UPU

November: discoveries and complements

by Richard Zimmermann

Madagascar finally joined the countries celebrating the 150th anniversary of the UPU from October 9, 2024 [T20241009] with the same common stamp. This country issued its stamp on December 30, 2024 (actually printed by the Tunisian Post Printing Office, on November 4, 2024) and produced stamps in panes of 20 [4×5] and a souvenir sheet containing a block of 4 stamps [2×2] (Source: Benjamin Busch)

The stamps from Iran so far reported in the catalogue in this same UPU anniversary series are described as customized personalized stamps, not officially recognized and hence, not part of the series. On July 7, 2025, Iran issued an official stamp that was only reported recently. Iran integrates officially this UPU series listed under [T20241009]. The new (horizontal shape) stamp is shown below next to the first customized (vertical shape) stamps.

On September 5, 2022, several countries dedicated at least one stamp to the International Forum on Tiger Population Preservation in Vladivostok, Russia. This Issue reported under [P20220905] involved all countries that are the tiger’s habitat, including Cambodia (September 22) – India (September 1) – Korea (North) – Laos (September 1) – Malaysia – Myanmar – Russia – Vietnam. Among them, Myanmar issued three stamps in panes. This country re-issued recently (2025, exact date unknown) these stamps in a leaflet/souvenir sheet as a triplet of se-tenant stamps. Illustrations of the original stamps and the new reprint are provided below (Source: David Caleb, Enzo Cafaro).

Libya is a new country to be added to the Post day issue “Towards more innovative postal services” from August 3, 2025, which included already Algeria – Egypt – Iraq – Oman – Tunisia (August 4) and the United Arab Emirates (Kenneth Sequeira, Dubai).

An older series of stamps dedicated to the Covid pandemy was discovered recently (Costas Mengoulis). These stamps produced by Stamperija on behalf of Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Niger and Sao Tome and Principe have not been reported so far, and their exact date of issue remains unknown. Each country proposes a pane with 16 different stamps, identical from one country to another. Knowing the source and the reason of this issue (mainly to fool collectors), we do not recommend to buy and to include them in your collection. However they need to be reported in the catalogue, but without details, with the same purchase recommendations. In absence of details, these stamps have been added to the description of [B20200427].

The catalogue pages have been updated accordingly. Thanks to all the contributors mentionned between brackets in the text.

August 2025 News

by Richard Zimmermann

Enzo Cafaro (Italy) completed the information about the dove issue described in a previous post and enhanced the list of participating countries. He provided also the picture of all to be produced items. The country list includes now : Aland, Armenia, Austria, Cyprus, Faroe Islands, Greenland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Switzerland and United Nations (offices of Geneva, New York and Vienna, as well as UPU). By adding all the denominations we reach a total of about 75 Euros for 13 stamps that will never be used on real covers ! Our friend Jaap Sarelse (the Netherlands) will try to create some mixed FDC covers when stamps will be available. We wish him good luck as even the cancellation on such thick stamps (embroidery) may be tricky. If he succeeds, we promise to show results in these pages 😉

Luis Malanco (Mexico) provided some additional information regarding the Ecuador stamps issued on July 28, 2022, together with Mexico [T20220728] and honoring Leona Vicario and Manuela Saenz. The Ecuadorian stamps were issued at a much lower number than initially announced. The stamp was produced at only 2,000 samples, while the souvenir sheet only at 450 units. Those are the figures appearing in the official leaflet published by the “Servicios Postales del Ecuador”.

By coincidence, a forgotten issue was discovered recently by comparing data in the Michel Rundschau Catalogue. On December 29, 2022, Cambodia and Colombia issued twin stamps at the occasion of the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relationship between both countries. The stamps show a view of Ankor Wat and the Grave in the Archeological National Park of Tierradentro. This issue has not been reported so far and will of course be integrated in the catalogue. The difficulty will now be to find the stamps and not only reproductions.

During the year 2021, Colombia celebrated the 200th anniversary of its independence. Numerous stamps related to this event were issued during this year, which correspoded also to the first recognition of Colombia by other countries. By end of 2022, a first joint issue with Mexico was released (December 20, 2021). Surprisingly, during the following year of 2022, Colombia created a series of different stamps celebrating diplomatic relationships with different countries (not necessarily based on 200 years, but at least on rounded numbers): Egypt (February 23, 2022), USA (May 2), South Korea (May 6), Peru (May 27), Germany (August 5), Cambodia (December 29) and Chile (December 29. This type of issues continued the following year with Barbados (December 18, 2023), Canada December 22) and Argentina (December 23). During the year 2024, only stamps celebrating relationships with Sweden were released (exact issue date is unknown). Among all these stamps, and to our knowledge, only four translated in true joint issues, including Mexico [20211220], Peru (T20220527], Cambodia [C20221229], and Argentina [T20231223]

The design of the North Korean stamps to be released jointly with Russia on August 15, 2025 has been released. We have not seen yet the Russian stamps, but this country confirmed stamp issue in this honour at the same date. Design could be similar.

