Retorno 50th Anniversary

This issue was anticipated, but it is so difficult nowadays to get information from Argentina Post (their web site is only occasionnaly updated with news while the chapter stamps is on hold since 2017). Any suggestion of good link is welcome.

Anyway, Don Birschel (USA) and Enzo Cafaro (Italy) provided at the same time the confirmation that Argentina had eventually released at the expected date of November 17, 2022 the counterpart of the stamp released by Spain on September 14, 2022. The date of September 17, 2022 corresponds to the 50th anniversary of the return (Retorno) from Spain of Juan Domingo Peron to Argentina, his home country. Both countries have issued a same design stamp (portrait), hence a Concerted issue [C1], in miniature sheets of 16 stamps.

Monthly news (November 2022)

Additional information related to the World Postal Day issue from October 9, 2022, [B20221009]: two new countries have to be added. First Iraq issued a stamp at a date that still needs to be confirmed, but probably also October 9, 2022. The second one, Venezuela, issued a stamp in miniature sheets of 6 (date of issue and high quality picture are missing). There are high chances that the list of presently 22 countries is still not complete. Additional information is welcome.

Note also that the Mexican stamp has been issued in panes of 50 stamps, but the miniature sheet of 6 stamps that was issued in parallel in fact contains 6 different stamps with heading in 6 different languages. The stamp in the middle of the first row (Spanish language) is the one issued in panes. As in items seen so far a printing number is added at the bottom right of each sheet, it seems that less than 1,000 miniature sheets have been printed.

Extension of the Austria Netherland crypto stamp from September 22, 2022. Another pair of joint crypto stamp was issued on November 22, 2022. This is the gold form of the previously issued crypto stamps, provided each with a 1g golden bar embedded in the card. The denomination is “R” for the Netherlands (999 samples), but “500,00” for the Austrian stamp (499 samples) sold at € 500. It is without saying that except if you are a collector of crypto stamps, we absolutely do not recommend to buy this item as part of the joint issues collection. With this low edition number, it is simply a product to fool collectors and the high price must be considered as a high risk investment. However, the product will be described in the catalogue in italic characters without providing a quotation. (as a reminder, the real value of a 1g bar of gold is estimated today at around €54)

There are still a few joint issues to be released before end of the year. We learned (Enzo Cafaro, Italy) that the Mexico counterpart of the Vatican State stamp already released on November 16, 2022 should become available on December 12, 2022. Enzo provided also first information about a Poland – Argentina joint issue released by Poland on Novemeber 25, 2022, for which we are still missing information from the Argentinian part. The Polish se-tenant stamps represent the Rufous hornero (Furnarius rufus), national bird of Argentina and the Crestet tit (Lophophanes cristatus).

The Catalogue Volume XV has been updated accordingly and the information has been dispatched as usually in Volume I.

Argentina – Chile – Mexico

Enzo Cafaro (Italy) provided the images of two stamps issued on October 22, 2022 by Mexico, entitled “Characters of history: Poetry. Portrait of characters or Christian rite”. The first one is dedicated to Gabriel Mistral (1889-1957) and bears the words “Mexico – Chile”. The other one honors Berta Singerman (1907-1998) with the text “Mexico-Argentina”. It took us more than a month before Don Birschel (USA) discovered information about the identical stamps issued by Argentina and Chile. In fact, this is a double joint issue from Mexico in which this country issued two stamps with the same style, in coordination with both other countries, while Argentina and Chile are not linked with each other. Argentina issued one stamp on October 26, 2022 in panes of 16 stamps [4×4]. Chile issued one stamp on October 25, 2022 in panes of 32 stamps [4×8], printed at 50,000 samples. The stamps of Mexico became available in panes of 28 stamps [4×7] and were both printed at 50,000 samples. Surprisingly, the cancellation of the Mexican first day cover bears the month of October 2022, but not the exact day. In the meantime, we have no other choice than to use the date of issue of the partner country. The announcement of the issue by Mexico was made on October 22, 2022.

The illustrations are 1922-1923 dated paintings from the Mexican painter Roberto Montenegro (1887-1968).

Poland Thailand 2022

The 50th anniversary of relationship between Poland and Thailand was celebrated as expected with a joint issue released on November 14, 2022. Both countries produced a similar miniature sheet containing four pairs of identical stamps showing the Palace on the Water in the Royal Łazienki in Warsaw, Poland and the Aisawan Thipphaya-Asana (called the Floating Pavilion) in the Royal Palace complex of Bang Pa-In, Ayutthaya Province, Thailand. Stamps were printed at respectively 120,000 (Poland) and 250,000 (Thailand) pairs.

