Literature

June 2026 update

by Richard Zimmermann

On June 12, 2026, Serbia and Slovenia issued a similar souvenir sheet containing one single stamp entitled “Humanitarians, Queen Marija Karađorđević and her court lady Franja Tavčar”. The Serbia souvenir sheet, 100×67 mm, was issued at 10,000 samples while the Slovenian souvenir sheet was printed at 18,000 samples. (Information was provided by Janko Stampfl, Slovenia).

Russia and the Philippines celebrated their 50th anniversary of diplomatic relationship on June 2, 2026 with an issue on June 18, 2026 of stamps representing fauna: the Russian Greater jerboa (Allactaga major) and the Philippine mouse deer (Tragulus nigricans). To date, no information from the Philippines postal administration is available, but Enzo Cafaro (Italy) was able to provide a copy of the Philippines miniature sheet, confirming that it could translate in either a twin or a concerted issue. Any additional information is welcome.

Moldova and Romania celebrated the centenary of the first flight of the Bucharest – Galați – Chișinău airmail service, illustrated by a Haviland DH-9 plane. This is a nice twin issue released on June 24, 2026. Romania released two stamps, showing either a plane over a landscape with a bridge (design A), or a flying plane, next to the names of the three towns from the airmail line, as well as a cancelled cover (design B). These two stamps were issued in panes of 32 stamps, or in miniature sheets of 3 stamps and a label. Additionally, a souvenir sheet with a single stamp showing the design A, with flag, cancelled cover as well as a black and white photograph became also available. Moldova released the same two stamps A and B in miniature sheets of 8 stamps (with two additional labels) and a souvenir sheet containing the design B, together with a map.

Note that 2×3,200 Romanian stamps (A and B) were printed in panes of 32 stamps, i.e., in 2 sheets showing 4 lines of 8 stamps. The third line was intentionally printed upside down, making possible to create 8 pairs tête-bêche out of each each pane. These printed stamps represent only 100 panes of 32, from which a maximum of 2×8 tête-bêche pairs could have been isolated, resulting in a maximum of 2×800 tête-bêche pairs possible. The real number of tête-bêche pairs will definitely remain far below that figure.

On June 10, 2026, Türkiye issued a souvenir sheet showing the portraits of Yunus Emre (1240-1320), Turkish folk poet, and Hakani-I Sirvani (1126-1199), actually Afzal al-Dīn Badīl ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿOthmān, commonly known as Khāqānī, Persian poet, entitled ‘joint issue with Azerbaijan‘. Unfortunately, by the time of publishing this page, no information has been made available from this country.

The situation is similar with a joint issue involving Morocco and Mauritania, which illustration was provided by Eric Contesse (France). On the Moroccan stamps, it is clearly stated that it is a joint issue. These stamps are also supposed to be released during the month of June and information from Mauritania is missing so far.

Another Türkiye – Romania joint issue was announced in the Türkish philatelic program, expected to be released on June 30, 2026, but no counterpart is mentionned in the Romanian philatelic program. On the other hand, Romania still describes a joint issue with Kazakhstan scheduled for June 2026 (Biosphere reserves), but there are no news that came up recently from both countries about this issue.

The first year of office of the Pope Leo XIV announced originally by the Vatican State as a joint issue with Italy, was eventually reduced to an anniversary issue from Vatican alone, on May 8, 2026, and this entry had to be removed from the poten,tial 2026 issues.

All the above news were introduced in the catalogue which is now available in an updated form in the appropriate section.

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.

December 2023 update

by Richard Zimmermann

Over the past weeks a series of new information could be gathered. Let us start first with the announcement of issues that could be released during the year 2024 out of different national philatelic programs. In most of the cases, there is not yet a confirmation from the counterpart country (Most information provided by Kenneth Sequeira, Singapore):

  • Croatia and Germany on October 10, 2024
  • Romania will issue together with Israel (April), Morocco (May) and India (September 2024). Note that the expected issue related to the anniversary of the death of Eugene Ionescu (1909-1994) involving France, Moldova and Monaco, does not appear in this official Romanian list for 2024
  • The 2024 UPU anniversary omnibus series (scheduled October 9, 2024) is growing every week and the present list of countries that have announced their participation includes already: Belarus – Belgium – Bosnia Herzegovina (Bosnia) – Croatia – Czech Republic – Germany – Greece – Guernsey – Hungary – Latvia – Lithuania – Moldova – Slovakia – Slovenia
  • At the same time, the South Korea India joint issue initially scheduled to be released on June 28, 2023, then rescheduled for December 8, 2023, was cancelled.