Last minute information: Kenneth Sequeira just provided information about stamps released by the Philippines on August 5, 2025, jointly with India, celebrating the 75th anniversary of their relationship. Each country issued a pair of identical stamps showing flowers. Note that despite being issued in 2025, the stamps celebrate an anniversary that took place in 2024.

April 2025 update

by Richard Zimmermann

On April 7, 2025, Portugal and India issued, as planned, a souvenir sheet each, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the re-establishment of their diplomatic relationship. The two common stamps feature the traditional costume from Viana do Castelo, Portugal, and the Kalbelia dance costumes, India (information first provided by Kenneth Sequeira, Singapore and Souvik Ghatak, India).

On April 10, 2025, Morocco issued a pair of stamps representing airports (Mectan – Cebu and Menara – Marrakech) and celebrating 50 years of relationship with the Philippines. So far, information from the Philippines is not available, although the stamps of this country have been announced, and taking in account the structure of the Moroccan issue, it could become a twin or concerted issue.

Med Achour Ali Ahmed (Algeria) provided complementary information about the Arab League 80th Anniversary stamps. The Egyptian issue is not a stamp in pane, but a souvenir sheet, size 120×85 mm, issued on March 22, 2025, at 7,000 samples only among which 700 were used to prepare first day covers. The denomination is 20 Egyptian Pounds. In the meantime, no information about an additional country participating to this issue became available.

Tolga Caglayankaya (The Netherlands) provided information about a new 150th UPU Anniversary country srtamp (T20241009). South Sudan issued two stamps and one souvenir sheet containing these two stamps, displaying the basic design. Apparently only 500 samples of the souvenir sheet were printed. The exact date of issue seems to be March 27, 2025.

Jaap Sarelse (The Netherlands) reported also about a stamp issued by Nigeria on October 10, 2024 but bearing the design of the October 9, 2022, World Post day issue. This stamp has of course been added to the T20221009 series.

UPU 150th anniversary: second update

by Richard Zimmermann

Since the publication of the original blog page related to the description of stamps linked to the 150th UPU anniversary (October 9, 2024) and the first update, as expected, additional stamps and countries have been discovered and are now described below. It seems this is still not the last update. This complementary list is divided on the basis of the same structure as the one provided earlier, in the first update:

  1. Countries of Type A (Twin [T1], same date, same design), additional country: El Salvador (October 9, 2024).

2. New country of Type B (Concerted [C1], different dates, same design): Nepal (December 17).

The Dominican Republic stamp was issued October 26, 2024 and therefore has to be moved in this sub-category. Same for Lybia which stamps were issued on October 22, 2024 instead of October 9, 2024. In Iran, two stamps appeared also, printed in miniature sheets of 4 stamps but in fact made of an illustrated label with the UPU anniversary logos, attached to a stamp with text only. It seems that these stamps correspond to (privately) personalized stamps with limited printing runs (additional information is needed here). As belonging to this sub-group, these two stamps will be described in the catalogue in italics characters.

3. New countries of Type C (modified design – only logo [T2], [C2]): Ghana (), Italy (November 21), the Philippines ().

The exact date of issue for the Uzbekistan stamp is known now to be May 17, 2024. The United Nations stamps (Geneva, New York, and Vienna) had to be re-integrated in this category as the miniature sheets of 9 stamps [3×3] bear in the top margin the logo of the 150 UPU anniversary. These stamps were issued already on May 30, 2024.

Special miniature sheets including eight different countries have been produced and should be considered as se-tenant issues [S]. These stamps were printed with two different denominations, as perforated and non-perforated miniature sheets, at very low printing runs (100 units for each of the two perforated miniature sheets and 30 for the non-perforated ones). The countries involved in these items include Burundi, Central Africa, Djibouti, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Togo (with stamp type B for this country). Due to the small printings runs, these miniature sheets must be considered as material to abuse collectors. They will be listed in the catalogue but in italics, just for information purpose. The printer of these countries also decided to create two postal cards per country with the same indicia (postal stationery) as pane stamps and souvenir sheet stamps, sold at very high prices, which must also be considered with the same status (abusive).

