Catalogue update

The month of September 2022 saw a large number of joint issues appearing and more have to come in the following weeks. At the same time Jaap Sarelse (The Netherlands) was able to provide the material he collected over the year 2021 and the beginning of 2022. In particular, a high number of mixed FDCs could be obtained thanks to him and a lot of them were not described in the catalogue yet.

This led to a larger update of the catalogue in particular covering the years 2020 and 2021 for illustrations, leading to an additional full 4 pages, as well as supplementary material for the past months of 2022. Volume 14 and Volume 15 of the catalogue are now upgraded which information needed also to be distributed in the countries and topic tables of Volume 1. We leave you take a look, and if possible, don’t hesitate to provide the still missing information.

France-Japan 2021 mixed FDC

Dominique Josse (France) succeeded in something that was considered as quite impossible: creating a mixed first day cover with the stamps from both France and Japan issued on October 8, 2021 (week of letter writing, mail boxes [T20211008]). In France, access to first day cancellations remains possible about 8 weeks following the official first day date, but Japan does not allow production of items with dates different than the one of the day on which it is cancelled. In other words, Japan first day covers could be obtained only on October 8, 2021, while French cancellations from October 8, 2021 remained possible until around December 8, 2021. Additionally, in this specific case, and in contrary to usual joint issue first days, there was no common joint issue ceremony, no exchange of post staff for this day and therefore no creation of official common joint first day covers. So, Dominique, managed to have access to a few Japanese official first day covers, without cachet, and, when received in France, added the French stamps before asking to the French post to cancel these stamps. Here is the result, magnificent item and quite rare. No idea if other collectors have tried as well and succeeded. To our knowledge, and so far, the number of existing samples must remain below 10. Congratulations Dominique!