Great Britain

One just needs to be patient to get the information from several countries we have been missing. Eric Contesse (France) was the first one to provide the proof that the Barbados embroidery stamp associated to the [T20250919] issue. He transferred the copy of the first day cancellation from December 8, 2025 of the Barbados stamp, while a good quality picture of thee stamp became available through dealers. This series seems now to be complete.

Albania finally also issued the 2024 Euromed stamps with a first day cancellation from January 23, 2026 (!) (information and pictures provided by Enzo Cafaro, Italy). We can now expect to see the 2025 Euromed stamps as well as the 2025 Europa or even the UPU anniversary stamps. There are still no explanations for the more than one year regular delays for all these stamps from this country.

Palestine is the third country that made available older stamps belonging to joint issue series. At the beginning of February 2026 (exact date still unknown), two Palestinian stamps appeared on the market, the first one related to the UPU 150th anniversary [T20241009] and the other related to Gaza [T20241129], with designs identical to the basic forms. Information was provided by Enzo Cafaro (Italy). Unfortunately, we are missing high quality images for the time being. One has also to take in account that these new stamps are supposed to come from a country that is completely locked, on which there is an embargo and in a war situation. It is highly probable that these stamps may never have reached the country itself, and may have been brought on the market directly by dealers not living in this territory. Further explanations are needed.

Among more recent issues, Dominique Josse (France) succeeded in creating, not without difficulties, private mixed first day cancellations of the Japan – France joint issue [T20251007]. Thanks a lot, Dominique.

Finally, Fabio Bonacina pointed at a very recent Great Britain souvenir sheet celebrating on January 21, 2026, the 50th anniversary of the first commercial flight of the Concorde plane. Surprisingly, these stamps are a copy of the stamps issued by Great Britain on March 3, 1969, in the frame of a joint issue with France reported under [P19690302] and related to the very first of Concorde. The first commercial flight was celebrated by a joint issue reported under [P19760121] with stamps that are different and to which Great Britain did not participate. In this new series, only the head of QEII was replaced by KCII. Obviously this is not a joint issue.

The ‘Discovery of Endurance’ stamps were slated for release on March 23, 2023, but the release was cancelled without explanations. Adam Paish (UK) informed us that finally these stamps were issued on November 5, 2024: the Falkland Islands Post Office in Stanley has placed the British Antarctic Territory, Falkland Islands and South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands stamps and souvenir sheets on sale (see earlier description).

For some inexplicable reason, the copyright holders of the images on which the designs are based would not allow any information about their release to be disseminated prior to the day of issue. The Heritage Trust holding the image rights is the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust. Its ‘Endurance22’ expedition, which successfully located Shackleton’s vessel, has licensing agreements with National Geographic (which is now controlled by the Disney organisation), as well as contractual arrangements with other media organisations. So, copyright issues remained until the stamps were finally recently released. All first day covers of this issue are dated from November 5, 2024. As a consequence, these stamps were reintroduced in the catalogue under the heading [D20241105].

Adam Paish (UK) reported also information about the Sir Winston Churchill (born on November 30, 1874) 150th birthday stamps to be released in November and December 2024. These include a United Kingdom (Royal Mail) issue on November 30, 2024. Territorial issues have been announced for the Falkland Islands (issue date: November 27, 2024), Tristan da Cunha (issue date: December 11, 2024) and Ascension Island (issue date: December 16, 2024), although the latter is in a different format. New stamp issues of all three postal administrations are coordinated by the same sales, marketing and distribution arm of Isle Of Man Stamps & Collectables, which took over operations from Pobjoy Mint (Falkland stamps) following its closure in late 2023. It may be possible that almost all Commonwealth countries may celebrate this anniversary, but unfortunately, even these first stamps cannot be considered as joint (different design, different dates). Let us see first what other countries will have to offer, before closing definitely this chapter.