Our History

The originally founded IPS-JSIC (International Philatelic Society – Joint Stamp Issues Collectors) was created in 1997 at the same time the first Joint Stamp Issue Catalogue was published (Catalogue des Emissions Conjointes – 1997 – French language 356 pages). The IPS-JSIC had official by-laws as well as an identified physical address.

In exchange of a small fee, the members benefited from a Society Journal written in three languages, which was transformed in a Quarterly Report “Joint Stamp Issues” [ISSN 1712-8390 (Print) ISSN 1712-8404 (Online)]. By November 2007, the publication had reached the Number 39 and was put on hold at the same time the new web site and the new catalogue became available. These documents remain available as on-line pdf documents in the Archives section.

In order to make the information available for a larger number, we felt more comfortable to provide the information in a different way (i.e., not printed) and to pursue the experience with a kind of “virtual” society. Unfortunately, at that time, we lost all members who were not acquainted with computers.

The Society as virtual was renamed JSIS (Joint Stamp Issues Society) which is still its name today, in form of a group of collectors communicating via e-mails. Collectors are spread all over the world and meet physically only at a local level on the basis of personal mail exchanges, or on rare occasion, in the frame of international philatelic exhibitions. Of course, it was also decided that no fees or no money exchanges were needed under these conditions.

Information about Joint Stamp Issues was also made accessible, at irregular intervals, through the “News” page of the first web site (www.philarz.net – site not anymore updated, soon on hold). At the same time, the new “Catalogue of Joint Stamp Issues 2006” was published (English language, 736 pages, ISBN 2-9526079-0-7). From 2007 on, and during 15 years, a supplement to this catalogue of about 50 pages each, has been published and printed. The color printing was even allowed from 2014 on, with the support of Enzo Cafaro (Italy). All thanks to him!

Fifteen years later, were are again in a situation for which renewal is needed. Hence, this new web site and the access on line to the “Catalogue of Joint Stamp Issues 2022” (English language, only on-line access, more than 1,700 pages). This catalogue will be updated almost immediately for news, quotation variations and mistake corrections. The volume that will be accessible on line is always the most updated version (see more under Catalogue).

What to find here?

So, in this site you will find the following:

• A blog providing the latest information about joint stamp issues See News
• The latest version of the fully updated catalogue of Joint Stamp Issues (first posted version is dated January 10, 2022, second on January 20, 2023)
• The list of upcoming joint stamp issues which was part of a special page in the previous web site is now available directly in the catalogue
• The details about the definitions and the classification system used throughout all documents is available in the first volume of the catalogue but a summary can be found in the FAQ pages
• A page of links to sites of interest related to the sources of the information (postal administration web sites for access to stamps and information), but also to other dedicated sites for joint stamp issues and philatelic resources
• A FAQ page about joint stamp issues
• The Archives of the Society, which still needs to be completed, but which access will remain in the former web site as long as not everything is transfered

Other activities

Next to the access to information, we, actually our friend Jaap Sarelse in the Netherlands, will continue to provide the new joint stamp issue stamps at prices just above denomination. This (non-profit) service to our members was well appreciated in the past years and I have to thank Jaap for all he did so far and will continue to do. If you have an interest in joining this centralized purchasing group, just drop a mail and we will bring you in contact with Jaap who will explain how it works.

We need your help

The content of this site will mainly depend on the information sent by all stamp collectors. However we intend to keep it as exhaustive as possible and we will continue to take in account additions relevant for older stamp issues. Actually, the network of our friends made in average half a dozen discoveries per year of joint stamp issues that we missed over the time. So, next to the information ahead of release about local joint stamp issues, we will be interested in any data, image that could be integrated in the catalogue.

As told above, the access to all this information is provided for free. We found it unfair to give access only to a minority and found also cumbersome to put in place a system of payment. It is clear that collectors prefer (even if unfortunately) to spend money for stamps and philatelic products rather than for books. In fact, the access to this free information is close to the access to information on Wikipedia. Everybody should have access to the knowledge, but those who can afford it, could sponsor the existence of such site. In fact, this site does have a cost, covered by the author, not speaking at all about the time needed to write the catalogue and the web site pages. Therefore, to support this process, we invite all those who feel they had a great benefit from having access to this web site, to financially contribute in a small way to its continuous existence. To give you an idea, when the JSI Society did exist, the membership fee was around € 10 per year. If about 50 readers would participate at this level each year, the web site costs would be covered. The simplest way is to transfer your contribution directly to the PayPal address richard.zimmermann@club-internet.fr with some greeting sentences. Thanks in advance for any level of support.