic form of what the Timor Leste and Mozambique issues should look like:-

 

  Joint Stamp Issues has also reported that the member countries of the ALBA-TCP (Bolivarian Alliance of the People of our America - People's Trade Agreement), which include the Commonwealth territories of Dominica, Antigua And Barbuda, St. Vincent And The Grenadines and Saint Lucia, intend to participate in the joint issue of an omnibus to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the treaty. The only issue to have been made public so far Is that of Bolivia but these designs may again be the template for those issues which may be expected from the 4 Commonwealth territories:-

554. Post And Go Madness Reaches New Heights At Perth.

  The current frenzy of issuing of Royal Mail "Post And Go" stamps continues apace and, if anything, has reached new heights of madness. In Blog 535 I mentioned the annual congress of the Association of Scottish Philatelic Societies which is being held at the Dewars Centre in Perth on 17 and 18 April 2015 and that "Post And Go" kiosks for Royal Mail and Jersey Post would be set up at the meeting. For the first time, Royal Mail has 2 kiosks at the congress - A006 and a new kiosk, A008. Jersey has its JE01 at the congress. 

  Kiosk A006 has dispensed Collectors' strips of the Machin Head stamps with MA13 date code and no date code as well as the Union Jack stamps with no date code. A008 has also dispensed the 3 different types (Machin Head MA13 and no date and Union Jack no date). The inscription applied to the above was "86th Scottish/Congress 2015". This inscription was also applied to the Jersey flag stamps from JE01. JE01 also dispensed strips of the "Endangered wildlife" stamps but without the added inscription.

  But, as usual, that's not all. The stamps were also available on pre-order from the "back-office" machine B001, in this case the Machin Head MA13 and Union Flag no date stamps, but these had a different inscription:- " 86th Scottish/Congress" without the additional "2015". 

  Excluding the minor differences caused by the use of 2 kiosks rather than a single machine at Perth it appears that the Perth congress has resulted in 5 new Royal Mail collectors' strips which we will say represents 30 new stamps and 1 new Jersey Post collectors' strip (6 new stamps). The face value of each Royal Mail strip is £7.68p which means that the collector who simply must have all of these Royal Mail strips will have a total face value of £38.40p with which to cope. This bring the ongoing total face value of postally valid items issued in 2015 by Royal Mail up to mid-May to a shocking £273.74p.

  Even then I haven't quite finished since I note from a comment in Norvic Philatelic Blog that the Spring Flowers Post And Go stamps (originally issued in 2014) with revised postal rates have been reported as being dispensed from an NCR kiosk and so if we add a collectors' strip of that issue to our grand total it then stands at £281.42p. 

  As regards Jersey Post, its website is depicting a Jersey Flag "Post And Go" stamp with the inscription "86th Scottish/Congress" - that is without the additional "2015" so one may presume that if this issue is ordered from the Jersey Philatelic Bureau this second type of overprint will be sent to the buyer. Thus Jersey Post appears to have not one but two Collectors' strips associated with this meeting which has lasted just 2 days. The price of a strip is £4.07p so collectors will have a total of £8.14p to pay for the Jersey "Perth" issues (do not forget there is additional purchase tax to add on that total). 

  Am I being unjust to call it "Post And Go madness?"

   Meanwhile Royal Mail has published the design of half of one of the stamps which it will issue on 2 June 2015 to commemorate the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta. The half-design does not tell the whole story since the stamp appears to consist mostly of text with no pictorial element although in fact the stamps are actually double-width with a pictorial element on the left side of the stamp.

  Royal Mail says that it has "worked closely with the Magna Carta 800th Committee to produce six Special Stamps depicting the Magna Carta itself as well as major international bills and declarations inspired by it that have been issued to protect civil liberties and rights". All 6 stamps will consist of text which quotes small sections of the selected documents which are Magna Carta (1216) and a quote from Simon de Montfort (1265) (both 1st class values), The Bill of Rights of 1689 and the American Bill of Rights of 1793 (both £1.33p values) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and the Charter of The Commonwealth of 2013 (both £1.52p values). It is curious that the British Post Office should commemorate a foreign law as is the case of one of the £1.33p stamps.

