Mexico

Update: January 2023

by Richard Zimmermann

Without specific priority, the following descriptions collects information provided by friends since beginning of the year. Many thanks to Enzo Cafaro – Italy, Don Birchel – USA, Wayne Chen – USA, Jaap Sarelse – the Netherlands, Roland Montagne – France, David Dubin – USA, Souvik Ghatak – India, Milan Csaplar – Slovakia and Kenneth Sequeira – Singapore.

In the continuation of the production of Arab countries stamps celebrating the 2022 FIFA soccer worldcup, next to Jordan and Oman (stamps issued on December 18, 2022), we learned that the exact date of issue of the Qatar souvenir sheet was January 17, 2023. Obviously this series is not yet complete.

During the official visit of President of Egypt, Mr. Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to India, a joint stamp on the “75th Anniversary of Diplomatic Relations” (1948-2023) was released in form of a souvenir sheet which theme is rivers, The Ganges (India) and The Nile (Egypt) are represented on the stamps. Release date was January 25, 2023. However, so far, there are no information from the Egyptian side about a similar product. Actually, Egypt had issued on August 18, 2022 and unilateraly, a stamp celebrating this anniversary. Unfortunately, there are great chances that this Indian souvenir sheet remains unilateral as well and just corresponds to the counterpart of the 2022 Egyptian stamp. Therefore, these two items cannot be considered as joint (yet).

Poland issued on January 29, 2023 a stamp dedicated to the 550th birthday of Nicolaus Copernicus. This celebration is still reported in the Vatican philatelic program as joint stamp with Poland, but Vatican State has not released anything so far. So, we need to wait for news from this state before adding this issue in the catalogue. Due to the difference in time for issuing their stamps, this pair can now only become a concerted issue, providing also the design remains the same. If the design is different, then it does not even have a joint character.

Wayne Chen (USA) could announce the publication of his newest article on Crypto stamps, published in Linn’s Stamp News on line on February 4, 2023 (printed form publication date February 20, 2023), which also made the cover story for the monthly version of the magazine. At the end of the article, a list of the stamps mentioned in the article that were issued 2018-2022 is provided for those interested in this new (and expensive) collection. regarding our interests, the mixed cover of the first joint crypto issue (Austria – Netherlands [T20220922] is reproduced. It was provided by Jaap Sarelse (the Netherlands).

A new item from Ecuador associated to the 2022 Ecuador – Mexico joint issue [T20220728] appeared as well, late after the official issue date. A souvenir sheet, vertical form size 65x185mm, without gum and stamp with same denomination ($0.75), numbered at the bottom, but priced $5.00 was released by Ecuador. Exact printing run is unknown, but it seems that 5,000 stamps and 3,500 souvenir sheets became available. This item has been added in the catalogue. Also, it is told that the first day cancellation of the stamp exists only at 30 samples. Ecuador post offices are still under reorganization.

The designs of the 100th anniversary of custom treaty stamps involving Liechtenstein and Switzerland were released. These stamps will be sold from March 29, 2023 on.

In terms of new issues to be added in the list of stamps expected to be released during the years 2023 and 2024, we can mention the following:

  • During the year 2023, Morocco plans an exceptionnally large number of joint issues with Oman (May), Romania (August), UAE (November), Kazakhstan (December) on top of its participation to the Euromed series (July)
  • The Cyprus – Israel joint issue will be released on April 4, 2023 and not in February as earlier mentionned
  • Austria – Germany – Slovakia : May 24, 2024 – Limes Romanus of the Upper Danube

2022 JI collecting year: a review

by Richard Zimmermann

A year has been completed again. There is now little chance that a last minute 2022 joint issue is discovered and therefore the chapter 2022 in the catalogue can be closed as well. Information, images, and quotation have been updated for this full year.

