San Marino

Update Septembre 2026

by Richard Zimmermann

Romania issued on September 18, 2026, the stamps related to the Kazakhstan – Romania joint issue that was initially announced to be released in June 2026.

This issue illustrates the relationship between both countries with the topic Biospheres reserves. Romania issued four different stamps in a diamond shape. These stamps represent natural species to be found in the West Altai Biosphere Reserve in Kazkhstan or the Radnei Mountain Biosphere Reserve in Romania. The stamps are illustrated with a Chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra), the Western capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus), the Brown bear (Ursus arctos), or the Siberian pine (Pinus siberica). Again, like for most of the Romanian stamps, the number of issued stamps remains very limited. The stamps are sold either in panes of 28 units with 4 labels (only 4×152 panes were printed totalling 4,256 stamps from each type out of panes). These same stamps were also printed in miniature sheets containing 3 stamps and a label each, and 4×3,375 miniature sheets became available (so, a total of 4×10,125 additional stamps. Then, these four stamps became also available in souvenir sheets of 4 different stamps, printed at 2,300 samples. A special folder containing this same souvenir sheet in a non-perforated numbered form was also made available, but only at 251 unit !

Unfortunately, at this date we have no information at all about Kazakhstan. However, it appears that Kazhakstan issued over the past years and at regular intervals, several blocks of stamps dedicated to specific local Biosphere Reserves. It would not be surprising if the Kazakhstan post has tried to adapt this series to the joint issue. Let us wait a little bit, but any information from Kazakhstan is welcome.

On this same September 18, 2026, the Dominican Republic and Honduras have launched a joint postal issue dedicated to lakes and lagoons, an initiative that brings together four stamps on natural areas of both countries and commemorates 102 years of uninterrupted diplomatic relations. The series, called “Lakes and Lagoons”, is part of the America UPAEP 2026 theme. Two stamps will circulate in Dominican territory: one is dedicated to the Gri-Gri Lagoon, located in Río San Juan, María Trinidad Sánchez province, and another to Lake Yojoa, one of the main bodies of water in Honduras. The other two pieces will be distributed in Honduras, one portraying the Cacao Lagoon, while the remaining one is dedicated to Lake Enriquillo, the largest lake in the Dominican Republic (This is an excerpt translated from the original reporting paper published by Infobae and provided by Fabio Bonacina, Italy).

As a result this joint issue has to be considered as Parallel (same date and different design) [P20260918]. Honduras issued 2×15,000 stamps and Dominican Republic 10,000 pairs. At this stage, better quality images are needed.

Mekhitar of Sebaste was an Armenian Catholic monk, scholar and theologian who founded the Mekhitarist Order, which has been based on San Lazzaro Island near Venice since 1717. On September 28, 2026, Armenia and the Vatican State celebrated the 350th anniversary of Mekhitar’s birth with a twin issue. Armenian stamps were issued in miniature sheets of 8 stamps with two labels [(2×2)+(2×2)] and Vatican stamps became available in miniature sheets of 10 stamps [2×5].

The 400th anniversary of the birth of Francis of Assisi will be celebrated on October 4, 2026 by Italy, San Marino, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and the Vatican State with a souvenir sheet identical for each country. These items represnt a work by Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337) taken from the “Stories of St. Francis”, detail of the painting of the “Farewell of St. Clare from the remains of St. Francis”, preserved at the Upper Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi as well as sentences from the Canticle of the Creatures.

On Facebook, Kazem Alamdari posted an interesting souvenir sheet from Iran, dated 2026, on which the words “Joint Stamp” and the country name Iraq are printed. At this stage, no more information is available and help is needed here.

Also on Facebook, Luis Alejandro (Mexico), presented a summary of all joint issues involving Mexico. A nice presentation, showing also, how, over time, international relations had an impact on philately for this country. By checking quickly in the Joint issue catalogue, starting with the Country Index on page 65 of Vol 1, there are 52 issues listed, and not 32. Actually, this list is obviously integrating also the Parallel [P], Concerted [C] and Omnibus [O] series, while the list in the document below is limited to Twin issues involving only two countries each time.