  Bad King John does not make an appearance on any of the stamps but his son, Henry III, is shown in silhouette confronting Simon de Montfort on one of the 1st class stamps. King William III and his wife, Queen Mary, are depicted on the Bill of Rights stamp. Thus Henry III makes his first appearance on a British stamp as does de Montfort and this issue goes some way to compensate for the non-issue of a specific set to commemorate the 750th anniversary of Parliament which occurred earlier this year:-

The missing half of the 1st class value depicting Simon de Montfort and Henry III.

  Cyprus Post's Refugee stamp for 2015 was issued on 4 April. The year of issue is inscribed in the bottom right hand corner of the stamp:-

553. Australia Commemorates Gallipoli, Nevis In Catalogue Appendix, Another Zambia-China Relations Issue.

  Australia Post has issued an excellent set of 5 x 70c stamps on 14 April 2015 which commemorated ANZAC Day. The first Australian to be awarded a Victoria Cross in the First World War, LCPL Albert Jacka, was commemorated on one of the stamps. The issue was made up of 5 gummed stamps, 1 miniature sheet, 1booklet of 10 x 70c self-adhesive stamps and 1 $14.95 prestige booklet.

   The other stamps in the set depict the landing of Australian troops on the Gallipoli beaches on 25 April 1915, Australian troops in Turkish trenches seized during fighting at Lone Pine, Private John Simpson Kirkpatrick of the 3rd Australian Field Ambulance who with his faithful donkey recovered wounded soldiers from the frontline and the evacuation of Australian forces from Gallipoli on 19 December 1915.

  The set was designed by Janet Boschen.

  The Appendix section of the latest edition of Gibbons Stamp Monthly (May 2015) indicates that the Catalogue editor is continuing to consign a number of recent "issues" of Commonwealth territories to the Appendix rather than giving them full listing in the main section of the Catalogue (see Blog 538). The most recently affected territory is Nevis which has had 10 sets banished to the Appendix. Again these seem to be issues of no or extremely remote relevance to the island of Nevis - the editor appears content to include in the main listing issues which have subject matter of strict local or regional relevance or sets where the subject is the British royal family (which of course is also the royal family of the state of St. Kitts- Nevis). Full marks to the Catalogue editor for his attempts to come to grips with the ongoing appalling excessive issuing of stamps by foreign agencies on behalf of some Commonwealth territories. Perhaps now, however, this policy needs to be extended to other postal administrations, such as the offshore British islands, which are also clearly indulging in the excessive release of stamp issues.

  Zampost, the postal administration of Zambia, has issued 6 stamps and 1 miniature sheet to commemorate the 50th anniversary of its "friendship" with China (which I presume to mean the 50th anniversary of its diplomatic relations with The People's Republic Of China). It is an issue which appears to be the latest in a worldwide series of issues of commemorations of various countries' relations with China.

  The sets are usually donated to the relevant states by China itself  - it's a little like receiving a birthday card from someone when in fact you bought the card itself and gave it to them so that they could send it back to you to show how much they like you! 

  These are very interesting issues from the point of view of illustrating what is happening in the world as regards international relations. Interestingly Zambia released a similar issue in 2014 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of China's Red Flag Canal and it appears, philatelically at least, that China-Zambia relations must be very good. Presently, I do not know the date of issue of this set.

  In Blog 535 I mentioned new "Bespoke" airmail postcard stamps released by Universal Mail United Kingdom and I depict these again but in more detail. The stamp strips are dated "12/14". The strip UK0129 is on the subject of the National Railway Museum in York and is bound to be popular with trains-on-stamps enthusiasts:-

 The strip UK0126 has its appeal to those whose taste it is to find modern "celebrities" to be interesting - the strip is sold at the Madame Tussauds Wax Museum and one of the stamps depicts wax models of the former footballer, David Beckham, and his wife who was once a member of a popular female music entertainment group:-

upper stamp - Beckham and pop star wife.

  The strip UK0128 is again of interest to railway enthusiasts as it includes the picture of an early steam engine on one of the stamps:-