About three weeks ago, information was provided from Israel (Dov Lask and Uri Barlev) about a planned joint issue involving Cyprus and Israel. Actually, it took some time to get detailed information and better quality images from the Cyprus side and we still not have complete data yet. Eventually, we gathered the following information. Both countries issued an identical stamp honoring the firefighters illustrated with a plane dropping water to put out a forest fire. Stamps were issued on April 4, 2023 and were produced in miniature sheets of 8 stamps [4×2] for Cyprus and 9 stamps [3×3] for Israel. In both cases the bottom margins are illustrated with flags of both countries, leading to the possibility to create out of a single miniature sheet, 4, respectively 3 stamps attached to tabs. Cyprus stamps were printed at 90,000 samples among which 4,000 were used to create FDCs.
Surprisingly, in the Cyprus miniature sheet, the top of the flag design from the tabs is overlapping the bottom of the stamps from the lower row of the miniature sheet. These parts of flags do not appear at the bottom of the upper row of stamps leading to the existence of two different stamps, the one of the top row (Type I – without parts of the flags) and the one of the bottom row (Type II – with parts of the flags), this one available of course with or without tab.
Don Birschel (USA) made a major discovery with this Cuba – North Korea twin issue [T1] released on August 29, 2020!!! It took more than two and a half years to learn about the existence of these two identical souvenir sheets related to the 60th anniversary of the relationship between the two countries and illustrated through a handshake between the two presidents of the countries, Kim Jong Un and Miguel Mario Diaz-Canel Bermudez. 20,000 samples of the North Korean souvenir sheet have been printed. Obviously, we have to increase our capabilities in accessing to information related to such countries. However, this newly discovered joint issue must be considered as a really nice twin issue that will be updated soon in the Volume 14 of the catalogue.
Two flags, the figure “50” and a logo illustrate the common stamps of the Egypt – United Arab Emirates issue celebrating the 50 years of bilateral relations between both countries. These twin stamps were released on January 19, 2023 in form of souvenir sheets with a single stamp. We are still missing details such as printing runs and size, but it seems these items are quite large (estimated 100×80 mm for Egypt and about 80×56 mm for UAE) (Information provided by Kenneth Sequeira, Singapore and Don Birschel, USA).
This issue has of course been added in the catalogue Vol 15. Some collectors asked for getting some details about the information updated in each catalogue when replacing a previous edition, as it is not obvious to see in a quick way what really was modified or added. We will try to supply this information whenever relevant at the end of a post like this one to help improving this identification. Here is the first set of information related to the modified content appearing in Vol 15 V4.02:
The new Egypt Emirati joint issue described above [T20230119]
Confirmation of the existence of mixed FDCs for the 2022 Romania – SMOM issue [N20220916], the mixed crypto stamp FDC from Austria and the Netherlands [T20220922], as well as for the older Colombia – Indonesia issue from 2020 [T20200915] (all mixed items produced and provided by Jaap sarelse – The Netherlands)
Introduction of the new Ecuador souvenir sheet in the joint issue [T20220728]
Update of the list of new issues to be released during 2023, mainly involving Morocco and Slovakia
Note that the page “Philatelic resources” is constantly updated to maintain the most accurate level (which is not easy, corrections and additions welcome) and changes will not be reported here.
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.
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].
On September 1, 2022 (earlier than expected as issue date we had up to now in our files was September 9), Latvia and the Vatican State celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Concordat joining both states. Stamps are identical and show the figure “100” made of flags with the inscription “Concordia res parvae crescunt (in harmony small things grow)”. Thanks to Enzo Cafaro (Italy) and Don Birschel (USA) for having provided the information.
Joint Stamp Issues 
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