Sea

September 2025 update

by Richard Zimmermann

Sorry for this long time of silence. A lot of new information was gathered over this past month, in addition to the “Dove of Peace” series described in the previous page. The data are summarized hereunder, thanks to Kenneth Sequeira (Dubai), Ali Allawati (Oman), Adam Paish (UK), Enzo Cafaro (Italy), Dominique Josse (France), Sim Tng Kwang (Singapore), Mohamed Achour Ali Ahmed (Algeria), and Marci Jarvis (USA).

The official day of issue of the Oman stamp related to the Arab Postal Day from August 3, 2025, initially announced as being released on August 10, 2025 for this country, has to be corrected to August 3, 2025, according to FDC images provided by Ali Allawati.

The Oman stamps from the Oman Iran issue initially scheduled to be released on May 27, 2025, became available only on August 26, 2025 (date shown on the Oman FDC cover). However, information from Iran is still missing and we do not know if it will become a real joint issue, despite the clear indication on the stamp itself.

The Maldives-Singapore joint issue which design was revealed on June 30, 2025, was finally released on September 5, 2025. This issue includes two stamps featuring fishes, turtle, corals, the Lazarus Island (Singapore) and Hulhudhoo (Maldives), which were also included in a souvenir sheet (Singapore). Good quality images and final product description from the Maldives are still missing.

Singapore was involved a second time this month, on September 19, 2025, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Thailand-Singapore diplomatic relations. As previously, Singapore issued also both stamps in a form of a souvenir sheet. The Thai stamps has been printed in se-tenant checkerboard-formatted sheets of ten stamps.

On September 16, 2025, the 640 years of the crowning of Sigmund of Luxembourg in Hungary was supposed to be celebrated by Luxembourg and Slovakia with a common stamp which design was released earlier this year by the Slovak Post. It happened that this issue disappeared from both postal administration philatelic programs. Explanations are needed here.

The Mythical heroes crypto-stamps series was issued on September 18, 2025 (see detailed description under previous page). The final illustrations given below show small changes compared to initial illustrations provided earlier (e.g., new denomination for Luxembourg). The series includes Austria (2 units, Zeus and Hera, 2×150,000), Belgium (Athena, 20,000), Luxembourg (Artemis, 15,000), Netherlands (Hermes, 25,000) and Portugal (Poseidon, 25,000). The digital twins are stored in the blockchain in five different colors. The likelihood of getting a particular color depends on the color: for Luxembourg stamps, there are 150 red, 1,005 yellow, 1,995 blue, 4,005 green and 7,845 black stamps; for the other countries the exact number of colored subtypes has not been published but the figures remain probably close to the same ratio, i.e., 1% (red), 6.7% (yellow), 13.3% (blue), 26.7% (green) and 52.3% (black). The digital twin of the crypto stamp is randomly generated. By scanning the QR code on the stamp with a smartphone, one will find out which color is linked to the crypto stamp.

As an example, the Luxembourg stamp digital twins in the blockchain look as follow:

On September 25, 2025, the Embassy of the Republic of Peru in Kuwait hosted an event to present a commemorative postage stamp marking the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Kuwait and Peru. The postage stamps are featuring Kuwait’s Red Palace and Peru’s Real Felipe Fortress. Unfortunately, to our knowledge, this Peruvian stamp will remain unilateral.

The Oman-Russia joint issue, originally scheduled for April 22, 2025, postponed to September 26, 2025 (Oman source), then, a few weeks ago to October 15, is now scheduled for November 14, 2025. The date of October 15, 2025 remains unchanged for the issue of the joint stamps involving Laos and Russia and the first illustration of the Russian stamps became available recently.

Maldives – India – Singapore 2025

by Richard Zimmermann

On July 25, 2025, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Maldives’ President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu jointly released commemorative postage stamps marking 60 years of diplomatic relations between India and the Maldives. The stamps show local boats. For India, an Uru, i.e., a wooden dhow built by hand in Beypore, Kerala. For the Maldives, a Vadhu Dhoni, i.e., a traditional fishing boat widely used for reef and coastal fishing in the Maldives. Detailed pictures from the Maldives are not available yet (Information provided first by Kenneth Sequeira, Singapore)

Maldives intends also to issue twin stamps with Singapore on August 29, 2025. A pair of identical stamps will be produced by each country, with an additional souvenir sheet containing both stamps for Singapore. The stamp design was unveiled during a ceremony that was held on June 30, 2025. So far, only bad quality images were available (Information provided by Don Birschel, USA).

Re-exploring Colombia

by Richard Zimmermann

On July 29, 2024, Argentina issued a pair of stamps depicting whales (Southern right whale – Eubalena australis and Humpback whale – Megaptera novaangliae) and entitled ‘200 years of Argentina – Colombia relationship’. Indeed, these stamps are the counterpart of the Colombia pair issued on December 29, 2023, based on the same design. As a consequence, this issue must be considered as a concerted issue that was recently completed and it will be described in the catalogue under the entry code [C20231229], added to the year 2023 section. Colombia issued 25,000 stamps in miniature sheets of two se-tenant pairs. Argentina issued stamps in panels of 12 stamps.

In parallel, Don Birschel (USA) provided an additional information about a Colombia – Peru issue that was missed so far. On May 27, 2022, Colombia issued at the occasion of 200 years of relationship with Peru, a miniature sheet with 4 different stamps showing a) the archeological site of Moray, Cusco, Peru, b) the Caño Cristales, river in the the Macarena mountains, Meta, Colombia, c) a llama and d) a sloth. It appears that Peru issued at the same occasion, but only on November 30, 2022, two se-tenant stamps with the same designs as the two first Colombian stamps (a and b). Of course, these stamps must be considered as a concerted issue and will be added to the catalogue under the entry [C20220527] in the year 2022 section.