The Guatemala – Israel joint issue announced in a previous blog page was completed with the issue of the Guatemala stamp. Uri Barlev (Israel) could provide the images of the Guatemala stamps also released on the same day of December 12, 2023 with mixed documents, covers and Israel Souvenir Leaf. Apparently, the tab of the Guatemala stamp is provided with each stamp (miniature sheets of 15 stamps with 15 tabs, produced at only 800 samples/12,000 stamps+tabs) while Israel produced stamps in sheetlets of 15 stamps [3×5] with only 3 tabs at the bottom of the sheetlet – printing run unknown).

Also, as a surprise (discovered by Eric Contesse, France), the Australia Vietnam joint issue related to the 50 years of diplomatic relationship, which was removed from the catalogue because considered as a Vietnam unilateral issue, has to be reintegrated. In fact, Australia issued on September 6, 2023 a postal stationery (cover – Postage Paid Envelope PPE) with an indicium corresponding to the Vietnamese stamp. The Vietnamese stamps had been issued on August 27, 2023. The pair of products will be reported as a Concerted issue under the heading [C20230827] as the gap between the two issue dates is higher than one week.

In a same way, the unexpected counterpart from Poland of the Peru stamps (released on December 14, 2023) relative to 100 years of relationships came out as a postal stationery as early as September 27, 2023 (information provided by Jaap Sarelse, the Netherlands). Following a mail exchange with the Polish philatelic department, Jaap received an answer stating that this office does not recognize this issue as a joint issue with Peru. Indeed, the designs of the stamp/indicium are different and only margins, cachet and cancellations show identical design fragments. Unfortunately, on this basis, we cannot consider these two products as part of a joint issue, but only a commemorative issue using common logo. However, one has to admit that by using the same logo and the same illustrated topics, there must have been a start of discussions and collaboration between the two administrations which eventually did not finalize in a common product and event. To avoid recurring questioning, this issue will be described in the catalogue, but in gray color, italic characters under the entry code [N20230927] (non-approved joint issue).

Sri Lanka and Egypt came also together for a joint issue released on December 8, 2023, at the occasion of 66 (!) years of diplomatic relations (first information provided by Med Achour Ali Ahmed, Algeria). Stamps are different, however showing two identical historical monuments, but date of issue is the same.

Correction to be updated in the catalogue: Jaap Sarelse (The Netherlands) provided a copy of the first day cover from Qatar with the stamp issued jointly with Georgia. The official issue date for Qatar is August 27, 2023, which is by far different from the date of issue of Georgia (June 18, 2023), and therefore needs for this issue to be reconsidered as Concerted [C] and not Twin [T] as described up to now in the catalogue.

Jorge Semprun (1923-2011) was honored by two stamps released by France and Spain respectively on November 20, 2023 and November 22, 2023. Both stamps look very similar as rtaken during the same photo shooting session. However none of the two postal administrations consider this issue as joint and no common event, common FDC was organized. The issue will be described in the catalogue but as Not-approved issue, in italics and gray color [N20231120].

Finally, the official issue of the Panama stamp joint with SMOM is December 4, 2023, not December 6 as erroneously reported in the catalogue (Information confirmed by Enzo Cafaro, Italy)

The catalogue pages will be updated with all this information by beginning of 2024.

Poland – Slovenia 2023

by Richard Zimmermann

Poland and Slovenia issued on March 6, 2023 identical stamps honoring Emil Korytko (1813-1839), a Polish ethnographer, exiled in Slovenia where he contributed to the translation of Slovene folk songs. Poland stamps became available in miniature sheets of 8 stamps [4×2] while Slovenia produced miniature sheets of 16 stamps [4×4]. The stamp represents a silhouette of Emil Korytko with handwriting in the background (information was first provided by Janko Stampfl, Slovenia).

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).