Unfortunately, there are still missing information from some countries from which joint partners were expected. The Iran-Kenya stamps showing coffee beans and safran flower stamps and dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the establishment of Iran-Kenya diplomatic relations remain as a unilateral souvenir sheet issue from Iran on June 24, 2022. No information about Kenyan stamps issued during the year 2022 has been published. The situation is identical for the Iran – Serbia souvenir sheet (85 years of diplomatic relations, September 30, 2022) for which information about the Iranian stamps is missing. These unilateral issues have been removed from the catalogue, but in the case someone finds the missing information, here are the pictures of the issued stamps as a reminder.

The India-Vietnam and India – Thailand joint issues respectively announced by Vietnam and Thailand in their 2022 philatelic programs did not come to a finalized product. These joint issues may be rescheduled in 2023 but had to be removed from the catalogue as well.

Altogether, this allowed a complete update of the catalogue becoming now the 2023 edition V4.0 and all the 15 parts have been modified (mainly shift of pages) with minor improvement in each of the part.

At the same time, this work gave us the opportunity to provide some statistics about the joint issue season 2022. In terms of figures, the year 2022 translates in the following: there are 51 entries reported in the catalogue for the year 2022, but among which only 40 are true joint issues: 1 Se-tenant [S] but no Unique [U], 27 Twin (same design, same date of issue) [T], 7 Concerted (same design, different date of issue) and 5 Parallel [P] (same date of issue, different designs) issues. Additionally, we reported 2 Omnibus series [O], 2 Territorial issues [D] and 1 issue with Borrowed design [B]. For the year 2022, the catalogue provides 225 illustrations, describes 344 items together with 675 quotations.

Another interesting point relates to involved countries. As many as 66 countries participated at least to one true joint issue, but the winner is surprisingly Mexico with 7 participations. Mexico is followed by Russia (5 times, almost exclusively with Asian eastern countries) and by the group Argentina, Egypt, Georgia, Oman and Vatican which were involved 4 times each. This high participation of Oman and Georgia are also quite a surprise. Eventually Armenia, Belarus, Israel, Poland, Tunisia and the UAE were involved 3 times each. There are no new first comer in this 2022 list, but it is interesting to notice the come back of countries such as Cambodia, North Korea or Tanzania. This year also saw the issue of the first joint crypto stamps between Austria and the Netherlands.

The new version of the catalogue in 15 volumes describes over 1,750 pages, 2,150 stamp issues among which more than 1,500 are true joint issues, and provides more than 8,100 illustrations. 32,900+ quotations are linked to more than 14,800 different items.

Note also that from now on, and in order to reduce the amount of intermediate versions in the archive files, only the first edition of each year will be kept accessible. Numbering of intermediate version will continue to be used, but at the beginning of each year the versions with small modifications will be erased. The first version of each year will play the role of reference for earlier catalogue versions. Edition 2023 intiates the publication of V4.0.

To complete this exercice, it becomes also interesting to show the evolution of the production of Joint issues over the past years. On the basis of the catalogue entries, it became possible to create the following graph which shows the number of joint issues released each year since 1960. The blue curve gives the evolution of the number of Twin issues [T], the orange curve the combined Parallel [P] and Concerted [C] issues and the grey curve the total [T]+[P]+[C] including also the rare Unique [U] and Se-tenant [S] issues. Omnibus [O], Territorial [D] and Borrowed design [B] issues are not included in this graph. The peak release was reached in 2019, just before the Corona pandemic, with 53 true joint issues in one year, but the graph shows also an apparent plateau of around 40 issues per year that stays since 2007. Over this 15 years period, the number of products for a single country, and in particular by-products such as souvenir sheets, miniature sheets and even stationery, did continue to increase (not shown on the graph). A peak production of items above 500 was reached during the years 2016 and 2019, while the average figures since 2007 over this period was maintained around 280 (with severe variations during the Covid period, 230 in 2020, 140 in 2019 and back to 340 in 2022).

At this time it is difficult to predict the progression for the next years, but a stabilization around 40-45 issues per year would make sense. Continue enjoying collecting joint issues and have a nice year 2023.

