The Croatia – Spain stamps that were originally announced to be issued on June 18, 2026, were finally released on August 10, 2026. They show two types of sailing boats (Betina – Crotia and Baleares – Spain). The Croatian stamps were issued in miniature panes of 6 pairs [2px3]. Spanish stamps were printed in panes of 14 pairs, i.e., [3px5] with the central pair replaced by two labels with flags.
The France – Thailand twin issue was released as announced on August 28, 2026, with general sale at post counters in France on the following Monday, August 31, 2026. The stamps represent the Eiffel Tower and the Seine River in Paris and the Wat Arun Tempel and the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok. Thailand stamps are produced in miniature sheets of 5 se-tenant pairs (printed 65,000 pairs), while French stamps became available in two miniature sheets of 10 stamps each (printed 2×350,000 stamps. Additionally, France released also a souvenir sheet of 200×90 mm containing both French stamps, produced at 15,000 samples.
The postal administrations of Ascension Island, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands and Tristan da Cunha have teamed up once again with a joint stamp issue reminiscent of that issued by these territories in November 2021.
The commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the United Kingdom’s Blue Belt Programme includes four stamps from each territory: these are issued both in individual sheets of ten stamps with a white edging and as souvenir sheets (with the design bleeding into the sheet border). This design is very close to the 2021 issue. The release date is scheduled for September 9, 2026. The territories currently involved in the initiative on top of the three countries listed above include Saint Helena, British Antarctic Territory, British Indian Ocean Territory and Pitcairn Islands. Additional participation from some of these countries could be announced within the next days or weeks but nothing has been published so far (information provided by Adam Paish, UK).
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.
Joint Stamp Issues 
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