4. New country of Type D (different design, but same date [P1]): Honduras (October 9, 2024), 2 stamps

5. New country of Type E (different design, different date [N]): no new stamps

The UPU anniversary related stamp from the Netherlands is not an official Dutch post issue, but a personalized stamp, meaning it has to be filed as of private origin, in limited edition (information provided by Cesar Ittman, the Netherlands). The situation is similar for the Liechtenstein stamp, the second French stamp, Iran stamps, which are all to be considered as personalized or customized and/or private issues (all to be reported with italics characters in the catalogue).

UPU 150th anniversary: a first update

by Richard Zimmermann

As anticipated, the list of stamps issued at the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Universal Postal Union and described in an earlier page was not complete. Very quickly after publication, several collectors provided additional information. Here I have to thank Ali Ahmed Med Achour (Algeria), Enzo Cafaro (Italy), and Tolga Caglayankaya (Netherlands) for some of these additional data.

This complementary list is divided using the same structure as the one provided earlier:

Countries of Type A (Twin [T1], same date, same design), additional countries: Cambodia – Guatemala – Kazakhstan (October 15) – Libya – Nigeria.

Also we have to report an additional product for Indonesia (souvenir sheet, illustration above). Already reported Ukrainian stamps available so far are provided in form of either isolated stamps or miniature sheets of 5 stamps made of a top part with the design and a label with the letter “U” which stands in place of the denomination. In these products, this letter “U” is located on the left side. It appears that in some FDCs, the label bears the letter “U” on the right side. FDCs with left-side positionned letter “U” do exist as well. Mint stamps or miniature sheets with “U” on the right side have not been seen so far. In fact, these Ukrainian products are from private production (personalized stamps), but approved by Ukrainian Post. Also, looking closer to the background of the illustrated part of each stamp, it appears that the miniature sheet shows 6 different designs background, which are different from the stamps in panes or used on FDCs.

New country of Type B (Concerted [C1], different dates, same design): Malta (October 31)

In this series it was also discovered that Mali stamps produced with denomination 200F and 1000F, do exist as miniature sheets of 6 and panes of 20 (French language), also as a postal card, but the 1000F value became also available in 5 additional languages in panes, in souvenir sheet of 6 different stamps, with two different formats ([2×3] and [3×2]), perforated or imperforated. This is obviously expensive material to fool collectors (even if reported as ‘official’, they will never reach postal offices) and as such, they will be reported in italic characters in the catalogue with the mention ‘not recommended to buy’. Just as an additional note, the denomination of 1000 Malian Francs (FCFA) is equivalent today to about € 1.50. Right now, as these stamps are still supposed to be available from the Malian post office (if true), one should not pay more than twice this amount. Otherwise, the terms of “official” or “proof” are just artificial and shortage/rarity is organized by the printer.

New countries of Type C (modified design – only logo [T2], [C2]): Botswana (September 29) – Iraq – Liechtenstein – Netherlands. The information about Liechtenstein and Netherlands stamps is still uncomplete. It seems that these stamps were produced last minute and they are not described with details in the official channel).

Regarding Botswana, the country issued on September 29, 2024 four different zebra stamps in panes and together in a miniature sheet with the four stamps. A fifth stamp became available as part of a souvenir sheet with the UPU logo in the margin. Only this souvenir sheet can be considered as being part of the joint issue.

New country of Type D (different design, but same date [P1]): Seychelles

New country of Type E (different design, different date [N]): Poland (1 stamp, October 30, 2024)

This is a first update, because it is quite clear that more stamps related to this anniversary will be released (or simply discovered), probably even during the year 2025.

UPU 150th anniversary

by Richard Zimmermann

The Universal Postal Union (UPU) is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that coordinates postal policies among member nations and facilitates a uniform worldwide postal system. It comprises 192 member states and is headquartered in Bern, Switzerland. It was established on October 9, 1874, exactly 150 years ago.

Since more than one year, we know that this anniversary will be celebrated with a stamp which common design was proposed by UPU. In the past, the 75th (1949) UPU anniversary was celebrated, but in a non-coordinated way, mainly by colonial entities (British, Dutch and French – D19490704, D19491001, D19491010, D19491018) and the 100th (1974) anniversary with stamps that remained different for all participating countries (N19741009). The same situation happened in 1999, with absence of concertation for the 125th anniversary celebration (N19991009). Eventually, so far, only the 145th anniversary in 2019 (T20191009b) could be considered as a Twin issue.

