1648. 🇨🇦 Canada To Commemorate End Of Second World War In Europe

🇨🇦 Canada Post will issue 2 self-adhesive stamps on 29 May 2020 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe. The stamps will be released in booklets of 10 containing five of each stamp. The stamps were designed by Ivan Novotny and printed in lithography.
 The designs feature Veronica Foster who was selected by the Canadian government to appear in a public relations campaign aimed at inspiring women to join the war effort on the home front. Veronica assembled Bren guns in a Toronto factory and was labelled ‘Ronnie, the Bren gun girl’ in the campaign.
  The second stamp depicts Private Léo Major who in April 1945, while scouting the German-occupied Dutch town of Zwolle, singlehandedly tricked the Germans in the town into thinking that they were under full-scale attack and as a result he captured dozens of prisoners and caused the enemy to retreat. For this he earned the Distinguished Conduct Medal and, according to Canada Post publicity for the issue, “the lasting gratitude of the people of Zwolle”. He was, apparently, known as ‘The One-eyed Ghost’.
   Rating:- ****.

🇭🇰 Hong Kong Post was planning to issue a set of stamps during 2020 with the somewhat unpromising title of ‘Centenary of Hong Kong Correctional Services Department’ but has now cancelled that particular issue and will replace it with a set titled ‘Christmas Stamps IV’.
  🇦🇺🇳🇫 The decision to cancel the issue made me wonder how many stamps have featured prisons, not many I thought until I remembered the exception of Australia and Norfolk Island which more than once have depicted the prisons which were constructed there to hold the convict ancestors who were transported in times past for crimes committed thousands of miles away in Britain. Norfolk Island housed a particularly harsh prison.
   Stamps have also depicted the ships which transported the convicts to Australia. In the 62 years from 1788 to 1850, 162000 convicts were transported to Australia from Great Britain in 806 ships. The first convoy of ships conveying convicts to Australia was made up of 2 Royal Navy ships, HMS Brig Supply and HMS Sirius, 3 supply ships - Golden Gove, Friendship and Borrowdale - and 6 ships containing the criminals themselves - Charlotte, Alexander, Prince of Wales, Lady Penrhyn, Fishburn and Scarborough. The fleet was under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip.

  🇬🇧 We must not forget that the British postal service issued 1 stamp out of a set of four on the subject of ‘Social reformers’ on 28 April 1976 to commemorate the prison reformer Elizabeth Fry (1780 - 1845).

🇨🇰 Finally it is fun to consider that one of Philatelic Collector Inc.’s philatelic entities, for which it produces a significant number of stamps, is named after a prison ship - the Lady Penrhyn which sailed past the island now known as Penrhyn in the Cook Islands on 8 August 1788 as part of the first convoy of transported criminals as detailed above. Penrhyn is likely to be unique among islands in being named after a means of transporting convicted criminals!

Addendum- response to Richard Rundle’s comment re. Prisons on stamps. (See below in Comment box)

  Thank you for your excellent comment. I rarely think outside the Commonwealth box but the Bastille is an excellent example, many times featured, of a prison on stamps and it has certainly made a few appearances on stamps from Commonwealth postal services. It also occurs to me that any stamps depicting views of St Helena would qualify for inclusion in the theme as the whole island served as a prison for Napoleon Bonaparte from his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo until his death. Also, I suppose, places of exile for political prisoners might be included - for instance Seychelles has issued stamps in the past which depicted Archbishop Makarios of Cyprus who was exiled there by the British as well as including a stamp depicting King Prempah of Ashanti in a pre-Independence definitive set. If anyone ever wants to exile me I shall ask to be sent to the same place as Makarios and the King of Ashanti.

1646. 🇯🇪 Jersey Post And Go Stamps To Commemorate Liberation Anniversary.

🇯🇪 Jersey Post will issue 7 more Post and Go stamps on 9 May 2020 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the island’s liberation from Nazi occupation at the end of the Second World War. The ‘Jersey Flag’ stamp will be issued with an additional inscription ‘Liberation 75/1945 - 2020’ and will be dispensed from kiosk JE02 while the 6 ‘Jersey Arms’ stamps will be additionally inscribed ’Libérâthion75/1945 - 2020’ (in the local Jèrriais language) and dispensed in a coil strip of one each of the 6 different stamps.  A notable anniversary to be commemorated but for how much longer is Jersey Post going to release these intensely dull products? Rating:- ***.