FIP and ECOWAS

by Richard Zimmermann

This beginning of the year is very quiet. Next to the early Chinese New Year stamps involving China PR, Hong Kong and Macao, only two omnibus series where initiated, one related to the centenary of the FIP, the other to the 50th anniversary of the ECOWAS.

On February 6, 2026, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates issued similar stamps to celebrate the centenary of the ‘Federation Internationale de Philatélie’ (FIP – International Federation of Philately) with a design based on the FIP logo. This two first issues coincided with the Dubai 2026 World Stamp Exhibition, the first world exhibition celebrating this FIP centenary. Apparently other countries will participate – actually all countries could participate – and so far the following have already announced it: Bosnia Herzegovina (June 16, 2026), Serbia (), Brazil (June 18, 2026) and Bosnia Herzegovina (Serbia) (October 9, 2026). We do not know if these stamps will be of the same design. Romania already issued a stamp on February 26, 2026, but with a completely different design, so, not part of the joint issue (the FIP logo appears in the margin of a souvenir sheet).

On February 12, 2026, the ECOWAS countries came together to issue a commemorative stamp at the occasion of the 50th anniversary of its creation (which actually took place on May 28, 1975). ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States, also known as CEDEAO in French and Portuguese) includes today 12 countries. All 12 countries participated to the issue with identical stamps bearing each a QR code to access further information. A 3×4 sheet bearing the 12 different stamps was issued at the same date, so including Benin – Cape Verde – Gambia – Ghana – Guinea – Guinea-Bissau – Ivory Coast – Liberia – Nigeria – Senegal – Sierra Leone and Togo. This information was provided by Kenneth Sequeira (Dubai). We now have to find information for all individual countries which remains always complicated for African countries.

Illustrations of the stamps to be released by Japan on April 26, 2026 in a joint issue with Singapore and of the Indonesia stamps to be relased jointly with Uruguay (date of issue still unknown) became already available thanks to Kenneth Sequeira, Dubai.

Enzo Cafaro (Italy), provided also the illustration of the future Europa stamp to be released by Armenia (exact date of release still unknown). In the meantime, some countries have already issued their 2026 Europa stamps or shown the future design: Aland (May 8, 2026), Belgium (April 13), Finland (May 6), Guernsey (April 1), Liechtenstein (March 2), Monaco (May 9) and San Marino (March 2).

Among the other interesting information, one has to note that Denmark has decided, from January 1, 2026 on, to dismantle the Post, which has for consequence that all post boxes have been removed and that this country will not issue stamps anymore. The postal services are taken over by private companies from now on (which apparently will not issue stamps, but work with labels and QR codes only).

November 2025 update

by Richard Zimmermann

Latest issues:

On November 6, 2025, PR China joined Samoa to issue stamps related to birds. Two identical stamps were issued by each country, showing the white horse chicken (Crossoptilon crossoptilon) and the tooth-billed dove (Didunculus strigirostris). Detailed information from Samoa is still missing and the Samoan stamps depicted below may only be a design and not the final one.

From November 9 to 21, 2025, China (PR), Hong Kong and Macau organized the 15th Chinese National Games held in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao. These games were celebrated with stamps from each postal entity that became available on the opening day on November 9, 2025. China released three stamps representing artistic (synchronized) swimming, fencing and table tennis, in panes of 12 each (3x[3×4]), but also as a souvenir sheet containing two strips of the three stamps. Hong Kong issued four different stamps depicting rugby sevens and track cycling, fencing and beach volleyball, golf and triathlon (swimming, cycling, running), handball and basketball. These stamps were issued in panes of 25 stamps (4x[5×5]). Macao released four different stamps showing rugby sevens, basketball, table tennis and volleyball in form of blocks of 4 printed in panes with 4 blocks each, also in four different orders, so that the four se-tenant stamps can be collected either in blocks or in strips of 4 ([2b4x2]. Additionally, all these 11 stamps were printed also within a souvenir sheet, which leads to consider this issue as a Se-tenant issue [S20251109], similar to the Chinese astrological signs stamps issued by these same three postal entities at the beginning of each year (Eric Chan, USA).