Latest news – December 2022

by Richard Zimmermann

A series of new information has come to our attention over the recent weeks thanks to Enzo Cafaro (Italy), Don Birschel (USA), Kenneth Sequeira (Singapore), Grzegorz Smialkowski (Poland) and Ali Ahmed Med Achour (Algeria).

The picture of the Argentinian stamps issued jointly with Poland became available. These stamps were issued on November 25, 2022, the same day as the Polish stamps, but it took all this time to get the information. Poland issued stamps in miniature sheets of 4 pairs of se-tenant stamps, while Argentina issued panels of 4 strips of two se-tenant pairs separated by a label showing the logo of the 100th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between both countries.

In a same way, Enzo Cafaro could eventually provide the information about the identical stamp produced by Mexico jointly with the Vatican State. Vatican stamps were released on November 16, 2022 (sheetlets of 10 stamps), but one had to wait until December 12, 2022 to see the Mexican stamp (sheets of 50).

Georgia and Poland have issued joint stamps to honor Georgian Theologian Grigol Peradze (1899-1942) who died in 1942 at the Auschwitz concentration camp. The stamps were released on December 6, 2022, for both countries in miniature sheets of 8 stamps.

Georgia is also involved in a joint issue with Azerbaijan issued on December 7, 2022. This issue is celebrating the 30 years of diplomatic relations between both countries, also in miniature sheets of 8 stamps each.

We found also two new countries to add to the World Postal day series from October 9, 2022, on one side Indonesia (detailed information still missing) and on the other Saudi Arabia which issued 5,000 stamps in miniature sheets of 6. We have now reached 24 participating countries, and the list does not seem complete yet. Presently, it includes: [2022 (October 9)]: Argentina – Belarus – Bosnia Herzegovina – Cambodia – Central African Republic – Colombia () – Croatia – Djibouti – Egypt – Fiji (September 22) – Guinea Bissau – Iraq () – Mexico – Russia (October 7) – Saudi Arabia – Serbia (October 7) – Sierra Leone () – Sri Lanka – Syria – Thailand – Tunisia – Turkey and Venezuela (). Empty brackets need to be filled with the precise dates of issue.

It seems that the Arab Postal Union has agreed to issue a common stamp celebrating the Soccer World Champion Cup in Qatar, based on a Qatari design, but even if this event is reaching its end (December 18, 2022), very little is known about it at this stage. Hopefully moreto say next time.

Among the new series to be released during year 2023 we have to add Cambodia – Korea (South) (February 10), China – Spain (March), India – Korea (South) (July 28), Korea (South) – Switzerland (September 7) and Hungary – Thailand (October 24). Of course, more to come as well.

Finally, I would like also to mention a new address of a blog I came accross while evaluating the new joint Crypto/NFT stamps, namely Bitter Grounds Magazine, written by Catpaw, which gives news about stamps from the year but also some stamp programs for 2023, and provides a weekly newsletter. An interesting source of information. Congratulations to Catpaw.

Monthly news (November 2022)

by Richard Zimmermann

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

by Richard Zimmermann

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).

Israel – Mexico 2022

by Richard Zimmermann

On September 13, 2022, Israel and Mexico issued stamps at the occasion of the 70th anniversary of their relationship. The stamps are illustrated with symbols of both countries: the Eurasian hoopoe (Upupa epops), Israel’s national bird, the prickly pear cactus (Opuntia ficus-indica), the Mexican national bird, the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) and the columnar cactus (Stenocereus dumortieri or Isolatocereus dumortieri). Interestingly, Israel issued as usual its stamps in sheetlets of 15 stamps ([5×3]) together with 5 tabs at the bottom of the sheet. This tab becomes the design of the second stamp of Mexico. For the first time, this twin issue involving Israel must be considered as complete only if the pair of Mexican stamps is associated with the Israel stamp mandatorily linked with a tab, reducing by two third the possibility to create matching pairs. At the same time, this will give also a much higher value to the Israelian stamp with tab and e.g., mixed FDCs make sense only if the set is complete (with Israelian tab). Most of the information was provided by Dov Lask (Israel), thanks to him.