During this year of 2024, a very large number of countries are participating. In the strict sense, this has to be considered as a true joint issue, even if there was no real cooperation between countries, but a proposal of a design accepted by most of them and translated in a locally adapted stamp, for a large part of them issued at the anniversary date. It is not an Omnibus series, as Omnibus is defined by a central printing, not by the large number of participating countries. The 2024 stamps will be reported in the catalogue as a Twin issue under [T20241009]. It is easily understandable that some joint issues collectors do not integrate such large series in their collection, in the same way Europa-CEPT stamps are not acceptable for them. Each individual collector has to decide on the basis of the following.

In the catalogue, the countries will be divided in subgroups:

  • A: the countries which take the exact original design proposed by UPU and issue the stamp(s) on October 9, 2024 (or actually around this date, plus or minus a week, roughly between October 1 and October 17, 2024), according to the definition of a twin issue [T]
  • B: the countries which take the exact original design but issue the stamp at a different date. It should not be surprising if some countries may issue their stamp in 2025 or even 2026. This is the equivalent of a Concerted issue [C]
  • C: the countries which use only a part of the design, actually integrating only the “150” logo and add some other illustrations. This logo can appear within the stamp, or on the margin of a souvenir sheet or within a label. Those stamps are also considered as twin or concerted issues of Type [T2] or [C2]
  • D: the countries which use a completely different design, but still issue their stamp(s) around October 9, 2024. This is the equivalent of a Parallel issue [P]. In this case, the original logo may appear on the stamp, but at a size that remains smaller than the half of the surface of the stamp
  • E: finally the countries that do not want to stick to design and date, and work on their own, just referring to the UPU anniversary. These countries are simply listed, without details, as they cannot be considered as joint [N].

We will have again to take care of stamps that are created by agencies that are producing stamps for certain countries but which have been given the freedom to issue stamps without a real control from the reference countries. These stamps are easily recognized by the number of stamps issued in a series and they are produced to fool collectors. In order to better identify these stamps and because they remain real stamps but never reach the originating country, they will be reported in the catalogue, but in italics. In the same way, some other stamps such as the French stamp with a full common logo are of private origin (personalized stamp) that cannot be considered as part of this joint issue either. This will be true for any other privately produced stamp from other countries, if any, and also described in italic characters.

The countries for which we already have information are reported below. If a date between brackets is missing behind the country name, this means that this stamp(s) was issued on October 9, 2024. If the content of the brackets remains empty, this means that the exact issue date is not known yet. A large number of images were provided by Enzo Cafaro (Italy). The following list is of course not yet complete.

Countries of type A (Twin [T1]): Algeria – Andorra (French) (October 10) – Andorra (Spanish) – Armenia – Bangladesh – Belarus – Bosnia Herzegovina (Bosnia) – Brazil – China (PR) – Croatia – Cyprus – Dominican Republic – Greece – Guernsey – India – Indonesia – Ivory Coast – Jordan – Latvia – Lithuania (October 4) – Mauritius – Moldova – Myanmar – Paraguay – Peru – Romania – Sri Lanka – Thailand – Turkmenistan (October 8) – Ukraine – United Arab Emirates

Countries of type B (Concerted [C1]): Argentina (August 28) – Azerbaijan (February 1) – Burundi (September) – Central Africa (September) – Djibouti (September) – Georgia (June 1) – Guinea (September) – Guinea-Bissau (September) – Liberia (September) – Mali (September) – Monaco (May 30) – Mongolia (September 25) – Sierra Leone (September) – Togo (September)

Countries of type C (Twin or concerted [T2] or [C2]): Bosnia (Serbia) – Egypt () – France (October 14) – Hong Kong – Hungary (July 24) – Isle of Man (August 30) – Japan – Kyrgyzstan (October) – Luxembourg (September 10) – Macau – Malaysia – Morocco – Pakistan – Portugal – San Marino – Saudi Arabia () – Singapore – Slovenia – Spain – Syria – Tunisia – Türkiye – Uruguay – Uzbekistan () – Vietnam

Countries of type D (Parallel issue [P]): Australia (October 1) – Austria (October 4) – Brunei Darussalam () – Bulgaria – Czech Republic – French Polynesia – Germany (October 10) – Macedonia (North) – Mexico – Montenegro – Qatar () – Russia – Slovakia – Switzerland (September 5) – Tajikistan (May) – Vatican (September 16) – Wallis and Futuna

Countries of type E (not considered as joint): Belgium (June 10) – Serbia (May 25) – United Nations – Geneva (May 30) – United Nations – New York (May 30) – United Nations – Vienna (May 30).