On November 25, 2025, as scheduled, Luxembourg and the Vatican State joined to celebrate the 100 years of the Pontifical Institute for Christian Archeology – Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana (PIAC), with an identical stamp showing the portrait of Bishop Jean-Pierre Kirsch (1861-1941), the building of the historic headquarters on Via Napoleone III in Rome and the seal of the Institute showing the ‘Christ shepherd’. The PIAC was founded on December 11, 1925, by Pope Pius XI with the Apostolic Constitution Ad providentiam of March 2, 1925, and with the motu proprio “The Primitive Christian Cemeteries,” thanks also to the dedication of the Luxembourgish prelate Johann Peter Kirsch, who was its first Director (Eric Contesse, France and Enzo Cafaro, Italy).

At the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the relationship between Indonesia and the Vatican State, the Vatican issued a stamp on November 7, 2025, that has not yet found a counterpart in Indonesia. This stamp description is reported here primarely to obtain information out of Indonesia and to confirm that it will probably not lead to a joint issue.

From Jaap Sarelse, the Netherlands: On May 7, 2025, Liechtenstein and Switzerland each issued a crypto stamp (Crypto CHLI) as a joint issue showing a cow and mountains, forming a continuous image when placed next to each other. The cow was available in 6 colors, with the rainbow cow having the lowest circulation (50) and the green cow the highest 7500. FDCs were also available, but in limited circulation: 10 copies with rainbow cows; 2500 copies with green cows. This issue was reported earlier.

Liechtenstein and Switzerland decided to extend this series with a similar crypto joint issue. On November 19, 2025, the so-called world’s first Christmas Crypto Stamp was released as an exclusive joint issue of Liechtenstein and Swiss Post (Crypto CHLI 2.0). The same six crypto cows from May 7, 2025 are now presented in a winter landscape. The stamps are embellished with glittering snowflakes. As you can imagine, these items, considered more as numismatic items than philatelic ones, even if they really can be used as stamps, look again like a lottery and have been created to fool collectors. Prices for individual items vary between 10 and 500 Swiss Francs (CHF) for stamps and between 30 and 2,000 CHF for mixed FDCs. We do not recommend to buy them, but they will be reported in the catalogue in the same way as the original items were described [P20250507], with the usual purchasing warning.

On September 16, 2025, San Marino issued a series of four stamps dedicated to UNESCO sites in Andorra, Cyprus, Malta, and Portugal. None of these stamps was associated with stamps issued at the same date by one of these countries. On November 4, 2025, however, the post of Spanish Andorra issued a stamp related to ‘about’ 30 years of diplomatic relationship (1993-2023), without any counterpart from San Marino. There is no link between these two stamps and therefore, also no joint character for these issues. They are reported here simply for information purpose (Enzo Cafaro, Italy).

Issues to be released soon:

On December 1, 2025, Cyprus and Vietnam will celebrate their fiftieth anniversary of diplomatic relations with a twin issue. The Cyprus FDC became available recently (Kenneth Sequeira, Dubai).

The joint issue between Russia and Oman, originally scheduled for April 22, 2025, postponed to September 26, 2025, then successively to October 15, November 14, and December 5, 2025, is now planned to be issued on December 10, 2025.

The Barbados embroidery dove stamp associated to the [T20250919a] issue is apparently expected to be issued on December 8, 2025.

All this information was introduced in the updated catalogue sections (Vol 16). A great thanks to all the contributors mentionned in the text between brackets.

Canonization

by Richard Zimmermann

The Vatican City State, the Italian Republic, the Republic of San Marino, and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, issued on September 7, 2025, two joint postal issues to celebrate the canonization of Blessed Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati. The four postal entities issued stamps based on the same pictures, on one side a portrait of Pier Giorgio Frassati (1901-1925), by the painter Alberto Falchetti (1878-1951), owned by the Frassati family, on the other one, a photograph of Carlo Acutis (1991-2006), during one of his last school trips before his untimely death. The canonization took place on Sunday, September 7, 2025, in St. Peter’s Square, presided over by Pope Leo XIV. Details about stamps are not yet available, but reproductions were provided by Enzo Cafaro, Italy.

UPU 150th anniversary

by Richard Zimmermann

The Universal Postal Union (UPU) is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that coordinates postal policies among member nations and facilitates a uniform worldwide postal system. It comprises 192 member states and is headquartered in Bern, Switzerland. It was established on October 9, 1874, exactly 150 years ago.