Surprise from Ecuador

by Richard Zimmermann

A joint Ecuadorian – Mexican joint issue was initially scheduled for March 23, 2022. In the meantime, the stamp release was delayed two times and still not issued by end of June 2022. Recent information referred to the bankruptcy of the Ecuadorian Post which has not issued stamps for more than two years. As a consequence, we considered this issue as cancelled.

All of a sudden, we learned from Stan80djk that both stamps were officially released on July 28, 2022. Stamps are identical and honor two heroines of independency, Leona Vicario (1789-1842) and Manuela Saenz (1797-1856). Ecuador issued only 2,000 units, while Mexico released 100,000 stamps.

Centenary of Mexican Embassy in Rome

by Richard Zimmermann

On June 27, 2022, Mexico issued a stamp celebrating the centenary of the building of the Mexican embassy in Rome, Italy. Such a stamp was not in the program of the Italian philatelic program, but shortly after the release of the Mexican stamp we learned (Source: Fabio Bonacina and Enzo Cafaro, Italy) that the Italian postal administration intended to produce also a stamp related to this topic by end of July 2022. We had to wait very closely to the release of the Italian stamp to discover its design which eventually appeared to be the same. Italy issued its stamp on July 28, 2022.

None of the postal administrations claim a joint character to these stamps. It looks that the Italian administration had to react quickly after they learned about the issuance of the Mexican stamp, probably only during the spring of 2022. Nevertheless, it became obvious that we had to consider this issue as joint for several reasons:

  • The building and the topic are unique to Mexico in Italy
  • The Mexican ambassador participated to this issue confirmed by a text written by him in the presentation package of the Italian stamp. Indirectly, Mexico was involved in the Italian stamp creation discussion
  • The fact that there was an agreement on the image is also a confirmation of the collaboration. The situation would have been more questionable if the designs were different or if one stamp would only give a simple text
  • Slight differences such as appearance of Mexican flag in the Italian stamp are minor modifications that can be considered as the degree of freedom left to the two designers, but both had to work on the same basic picture
  • However,there was a kind of hiccup in the decision to collaborate and absence of agreement on date of issue. The official anniversary is July 2, 2022, so none of the two first day dates (June 27 and July 28). This could be the consequence of last minute decision to collaborate

In summary: this issue will be considered as joint, with the sub type concerted [C20220627] (same design but different dates of issue) and the lack of communication about the joint character is mainly due to the short time left to the two postal administrations to define a common date. Apparently, the Italian postal administration considers a true joint issue only if both stamps are released on the same day and if mixed joint FDCs can be created on this day. These mixed documents will probably exist in the near future, but of private origin.

Mid-year review

by Richard Zimmermann

The release of joint stamps is still affected by the coronavirus pandemic situation and, additionally, more recently, by the Ukrainian-Russian war. The situation of the specific program involving Russia was already reported here. How about the other joint issues?

The Japan – Mongolia issue, 50 years of diplomatic relations, eventually proved not to be a true joint issue. Mongolia released a souvenir sheet on May 19, 2022. For Japan, the date of issue was shifted from originally February 14, 2022 to June 15, 2022 and a souvenir sheet with 10 stamps in a different design was released (information provided by Robert Schrijvers, Mongolia).

The Bosnia Herzegovina stamps related to Family Remittances was issued as planned on June 16, 2022 with a design identical to stamps produced earlier and in miniature sheets of 10 stamps (printing run 1,000 miniature sheets). This stamp will simply be added to the original series [B20200716] which was already filed as a Borrowed Design [B], so not a true joint issue. 2020 Catalogue section has been updated with this information. There is no indication of the issuance this year by another country of other stamps related to this topic so far.

We are still missing information from Turkmenistan related to the Turkmenistan-India joint issue. The Indian stamps were released on April 2, 2022.