By further exploring the “4-72” Colombia web site, it appeared that Colombia issued in 2022 and 2023, on top of the Argentina-Colombia joint issue, a series of relationship stamps that in theory could have led to additional concerted issues. These stamps celebrate relationship anniversaries between Colombia and Egypt (February 23, 2022), the United States (May 2, 2022), South Korea (May 6, 2022), Germany (May 8, 2022), Chile (December 29, 2022), Barbados (December 18, 2023) and Canada (December 22, 2023). To our knowledge, no counterpart stamps have been issued, but information from some remote countries such as Egypst of Barbados is often difficult to find.

In the same way, Peru issued, over the past years, stamps related to different relationship anniversaries with India (August 26, 2022), Guatemala (2022), Ecuador (October 23, 2023), Japan (November 13, 2023), and South Korea (November 13, 2023), but none resulted (so far and to our knowledge) in a joint issue (except the Peru-Poland issue already described in the catalogue as N20230927). Uruguay issued stamps in honor of relationship with Japan (July 27, 2021), Czech and Slovak Republic (November 17, 2021), Vietnam (April 27, 2023) and Chile (November 1, 2023). Paraguay issued stamps for relations with South Korea (June 28, 2022) and Mexico (October 3, 2023).

When doing such a screening with Chilean recently issued stamps, it appears that this country celebrated relationship anniversaries with Canada (November 18, 2021), Peru (December 2022), and the United States (January 27, 2023) without counterpart. All these stamps must be considered as unilateral issues and should not be reported in the catalogue unless a counterpart is found. This counterpart is not necessarily a stamp but could be postal stationery, like in the Peru-Poland N20230927 issues, even much more difficult to find. Any additional information from all these countries is welcome.

Random News – July 2024

by Richard Zimmermann

Over the past couple of months, some friends and collectors did send new information related either to older issues, but interesting for completing the catalogue, or related to some new joint issues to be released before end of the year. Particular thanks to Enzo Cafaro (Italy), Wayne Chen (USA), Mario Moni (Italy) and Adam Paish (UK).

The Taiwan Palau issue from June 26, 2018 consisted in a souvenir sheet including two stamps showing sharks and turtle. Wayne Chen discovered a black print of the Taiwan item that has now been added in the catalogue as well (Volume 13).

The very large 150th UPU anniversary issue continues to grow in terms of announced participating countries. Even if the common date of issue will be October 9, 2024, some countries have already released their stamps, based on the model proposed by the UPU: Azerbaijan (February 1) – Georgia (June 1) . Among the other countries having confirmed their participation, we already can include Belarus – Belgium – Bosnia Herzegovina (Bosnia) – Central Africa – Croatia – Czech Republic – Djibouti – Germany – Greece – Guernsey – Guinea-Bissau – Hong Kong – Hungary – Latvia – Liberia – Lithuania – Moldova – Monaco – Portugal – Sierra Leone – Slovakia – Slovenia – Togo and Tunisia, but probably almost a hundred different countries could participate to this omnibus series. Here some first pictures.

The design of the Japan miniature sheet of 10 different stamps to become available on August 8, 2024, jointly with Turkey, has been released. As this issue celebrating the 100th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between both countries appears also in the Turkish philatelic program, it is expected that Turkey will maintain stamps at this occasion in their next issues even if design is not yet available. Actually, knowing the way Japan did handle joint issues in the past, it is not expected that Turkey will produce a similar souvenir sheet, but the country could simply pick one or two designs from this sheet to produce their stamps.

Next issue to come, the 2024 Euromed issue, topic Mediterranean sports, to be officially released on July 10, 2024. This issue is now confirmed for Bosnia Herzegovina (Serbia) – France – Portugal – Tunisia and Turkey, but probably another dozen of countries will join by that time.

Our friend Mario Moni (Italiy) inquired about some missing Italian Territorial Issues listed in catalogue Volume 2. Taking as an example the issue D19301204 (Volume 2, page 136), he pointed the absence of Aegean Islands, while this same postal administration is included in other described issues. Indeed, and after a carefull cheking, the Aegean Islands were missing in this series, but also in other series such as D19310507. The catalogue was updated of course. The same question was addressed regarding the 1925 Holy Year series (Italy issued stamps on December 24, 1924), but in this case the situation is a little bit more complicated.

In fact, the catalogue should be reshuffled by keeping only the true joint issues, but this is a huge work. It will not be easy to do and some collectors will not be happy with the decision of removing all territorial issues. For the time being, these issues will continue to be part of the catalogue, but still following the rules that had been defined in Volume I:

  • Normally, overprinted issues, i.e., colonial or territorial overprinted issues, are not joint issues, and not reported in the catalogue, except if the color of the territorial issue differs from the main country stamps
  • This is the case for the two Aegean series listed above (D19301204 and D19310507), but the 1924/1925 Holy Year stamps are simply overprinted Italian stamps with the same stamp colors. This is the reason why they are not reported in the catalogue
  • However, a note has been added in the catalogue and this series was filed as N19250601 (non-approved joint issue) with a limited description to avoid further questions on this specific topic

Probably, there are still some other Italian territorial issues that are missing in the catalogue. Do not hesitate to come back with some new suggestions. Here, illustrations of some of the new additions.