So far, 86 countries are listed above to which one has to add 2 postal authorities that have issued stamps that cannot be considered as joint (Type E – United Nations offices are not taken in account as countries, UPU being a sub-unit of the United Nations). The UPU counts presently 192 members, which means information from 106 countries (!) is missing. Obviously there will be an update of this page. A great help is needed here to recover information from other participating countries. We are also missing better quality images for stamps from Ivory Coast and Ukraine. Thanks a lot in advance for providing name of missing countries, exact dates of issue, and when possible illustrations, printing runs, sizes of panels and by-product lists.

The catalogue pages should be updated within the next week.

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.

Update March 2024

by Richard Zimmermann

Several new information reached us during this month. Next to the two official twin issues released during the month of March (Hungary – Luxembourg March 12, 2023, and Angola – Cape Verde – Portugal March 28, 2024) and described in specific pages, one has to take account of the following news:

  • from Enzo Cafaro (Italy): several news about future issues involving Italy, e.g., on April 18, 2024 with San Marino (Vespa fan Club), on June 15, 2024, with San Marino, SMOM and Vatican (Red Cross 160th anniversary), and on January 25, 2025, with Slovenia (Gorizia and Nova Gorizia, European Capital of Culture). Regarding this last issue, the Italian stamp scheduled to be released on April 28, 2024, and related to the Fall of Gorizia wall, will not involve Slovenia and will remain unilateral. Also, in the 2024 philatelic program, a joint issue between Belarus and the Vatican is under preparation.
  • from Kenneth Sequeira (Singapore): Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan will issue joint stamps related to UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, telling tradition of Nasreddin Hodja anecdotes. Exact date of issue is unknown, but the stamps should be released during Quarter IV, 2024.
  • From Jürgen Luebke (Germany): It seems that Greenland and the Faeroe Islands (may be also Denmark) will issue respectively on May 24 and on May 27, 2024, identical souvenir sheets created by Martin Mörck at the occasion of accession of Frederic X to the Danish thron. At least, in the official documents from the Faeroe Islands, this item is described as a joint issue. Information about the participation of Denmark is still awaited.
  • From Robert Schrijvers (Mongolia): Robert found the following official statement “Swiss development agency is cooperating with the Mongolian Post Company’s Mark Office to create a joint stamp within the framework of the 60th anniversary of Mongolian–Switzerland diplomatic relations. The joint stamp will be introduced to the public in May this year.” Joint issues involving Mongolia are very rare, so more information is needed at this stage, in particular from the Swiss side.

The first 2024 UPU 150th anniversary stamps with common design have been seen. Azerbaijan released a souvenir sheet including two stamps with the common design on February 1, 2024 (size 122×83 mm, printing run 4,000). This souvenir sheet is also available as non-perforated. The full series of stamps related to this issue will be described under [T20241009] as most of the stamps will be released around October 9, 2024.

The catalogue pages have been updated accordingly (Volume 1 and Volume 15).

January 2024 News

by Richard Zimmermann

Several friends provided interesting information over the past weeks:

Kenneth Sequeira (Singapore) discovered an item based on an older Indonesia souvenir sheet, originally part of the Indonesia – Thailand joint issue from May 5, 2016, overprinted at the occasion of the Philatelic Exhibition “Thailand 2023”, that took place between November 27 and December 2, 2023. This is not part of a joint issue, but as material from a previous joint issue was used, the item needs to be described under this heading [T20160505].

The 60th anniversary of the relationship between Tunisia and The People’s Republic of China was celebrated by Tunisia with a dedicated stamp showing a panda with a text in both Chinese and Arabic characters. Unfortunately China did not issue any counterpart philatelic material and this unilateral stamp will not be reported in the catalogue (information received from Med Achour Ali Ahmed, Algeria).

During its 44th session in Cairo (Egypt) on January 11, 2024, the Permanent Arab Postal Commission decided to issue by Arab member countries a postage stamp in solidarity with Gaza. A commission was set up to discuss its design. No release date has been brought forward (information received from Med Achour Ali Ahmed, Algeria).