Bangladesh – Singapore birds

The Oriental magpie-robin (Copsychus saularis) and the Zebra dove (Geopelia striata).have been chosen to illustrate the golden jubilee (50 years) of relationship between Bangladesh and Singapore issued on November 15, 2022. Bangladesh issued se-tenant pairs of stamps in panes of [2px13] with a printing run of 100,000 pairs. Singapore has issued isolated stamps in two miniature sheets of 10 stamps (2x[2×5]) and a souvenir sheet with both stamps (printing run unknown).

Algiers Summit 2022 (2)

The 2022 Arab Postal Union Algiers Summit took place on November 1 and 2, 2022 as announced. A stamp with a common design was supposed to be released by most of the participating members. Unfortunately, the information remains difficult to obtain. Most of the below was obtained from our friend Med Achour Ali Ahmed (Algeria), but the list still seems uncomplete.

So far, we had already reported about the following countries which had issued a stamp each: Egypt (August 3, 2022), Algeria (August 20, 2022), Oman (October, 2022), Djibouti (October 9, 2022) and Tunisia (October 25, 2022).

To this previous list, we can now add Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates, all of them having issued stamps on November 1, 2022.

These stamps represent 10 countries out of the 22 member states of the Arab League. So, another 12 potential participants could still participate or even may already have issued stamps. These include: Bahrain, Comoros, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Qatar, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. Story to be followed …

Catalogue update

A large update of the catalogue took place by end of October 2022, adding more than 10 pages to the Volume 15. The updated version of Catalogue 2022 Vol 15 V3.11 is now on line with new information for issues to be released in November and December 2022, but also a new list for issues expected during the year 2023. Major catalogue information affect the Tiger Forum series and the World Post Day issue with now 21 countries involved. Very recently, Argentina, Colombia and Mexico were added, but this list is still not complete. On page 1720 a non-approved ActNow – Stop the war series is described as well. The first list of countries participating to the common design stamp issue to be released at the occasion of the Arab League Summit is provided on page 1744. The other countries (up to a possible total of 22 countries possible) are expected to release their stamps by November 1-2, 2022.

The country and topic indexes of Volume 1 V3.06 have been updated accordingly.

Algiers Summit 2022

Our friend Med Achour Ali Ahmed (Algeria), continues providing information about the new 2022 Arab Postal Union stamps and the Algiers Summit that is supposed to take place on November 1 and 2, 2022. A stamp with a common design is to be released by most of the participating members.

Egypt, and Algeria have already issued their stamps, respectively on August 3, 2022 and August 20, 2022. Now we can report about the release of Oman‘s stamp (October, 2022), and the Republic of Djibouti. Unfortunately, this later is not following production rules that would fit with collectors’ wishes and the country is strictly limiting the number of items at the same time providing several subtypes of non-useful material. Djibouti produced 400 (!!) numbered souvenir sheets with 1 stamp and 400 other souvenir sheets with 4 different stamps among which one common stamp, but also the same in non-perforated (50 units). 20 perforated and 5 non-perforated units (souvenir sheets) have been produced as official FDCs dated October 9, 2022. A postal stationery has also been released. With that small printing run, it is clear that these products have been made to be sold at very high prices only to collectors and should not have the status of collectibles.

In the mean time, the Tunisia stamp was released on October 25, 2022. Most of the other countries are expected to release their stamps on November 1, 2022. The Arab League consists of 22 member states.

Miscellaneous from October 2022

Marci Jarvis (USA) could provide additional information related to the Tiger Forum joint issue from September 5, 2022. Indeed, Laos issued two stamps representing felines (Clouded leopard and Asian golden cat) but no tiger, however with the forum logo. These two stamps became also available in a special souvenir sheet which is illustrated with a tiger and a cub. Stamps in panes and souvenir sheets are available as perforated and imperforated. The date of issue of the Laos stamps is September 1, 2022. In the meantime, we are still missing information from Nepal stamps related to the Tiger forum.

Don Birschel (USA) provided the illustrations of the stamps issued by Cambodia, which, on the contrary to what was reported so far, bear the logo of the forum, in both stamps and souvenir sheet, . These stamps were issued on September 22, 2022.

Med Achour Ali Ahmed (Algeria) reported that the Algeria Post, next to the UPU World Post Day stamp from October 9, 2022 created also a Postage Meter Imprint with the same topic. However, he noticed that the design contains two hashtag addresses that are erroneous. Hashtags are reference words that allow to find all the information that was exchanged using this specific word. However, to be usable, they need to follow precise rules in particular no white space is allowed. In order to separate words, if this is needed, at least a dash or underscore dash has to be used. This rule applies for latin and arabic characters and both hashtags represented in the meter print are wrong and unusable. Corrected hastags are represented here, below the imprint.