Since more than one year, we know that this anniversary will be celebrated with a stamp which common design was proposed by UPU. In the past, the 75th (1949) UPU anniversary was celebrated, but in a non-coordinated way, mainly by colonial entities (British, Dutch and French – D19490704, D19491001, D19491010, D19491018) and the 100th (1974) anniversary with stamps that remained different for all participating countries (N19741009). The same situation happened in 1999, with absence of concertation for the 125th anniversary celebration (N19991009). Eventually, so far, only the 145th anniversary in 2019 (T20191009b) could be considered as a Twin issue.

During this year of 2024, a very large number of countries are participating. In the strict sense, this has to be considered as a true joint issue, even if there was no real cooperation between countries, but a proposal of a design accepted by most of them and translated in a locally adapted stamp, for a large part of them issued at the anniversary date. It is not an Omnibus series, as Omnibus is defined by a central printing, not by the large number of participating countries. The 2024 stamps will be reported in the catalogue as a Twin issue under [T20241009]. It is easily understandable that some joint issues collectors do not integrate such large series in their collection, in the same way Europa-CEPT stamps are not acceptable for them. Each individual collector has to decide on the basis of the following.

In the catalogue, the countries will be divided in subgroups:

  • A: the countries which take the exact original design proposed by UPU and issue the stamp(s) on October 9, 2024 (or actually around this date, plus or minus a week, roughly between October 1 and October 17, 2024), according to the definition of a twin issue [T]
  • B: the countries which take the exact original design but issue the stamp at a different date. It should not be surprising if some countries may issue their stamp in 2025 or even 2026. This is the equivalent of a Concerted issue [C]
  • C: the countries which use only a part of the design, actually integrating only the “150” logo and add some other illustrations. This logo can appear within the stamp, or on the margin of a souvenir sheet or within a label. Those stamps are also considered as twin or concerted issues of Type [T2] or [C2]
  • D: the countries which use a completely different design, but still issue their stamp(s) around October 9, 2024. This is the equivalent of a Parallel issue [P]. In this case, the original logo may appear on the stamp, but at a size that remains smaller than the half of the surface of the stamp
  • E: finally the countries that do not want to stick to design and date, and work on their own, just referring to the UPU anniversary. These countries are simply listed, without details, as they cannot be considered as joint [N].

We will have again to take care of stamps that are created by agencies that are producing stamps for certain countries but which have been given the freedom to issue stamps without a real control from the reference countries. These stamps are easily recognized by the number of stamps issued in a series and they are produced to fool collectors. In order to better identify these stamps and because they remain real stamps but never reach the originating country, they will be reported in the catalogue, but in italics. In the same way, some other stamps such as the French stamp with a full common logo are of private origin (personalized stamp) that cannot be considered as part of this joint issue either. This will be true for any other privately produced stamp from other countries, if any, and also described in italic characters.

The countries for which we already have information are reported below. If a date between brackets is missing behind the country name, this means that this stamp(s) was issued on October 9, 2024. If the content of the brackets remains empty, this means that the exact issue date is not known yet. A large number of images were provided by Enzo Cafaro (Italy). The following list is of course not yet complete.

Countries of type A (Twin [T1]): Algeria – Andorra (French) (October 10) – Andorra (Spanish) – Armenia – Bangladesh – Belarus – Bosnia Herzegovina (Bosnia) – Brazil – China (PR) – Croatia – Cyprus – Dominican Republic – Greece – Guernsey – India – Indonesia – Ivory Coast – Jordan – Latvia – Lithuania (October 4) – Mauritius – Moldova – Myanmar – Paraguay – Peru – Romania – Sri Lanka – Thailand – Turkmenistan (October 8) – Ukraine – United Arab Emirates

Countries of type B (Concerted [C1]): Argentina (August 28) – Azerbaijan (February 1) – Burundi (September) – Central Africa (September) – Djibouti (September) – Georgia (June 1) – Guinea (September) – Guinea-Bissau (September) – Liberia (September) – Mali (September) – Monaco (May 30) – Mongolia (September 25) – Sierra Leone (September) – Togo (September)

