Laos

Miscellaneous from October 2022

by Richard Zimmermann

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].

Latest information

by Richard Zimmermann

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).

International tiger preservation forum (2)

by Richard Zimmermann

The second international tiger preservation forum took place as scheduled on September 5, 2022 and, also as scheduled, most of the participating countries issued at this occasion a stamp related to this forum illustrated with tigers. A first list had been provided earlier. This is now a complementary information page with new details provided mainly by Enzo Cafaro (Italy).

Eventually, 10 countries are participating to this joint parallel issue [P20220905]. Among the 14 countries where tigers still live in the wild, including Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, North Korea, Russia, Thailand, and Vietnam, we already know that Thailand decided not to participate. No information is available from Bangladesh, Bhutan and Indonesia.

Myanmar, Russia and Vietnam have issued their stamps on September 5, 2022. India issued its stamp already on September 1, 2022, while Cambodia will issue it stamps only on September 22, 2022. Exact dates of issue for Laos, Malaysia, and North Korea are still to be confirmed, but seem to be September 5 as well. In parallel, Russia is preparing a mixed folder containing the mint stamps from (almost) all 10 countries.

Indian stamp pays tribute to ‘Collarwali’, a tigress from Pench Tiger reserve, Madhya Pradesh, who gave birth to 29 cubs in her life time, among which 25 survived to adulthood. She passed away in January 2022.

Below, additional pictures of stamps released or to be released by these countries are depicted.

On September 5, 2022, China PR issued a set of stamps entitled Tiger cultural relics. The 6 stamps represent a) the Shang-Fu double-tailed bronze tiger, b) a spring and autumn jade tiger-shaped pendant, c) the Han Baihu ’tiledang’ with tiger (grey pottery), d) the Bronze Tiger Festival object with Cuojin inscription of Han dynasty, e) a white glaze brown flower crouching tiger pillow and f) a puppet flying tiger. There is no hint about a relationship with the tiger preservation forum, but if no other stamp is issued by China PR, we will have to consider that the stamps released at this same date may be part of the joint issue (same date of issue, same topic). However, more information is needed here.

The site from Yonhap News refers also to another souvenir sheet issued by North Korea on September 5, 2022, next to the souvenir sheet with different 4 stamps. Here also, more details are needed.

International tiger preservation forum

by Richard Zimmermann

The second International Forum for the Preservation of the Tiger Population is supposed to take place in Vladivostok, Russia, on September 5, 2022. About one year ago, JSC Marka, the Russian postal administration initiated the creation of a joint issue related to this event with all participating countries. Officially, it is announced that 10 countries will participate to this joint issue that is supposed to be released on September 5, 2022, and a few of them have already shown the designs of their stamps.

Taking in account the present international situation, it is time to make some review of the different announcements, but also to use this opportunity to ask the local collectors to provide as much as possible reliable information on top of what is described below. None of the stamp designs seen so far are identical. Most of the information described here has been provided by Enzo Cafaro (Italy).

The forum runs a web site and has a dedicated logo. Decision to held this second international meeting in Vladivostok was taken on September 3, 2019. The 1st International Tiger Forum took place in St. Petersburg on 21–24 November 2010. The Forum web page explains that today, there are only 14 countries where tigers still live in the wild: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, North Korea, Russia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

So first let us start with the countries that have already announced their participation and provided the design of their stamp. Russia is of course the first with a single stamp issued in miniature sheets of 8 stamps and bearing the logo. Vietnam will issue two different stamps, North Korea a souvenir sheet containing a block of 4 different stamps and Malaysia a souvenir sheet with one stamp. All of them will bear the logo but the exact date of issue of September 5, 2022 is only confirmed for Russia, even if JSC Marka claims all participants will release the stamp the same day.

Some other countries have provided the design, but the stamps are missing the logo. We should not forget that the year 2022 is the Chinese Lunar year of the Tiger and dozen of countries have issued stamps depicting tigers, without any link to this forum. So, most of the tiger stamps issued in 2022 are not part of this joint issue. In the following cases, Cambodia (one stamp and one souvenir sheet, available perforated or not, but only one to be confirmed for release on September 5) and Laos (2 stamps) show either within the stamp or within the margins of the miniature or souvenir sheets a text referring to the preservation of the species.

Lastly, there are a few other countries that have been announced by Russia (JSC Marka) as being participant to the joint issue, but have not released information themselve, nor confirmed participation on their side. These countries include China PR, India, Myanmar and Nepal. On top of these ten countries, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Indonesia and Thailand could also participate. Information from these additional countries are also missing.

Roughly, we have now one full month to confirm if this joint issue will really exist and which country will participate. With the information we have collected so far it should become a Parallel [P] issue. Any additional detail is of interest. Thanks in advance.