Rindert Paalman (The Netherlands) reported the decision taken during the PostEurop General Assembly in Dublin on 5 October 2022. A common design will be used on all 2023 Europa stamps (probably to be released in May 2023) on the theme “PEACE – the highest value of humanity”. 29 entries were submitted for the design competition and 44 postal companies participated in the voting. The winning motif is the one submitted by Luxembourg : “The New Peace Symbol”.

From Kenneth Sequeira (Singapore), a question related to stamps issued by Mongolia on May 19, 2022 and Japan, souvenir sheet with 10 stamps released on June 15, 2022. The topic refers to the 50th anniversary of relationship. As dates of issue are different, design are different and none of the postal administrations are refering to any collaboration in producing these items, we have to consider that these stamps are just celebrating the same event, but these stamps cannot be considered as joint.

From Cesar Ittmann (the Netherlands), reporting about the stamps celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Eurasian Economic Commission. EAU began its operations on February 2, 2012, but the treaty was signed only on May 29, 2014. The five involved countries participated to this issue with different designs, but four of them were released on the same date of issue: Armenia (August 25, 2022), Belarus (August 26, 2022), Kazakhstan (August 26, 2022), Kyrgyzstan (August 26, 2022) and Russia (July 29, 2022). On this basis, this issue has to be reported as a parallel joint issue [P1] under the entry code [P20220826]. The 5th anniversary of the Eurasian Economic Union Treaty (and not operation initiation) was celebrated by the same five countries on August 9, 2019 with identical stamps showing the flags of the countries . It was described in the catalogue under [T20190809].

World Post Day 2022 (2)

October 9, 2022, day at which the UPU organized a common issue at the occasion of the World Post Day, was a Sunday. This is not the best day for launching a stamp and we preferred waiting a few days to collect a maximum of information around this issue in order to include also stamps that were released after this official date. We were not disappointed and we received a lot of additional information from our friends Kenneth Sequeira (Dubai), Ali Ahmed Med Achour (Algeria), Don Birschel (USA), Enzo Cafaro (Italy), Kenneth Sequeira (Singapore) and others. Thanks to all of them.

So far (the list is probably not complete), the countries having issued stamps with the UPU design include the followings: Belarus, Bosnia Herzegovina, Cambodia, Croatia, Egypt, Fiji (September 22, release date, but official FDC dated October 9), Russia (October 7), Serbia (October 7), Sri Lanka, , Syria (1 stamp, 1 souvenir sheet), Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey. All these countries have issued one single stamp at the date of October 9, 2022, except otherwise stated.

Algeria (October 9, 2022) participated as well but adapted the design.

Oman Tanzania 2022

On October 9, 2022, Oman Post and Tanzania Posts Corporation launched a Joint Stamp Issue that commemorates the long-standing historical ties between both countries. The stamp illustrates the cultural and architectural contributions of the Sultanate of Oman in the United Republic of Tanzania as it depicts the Zanzibar shoreline with some governmental buildings facing the shore, including the Corniche in Zanzibar and the House of Wonders, the largest and tallest building of Stone Town, which is one of six palaces built in 1883 by Barghash bin Said, the second Sultan of Zanzibar. Both countries issued also a souvenir sheet each. This information was provided by our friend Saravanan from India.

Latest information

Over the past two weeks, we got from different collectors several interesting information that are worth adding in the catalogue.

Saravanan (India) was the first to provide information about the recently issued stamps from Serbia, which are announced to be joint with Iran. Serbia issued a souvenir sheet with two stamps on September 30, 2022. So far, we have not seen any confirmation from Iran, but the Serbian stamps clearly state this relationship..

The announcement by the UPU of the issue of a common stamp at the occasion of the World Post Day on October 9, 2022 (see previous article) triggered also some interest from first countries.

Enzo Cafaro (Italy) was able to provide images from Belarus and Croatia, while StanD brought information out of Thailand. More information is needed but it seems this issue may unexpectedly become quite large.

Don Birschel (USA) discovered that the Laos stamps used at the occasion of the Tiger Forum (joint organized by Russia) on September 5, 2022, actually bear the logo of this Forum, on the contrary to the pictures we have shown so far. As we have not found the first stamps in previous issues, we have to consider that the first pictures without logo were simply early design proposals. Up to now, we got also the information that these both stamps were issued on September 1, 2022. This needs also to be confirmed. Any Laos-located collector to provide more data on this topic ? We are also missing information from Nepal that was supposed to take part to this issue. Any complementary information is welcome.

All the information collected over the past month has now been integrated in Vol 15 of the catalogue. Unfortunately, regarding the stamps that were announced to be released during the month of September 2022, we have no news from the Armenia- Bulgaria issue (probably cancelled), the Singapore – Ukraine issue (also probably cancelled), the Mexico – Vatican issue (initially scheduled September 21, 2022, but no information available) and the China – Japan issue (Japanese stamp issued, probably unilateral).