🇨🇰🇹🇴 I have recently received (late April), rather strangely, some notes on ‘new issues’ (though dated December 2019) from the ‘Boutique Philatelic Agency’, as it calls itself, Philatelic Collector, which has two clients - the TWO postal services of Cook Islands and Tonga (for which PCI manages to produce philatelic items for SIX philatelic entities). It seems odd that the December 2019 news sheet should be sent out 4 months after its date and it is not at all helpful as all the featured items have been depicted on the agency’s website for some time now. It would have been far more helpful to receive news of more recent products such as those depicting birds and wildlife of the world being offered recently for sale on internet auction sites by a Russian dealer. Perhaps these later items will soon appear on the agency’s website.

  There is one very interesting piece of this news sheet of which is it worth taking note - the ‘new issue order form’ which details all the products (71 ‘stamps’ and 12 ‘miniature sheets’) being offered for sale  ‘issued’ in the period 11 October - 12 December 2019  (plus a pair of surcharges dating back to 11 March 2019). It is stated that all the items are being offered for sale ‘at face value’. The total price of one of each of the 83 items amounts to a remarkable US$777.25c (£628.59p) and if one is so inclined first day covers of all items may also be purchased for the admirable sum of US$810.25c and cancelled to order stamps are offered at the same price as mint items. It’s clear, isn’t it?, that the agency does not really need to sell many items before it is on its way to making a large financial profit and no doubt, as long as people keep buying, then the agency will keep producing them. These are items with a price but not with a value. As always, caveat emptor.

1645. 🇮🇲 COVID-19 - Isle Of Man Stamps To Commemorate ‘Frontline Workers’.

🇮🇲 Isle of Man Post Office has indicated on its stamps and coins website that it will soon release an 8 stamp set of new stamps titled #CarryUsThrough to commemorate the ‘First line workers’ at this time of the COVID-19 pandemic. An idea of a couple of designs from the set is given on the website and I expect that the full set and more details will emerge shortly. Up until 23 April there had been 308 confirmed cases of COVID-19 on the island of which 230 were reported to have recovered and 18 had died.

🇬🇬 Guernsey Post has revealed the design of one of the stamps it intends to issue during 2020 as its contribution to this year’s SEPAC omnibus series. The set depicts the work of local artists and this particular stamp portrays ‘Catskin’ by Frances Lemmon - the theme of this year’s omnibus is ‘Art from the State collection’.

🇨🇦 Canada Post issued a single self-adhesive stamp in a booklet of 10 on 24 April 2020 to commemorate the Moslem festival of Eid. The issue was designed by Nayla Yehia, Lionel Gadoury, Dave Hurds and Muneeb Khatana and lithographed by Lowe Martin. Rating:- ****.

1644. 🇸🇭 Tristan Da Cunha To Commemorate Its Female Ancestors.

 🇸🇭 I suspect that if you need to be socially isolated, which most of us still do, then Tristan Da Cunha is one of the best places to do it. In fact if you want to be isolated full stop there can be few better geographical locations in which to find yourself. Nevertheless the island’s postal administration intends to issue a set of 4 new stamps on 7 May 2020 to commemorate some of the islanders’ female ancestors. It’s a wonderful and worthwhile set designed by Andrew Robinson and lithographed by Cartor and perforated 13.5. I like the set very much but just wonder if the ‘St Patrick’s flag’ truly represents the whole of Ireland as the accompanying publicity literature puts it. The depiction of flags on stamps is fraught with danger, none more so than the flags associated with island of Ireland.
  It’s lovely to have news of some new stamps at this time especially from the Creative Direction/Pobjoy Stamps stable. Rating:- *****.
  Thanks to Juliet Warner of Pobjoy Stamps for information about this issue.