The commemorative Brazilian stamp featuring the 100th anniversary of James Joyce’s work ‘Ulysses’ was issued within the Brazilian ‘Diplomatic Relations Series’ and dedicated to Ireland. The stamp was issued as scheduled on June 16, 2022, but not as a joint issue. There is no counterpart produced by Ireland at the same date and this issue can be removed from the catalogue.

In the same way, the Italian – Mexico issue initially planned for July 23, 2022 to celebrate diplomatic relations between both countries will probably not take place. On June 28, 2022, Mexico issued a stamp dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the building of the Mexican embassy in Italy. There are no counterparts reported in the Italian philatelic program and there is a great doubt that Italy will change its program within the next weeks.

The Ecuador-Mexico joint issue in honor of the heroes of independency Leona Vicario and Manuela Saenz was not issued on June 1, 2022, as scheduled. It seems the issue of these stamps will again be delayed, as the date had already been changed twice this year. Any information is welcome.

The Cyprus-Israel joint issue that was once listed on the Israel program has disappeared from this list. No stamp was issued on the originally scheduled date of June 28, 2022.

On the positive side, names of countries involved in the next Euromed issue are now accumulating. The present list of countries having guaranteed participation to this issue include: Bosnia Herzegovina (November 15) – Croatia (July 11) – France (July 8) – Greece (July 11) – Portugal (July 11) – Slovenia (July 11) – Tunisia (July 11) – Turkey (July 9). More are to come and, compared to last year, we could expect participation from the following countries as well: Albania, Cyprus, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Malta, Montenegro, Morocco and Spain. The complete list will be published in Volume 15 of the catalogue, after July 11, 2022, the most common and new reference date for this issue. In the meantime, some pictures of the already disclosed projects.

Finally, take a look at this web link of interest, the site of Mark Joseph Jochim, Philatelic Pursuits, which provides information about the stamp issue programs of all countries. It needs to be updated, but it represents a unique and very interesting starting point.

China – Mexico 2022 architecture

by Richard Zimmermann

At the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the People’s Republic of China and the United States of Mexico, both countries have issued a set of two commemorative stamps on February 14, 2022. The first stamp represents the Star Observatory located in Gaocheng Town, Dengfeng City, Henan Province. It was founded in the early Yuan Dynasty by astronomer Guo Shoujing. It is the oldest existing and well-protected astronomical observatory in China. The second stamp represents the Kukulcan Pyramid located in the northern part of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, the ancient city of Chichen Itza. Both sites were included in the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage. 

The stamps have a design showing the buildings in the dark and are quite difficult to represent on the screen. In fact, with the Chinese stamps, the design is improved by combining the pictures with light effects. The text of the stamp “Star Observatory” is made of extra-bright silver ink, the background halo and stars use colorless white fluorescence to highlight the night scene effect. In the “Chichen Itza temple” stamp, the text is made of extra-bright gold ink, and the background light is colorless orange fluorescence, which highlights the radiant effect of the sun. Additionally, both stamps are perforated on both sides with special star- or sun-shaped holes.

200 years Colombia – Mexico relations

by Richard Zimmermann

On January 25, 2022, Colombia issued the stamps identical to those released on December 20, 2021 by Mexico to celebrate 200 years of relationship (1821-2021). This joint issue, first reported by Don Birschel (USA), became actually a concerted issue [C] for which not all information is available. Both countries issued a se-tenant pair of symmetrical design stamps showing the figure “200” and a stylized butterfly with the colors of the countries’ flags. While Mexico announced the issue of 50,000 pairs of stamps in panes of 25, the stamps of Colombia apparently produced in panes (size unknown) at 14,000 samples (probably 7,000 pairs), have been seen already in souvenir sheets of [1px2] and [1px3], but also in blocs of [2px2]. The Mexico stamp is self-adhesive. Additional information is needed here, but the catalogue (Volume 14) has already been updated with these first data.