Countries of type C (Twin or concerted [T2] or [C2]): Bosnia (Serbia) – Egypt () – France (October 14) – Hong Kong – Hungary (July 24) – Isle of Man (August 30) – Japan – Kyrgyzstan (October) – Luxembourg (September 10) – Macau – Malaysia – Morocco – Pakistan – Portugal – San Marino – Saudi Arabia () – Singapore – Slovenia – Spain – Syria – Tunisia – Türkiye – Uruguay – Uzbekistan () – Vietnam

Countries of type D (Parallel issue [P]): Australia (October 1) – Austria (October 4) – Brunei Darussalam () – Bulgaria – Czech Republic – French Polynesia – Germany (October 10) – Macedonia (North) – Mexico – Montenegro – Qatar () – Russia – Slovakia – Switzerland (September 5) – Tajikistan (May) – Vatican (September 16) – Wallis and Futuna

Countries of type E (not considered as joint): Belgium (June 10) – Serbia (May 25) – United Nations – Geneva (May 30) – United Nations – New York (May 30) – United Nations – Vienna (May 30).

So far, 86 countries are listed above to which one has to add 2 postal authorities that have issued stamps that cannot be considered as joint (Type E – United Nations offices are not taken in account as countries, UPU being a sub-unit of the United Nations). The UPU counts presently 192 members, which means information from 106 countries (!) is missing. Obviously there will be an update of this page. A great help is needed here to recover information from other participating countries. We are also missing better quality images for stamps from Ivory Coast and Ukraine. Thanks a lot in advance for providing name of missing countries, exact dates of issue, and when possible illustrations, printing runs, sizes of panels and by-product lists.

The catalogue pages should be updated within the next week.

Update June 2024

by Richard Zimmermann

On June 6, 2024, Belarus and Russia celebrated the 225th birthday of Alexander S. Pushkin (1799-1837) with a stamp each. The stamps are different, hence this issue being considered as parallel [P20240606], and represent the Russian poet and some scenes of his main works (e.g., Eugene Onegin). Belarus issued 40,000 stamps in miniature sheets of 5, Russia produced 18,000 miniature sheets of 8 stamps, i.e., 144,000 stamps.

Four countries, Italy, San Marino, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and the Vatican State, came together on June 15, 2024 to celebrate the 160th anniversary of the Italian Red Cross. All stamps are identical and became available as miniature sheets of 4 stamps printed at respectively 150,000, 40,000, 35,000 and 55,000 samples.

The designs of the stamps related to the 100th anniversary of the Johor-Singapore Causeway were presented as early as May 28, 2024, but were officially released on June 28, 2024. Malaysia and Singapore released each four stamps with the same designs. Malaysia produced strips of 4 se-tenant stamps in a miniature sheet of 5 strips. Singapore produced isolated stamps in 4 miniature sheets of 10 stamps each.

Vespa Fan Club

by Richard Zimmermann

Vespa is an Italian brand of scooters and mopeds manufactured by Piaggio. The name means “wasp” in Italian. The Vespa has evolved from a single model motor scooter manufactured in 1946 by Piaggio & Co. S.p.A. of Pontedera, Italy to a full line of scooters and one of seven companies today owned by Piaggio.

In 2024, San Marino and Italy celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Vespa Club d’Italia (created 1949), the largest Italian association that promotes Vespa riding in its many forms : sporting, tourist, cultural, recreational. Both stamps, with different designs, were issued on April 20, 2024. In the San Marino stamp, the Vespa license plates refer to the day of issue, respectively “20.04” and “2024”. This is very unusual to discover the exact date of issue printed directly on the stamp. Italian stamps were issued in panes of 45, while San Marino issued a miniature sheet of 4 stamps (First information provided by Enzo Cafaro, Italy).