🇬🇧 In Blog 1643 I moaned about the choice of subjects to be featured on Royal Mail new stamp issues and managed to tie it all into a literary theme and contrived to bring in the subject which is at the front of everyone’s minds at the moment - the wretched virus that is a threat to everyone. From the philatelic point of view this has resulted in there being only infrequent news of new stamp issues from Commonwealth postal services and really means that other activities should be indulged in - perhaps catching up on some great books.

  Still on the literary theme, quite coincidentally a major new book release took place in The United Kingdom just as the pandemic was preparing to let rip and the government began to tell people to stay at home  - this was not another Harry Potter or The Gruffalo but a real, exceptionally well-written adult book - the landmark publication of the long-awaited final part of double Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy, the 904 page The Mirror and the Light. If anything was designed to help us keep our sanity and see us through the lockdown it is this magnificent book. The only real problem with it is that it is so readable that one can not help but race through the pages and so shorten the time that one has it available to help pass the days. It is unputdownable except at times to rest the hand that’s holding it as it’s sheer physical weight takes its effect.

  If ever there were a modern British author and series of books which should be commemorated contemporaneously on new stamps then it is Hilary Mantel and the Wolf Hall books. Which brings me back to stamps. The books tell the story of Thomas Cromwell, hero or anti-hero, Mantel may change your mind, who was one of the most accomplished politicians in English history. Naturally the public does not like politicians and so, though there have been a number of stamps featuring his master, the tyrannical Henry VIII, Cromwell has never featured on a British stamp though his influence in bringing about the profound changes to English society by masterminding the English Reformation was enormous. His portrait by Hans Holbein makes it clear that he was not very, er, photogenic but he remains a key English historical character who has been ignored by those who choose subjects to be featured on postage stamps. This despite there having been a number of stamps issued by Royal Mail featuring the Tudors.

  The Tudors may currently be on my mind because of my current choice of reading but I have also noticed that the thread on Stamp Boards about stamps featuring artist’s errors is currently quite active and a Tudor-themed Royal Mail stamp came to mind. I do not think that the Stamp Boards thread features a stamp issued in 2009 as part of a set of 7 stamps commemorating the 500th anniversary of the succession of Henry VIII though it is true that the error is not so much an artist’s error as an error of attribution. 

  The stamp in question is that which is stated to show a portrait of Catherine Howard, Henry’s fifth and penultimate wife, which is housed in the National Portrait Gallery  which itself now titles the painting ‘Unknown woman, formerly known as Catherine Howard after Hans Holbein the Younger, late 17th century’. It appears that no contemporary portrait of the unfortunate 5th wife is known to exist. At the age of about 17 she was married to the 59 year old king on the day that poor old Cromwell was beheaded but did not last long herself suffering the same fate as Cromwell 2 years later after having been accused of adultery which was naturally something that Henry VIII felt rather aggrieved about. 

  I have to say that the portrait on the stamp certainly does not look like that of a young woman in her late teens or early twenties. Presently another painting is suggested to be one of Catherine Howard and the sitter certainly looks as though she is in the right age group. This portrait by Hans Holbein The Younger, in the Royal Collection, is described as, ‘Portrait of a Lady, perhaps Katherine Howard (1520-1540) c.1540’. Perhaps if future stamps featuring the queen are planned the designers will use this alternative portrait instead of the traditional picture which has been used on stamps from other postal administrations some of which are shown below and were released in 2009.

  As for the king himself he has been depicted on a large number of Commonwealth stamps some rather better than others. Indeed I suppose he has been depicted on more stamps than any other English/British monarch apart from those who have reigned since 1840 since when all British stamps have depicted a portrait in some form or the other of the reigning monarch.

Royal Mail:-

Gibraltar:-

Isle Of Man:-

Barbuda:-

Grenada:-

Grenadines Of St Vincent:-

Solomon Islands:-

St Helena:-

Guernsey:- 

Now, let’s get back to reading a few more pages of The Mirror and the Light ..... I will just mention that the third wife, Jane Seymour, is waiting for her coronation but a plague running through London has led to a postponement, “But now there are rumours of plague and sweating sickness. It is not wise to allow crowds in the street, or pack bodies into indoor space ....”. Some things never change.