The UPU has launched the campaign of its 150th anniversary, announcing a possibility for all voluntary postal administrations to participate on October 9, 2024 with a common stamp. The suggestion is to use the logo of the anniversary which has been shown at the end of last year. So far, more than 20 countries have confirmed their participation, but eventually about 200 countries could participate. As this issue is created upon a kind of central invitation, not printed centrally and as there is some freedom to adapt the logo, but with the suggestion to release them at the same date, this issue has to be considered as a true twin issue. It looks like a future omnibus series. There will be hundreds of products available and it could be understandable that some collectors will not consider integrating these stamps in their collection. The design of the proposed common stamp became available.

Enzo Cafaro, Italy, found information about the next India – Israel joint issue dedicated to Purim Festival to be released on February 13, 2024 and he could already provide the design.

All catalogue volumes have been updated and are available on line. The list of additional issues expected to be released during the year 2024 has been integrated in the catalogue Volume 15.

Update October 2023

by Richard Zimmermann

Alike in 2022 [B20221009], UPU proposed a common design at the occasion of the World Post Day and interested countries could adapt and join. These stamps were discovered accidentally, when the first stamps issued by Egypt and Sri Lanka were released on October 9, 2023. This year only a limited number of countries did participate, but the list is not complete yet and we are expecting discovering more of them. The design shows handshaking in violet and the size and structure of the stamp is similar as the one issued last year. The different adhering postal administrations could adapt the size and the language. This is not a true joint issue, but it will be described in the catalogue under the category Borrowed design [BD]. Other countries such as Malaysia, Pakistan, Thailand, issued also one or two stamps at the same date, related to the World Post Day, with different designs. Those stamps cannot be considered as joint as they are just commemorating a same event.

From Enzo Cafaro (Italy): The ‘Endurance’ stamp series involving British Antarctic Territory, Falkland Islands, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands and described so far under March 27, 2023 [D20230327] has in fact never been released and was postponed recently a new time. The description of these stamps had to be removed from the catalogue and is now available in the waiting list at the end of the catalogue.

Jaap Sarelse (The Netherlands) discovered a series of three Singapore aerogrammes belonging to the 1992 ASEAN series. This country issued these postal stationeries on top of the stamps they released the same day. Up to now, those items were not described in the catalogue and the update will appear under the heading [P19920808], year 1992, Volume 6. Thanks Jaap, for providing this missing information.

New information related to the Euromed 2023 issue [P20230710]: Jordan issued a 6-stamp sheetlet on September 10, 2023. (Source Jeff Courtright, USA). On October 20, 2023, Albania issued the 2022 (!) Euromed stamp [P20220711] (Source Enzo Cafaro, Italy).

From Adam Paish, UK: there is an unusual Guernsey Post Office stamp issue scheduled for release on November 3, 2023, a souvenir sheet which contains two stamps, one inscribed ‘Guernsey’ and the other ‘Alderney’, depicting their respective courthouses. It celebrates the seventy-fifth anniversary of the 1948 Transfer Agreement which saw Guernsey take over responsibility for most of Alderney’s public services. Stamps inscribed Alderney or Guernsey are valid on mail from all the islands of the Bailiwick: Guernsey (incorporating Herm), Alderney and Sark. This item will be considered as a Territorial Se-tenant issue [SD].

The first image of the Thailand stamp/souvenir sheet from the Hungary – Thailand joint issue to be released on November 29, 2023 was presented. This issue will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the diplomatic relationship between both countries.

Miscellaneous from October 2022

by Richard Zimmermann

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].

World Post Day 2022 (2)

by Richard Zimmermann

October 9, 2022, day at which the UPU organized a common issue at the occasion of the World Post Day, was a Sunday. This is not the best day for launching a stamp and we preferred waiting a few days to collect a maximum of information around this issue in order to include also stamps that were released after this official date. We were not disappointed and we received a lot of additional information from our friends Kenneth Sequeira (Dubai), Ali Ahmed Med Achour (Algeria), Don Birschel (USA), Enzo Cafaro (Italy), Kenneth Sequeira (Singapore) and others. Thanks to all of them.

So far (the list is probably not complete), the countries having issued stamps with the UPU design include the followings: Belarus, Bosnia Herzegovina, Cambodia, Croatia, Egypt, Fiji (September 22, release date, but official FDC dated October 9), Russia (October 7), Serbia (October 7), Sri Lanka, , Syria (1 stamp, 1 souvenir sheet), Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey. All these countries have issued one single stamp at the date of October 9, 2022, except otherwise stated.

Algeria (October 9, 2022) participated as well but adapted the design.