Update March 2024

by Richard Zimmermann

Several new information reached us during this month. Next to the two official twin issues released during the month of March (Hungary – Luxembourg March 12, 2023, and Angola – Cape Verde – Portugal March 28, 2024) and described in specific pages, one has to take account of the following news:

  • from Enzo Cafaro (Italy): several news about future issues involving Italy, e.g., on April 18, 2024 with San Marino (Vespa fan Club), on June 15, 2024, with San Marino, SMOM and Vatican (Red Cross 160th anniversary), and on January 25, 2025, with Slovenia (Gorizia and Nova Gorizia, European Capital of Culture). Regarding this last issue, the Italian stamp scheduled to be released on April 28, 2024, and related to the Fall of Gorizia wall, will not involve Slovenia and will remain unilateral. Also, in the 2024 philatelic program, a joint issue between Belarus and the Vatican is under preparation.
  • from Kenneth Sequeira (Singapore): Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan will issue joint stamps related to UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, telling tradition of Nasreddin Hodja anecdotes. Exact date of issue is unknown, but the stamps should be released during Quarter IV, 2024.
  • From Jürgen Luebke (Germany): It seems that Greenland and the Faeroe Islands (may be also Denmark) will issue respectively on May 24 and on May 27, 2024, identical souvenir sheets created by Martin Mörck at the occasion of accession of Frederic X to the Danish thron. At least, in the official documents from the Faeroe Islands, this item is described as a joint issue. Information about the participation of Denmark is still awaited.
  • From Robert Schrijvers (Mongolia): Robert found the following official statement “Swiss development agency is cooperating with the Mongolian Post Company’s Mark Office to create a joint stamp within the framework of the 60th anniversary of Mongolian–Switzerland diplomatic relations. The joint stamp will be introduced to the public in May this year.” Joint issues involving Mongolia are very rare, so more information is needed at this stage, in particular from the Swiss side.

The first 2024 UPU 150th anniversary stamps with common design have been seen. Azerbaijan released a souvenir sheet including two stamps with the common design on February 1, 2024 (size 122×83 mm, printing run 4,000). This souvenir sheet is also available as non-perforated. The full series of stamps related to this issue will be described under [T20241009] as most of the stamps will be released around October 9, 2024.

The catalogue pages have been updated accordingly (Volume 1 and Volume 15).

New 1950 entry – New sub-class of Parallel Issue

by Richard Zimmermann

Through Fabio Bonacina and Enzo Cafaro (Italy) , a request came from a reader of Vaccari News to re-qualify the following Italian and San Marino stamps:

The Italian stamp and the San Marino (RSM) stamps have been issued on the same date of April 12, 1950. The Italian stamp is a specific stamp for the 28th Fiera di Milano (Trade fair), while the RSM stamps are definitive stamps overprinted with the Fiera di Milano reference. The definitive RSM stamps were also issued on April 12, 1950. Such stamps are usually not considered as joint issues, because no specific stamp was issued at this occasion by RSM. From the general rules, overprinted stamps are just considered as Non-accepted [N], in this case, subclass overprinted [OP] (which are reported in the catalogue).

However, there is an exception, when the overprint is combined with a change of color. In others words, and also in this particular case, these three RSM stamps have been specially printed for the Fair and overprinting appears only on stamps with a different color. As such they have to be considered as joint. In the same way, during this 1950’s period, France produced also a series of overprinted Tunisia and Algerian stamps with different colors, which were considered as Territorial issues [TD]. There was no such a territorial/colonial relationship between RSM and Italy, and stamps do have a different design. Parallel issue [P] would be the best definition. This seems to be the first encountered case and it needs the creation of a new sub-class of Parallel issues that will be called [P3]. It corresponds to Commemorative stamps issued on the same day, with a different design, in which at least one country is using overprinted stamps, but those stamps do not exist as non-overprinted standard stamps.

Standard San Marino stamps with the same design show respectively the colors, red and brown (5L), violet and black (15L) or blue-green and blue (55L), while the overprinted stamps are respectively green and blue (5L), black and red (15L) or brown and blue (55L) with overprint respectively black (5L), blue (15L) or black (55L). Non-overprinted stamps with these colors do not exist. At the same date of April 12, 1950, Trieste (Zone A) issued the same Italian stamp with overprint “AMG-FTT” in red. Italian stamps were issued at 3,305,000 samples, San Marino at 3×37,411 samples and Trieste stamps at 150,000 samples. Note that the nine non-overprinted San Marino stamps were issued only at 14,033 samples each.

The catalogue Vol 2 will be updated accordingly and the new definition of [P3] will be introduced in Catalogue Vol 1.