According to the U.S. Postal Service, an original Mercury astronaut and a spacecraft set to orbit the planet Mercury will be featured on two United States postage stamps to be released next year.

Alan Shepard will be honored together with NASA's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging, or MESSENGER, probe, which is due to start orbiting the planet closest to the sun in March 2011.

The two stamps are tentatively scheduled for release next spring.

Former Air & Space magazine art director Phil Jordan and science fiction/fantasy artist Donato Giancola will design the stamps based on NASA imagery.

According to the stamp collecting newspaper Linn's Stamp News, the Postal Service announced the two space stamps at the American Philatelic Society Stamp Show held last week in Virginia.

Alan Shepard, who became the first American in space 50 years ago next May, will be the first American astronaut to be honored on a U.S. stamp.

Since the early 1970s, U.S. stamp selection criteria has required an individual be deceased for at least five years before becoming eligible for consideration of the honor. Events of "historical significance" are limited to commemoration on anniversaries in multiples of 50 years.

Shepard died of leukemia at 74-years-old in July 1998.

The 2011 MESSENGER-themed "First Spacecraft to Orbit Mercury" stamp will be the third time the Postal Service has chosen to commemorate a mission studying Mercury on a stamp.

Until MESSENGER launched on August 3, 2004, Mariner 10 was the only probe to be sent to Mercury. MESSENGER will become the first spacecraft to enter orbit around Mercury on March 18, 2011. The spacecraft has made one flyby of Earth, two flybys of Venus, and three flybys of Mercury.

Source: redorbit.com

Gibbons Stamp Monthly first hit the market in 1890, as ‘Stanley Gibbons Monthly Journal’ and has undergone several changes during its long history; Reader demand saw the publication being produced more frequently with the introduction of Gibbons Stamp Weekly from January 1905 before ceasing production during the ‘Great War’.

Re-launched in 1919 as ‘The Monthly Circular’, it reverted back to ‘The Monthly Journal’ in 1923.

In October 1927, ‘Gibbons Stamp Monthly’ was born.

1988 saw Hugh Jefferies taking over as Editor; 22 years on and Hugh is still producing quality content enjoyed by more than 54,000 readers worldwide.

September 2010 marks another chapter in the magazine’s long history, with a cleaner design and easier to read page layout, with coloured indexing for ease of reference.

The September edition features a bumper 198 pages, with a special feature on ‘Owls on Stamps’ and its long running success has been acknowledged by WHSmith; The September edition will be one of their ‘feature publications’ in stores over the next 4 weeks.

Present Editor, Hugh Jefferies said, “Every so often a ‘revamp’ is undoubtedly necessary. To be a featured publication within WHSmith’s stores nationwide is a great achievement for the magazine and a testament to the strength of stamp collecting. We are delighted.”

Source: pr.com

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Canadian Navy, Canada Post is issuing today a set of two stamps depicting the past and present of Canada’s naval service. Canada’s first naval warship, HMCS Niobe, features the picture of an unknown sailor taken around 1910. The second stamp focuses on present day navy with a picture of HMCS Halifax and of Cheryl Bush, Chief Petty Officer Second Class, currently employed with the Chief of the Maritime Staff in Ottawa. This newest offering follows naval-themed stamps issued in 1985 and 1998.

“The creation and launch of these stamps provide Canadians with a unique way to recognize our men and women in uniform,” said the Honourable John Baird, Canada’s Transport and Infrastructure Minister and the Minister responsible for Canada Post. “During the centennial anniversary year, I encourage all Canadians to remember our fallen soldiers while celebrating the many successes of our Canadian Navy.”

“Canadians have much to be proud of in recognizing 100 years of service from the Canadian Navy,” said the Honourable Peter MacKay, Minister of National Defence. “The 1910 and 2010 photographs on the stamps remind us that although the times and technology have changed, the dedication of Canada’s men and women in uniform remains a strong as ever.”

“Our stamp program plays a key role in reminding all Canadians of the importance and value of their Canadian Forces. It’s a responsibility we take quite seriously,” says Moya Greene, President and CEO at Canada Post.

“These stamps will create a public awareness of the role that the Canadian Navy has played over the past 100 years,” said Vice-Admiral Dean McFadden, Chief of the Maritime Staff. “The stamps are visible, practical reminders that the country is served, in both war and peace, by the men and women of the naval service who safeguard Canada and its values.”

The Naval Service Act brought the Royal Canadian Navy into existence on May 4, 1910. HMCS Niobe, purchased from Great Britain, reached Halifax Harbour on October 21, 1910 – an arrival that signalled the Canadian Navy was a reality. When the First World War broke out, the RCN had less than 350 sailors and two warships. By the end of the Second World War, it had grown into one of the world’s greatest naval forces, with roughly 100,000 men and women and a fleet of 365 warships.

HMCS Halifax is the first of the Canadian Patrol Frigates built by Saint John Shipbuilding Ltd. in Saint John, New Brunswick. Since entering service in 1994, HMCS Halifax has served in military operations around the world – most recently, a humanitarian mission to Haiti following an earthquake in that country.

Source: articleant.com

A collection of stamps designed by T E Lawrence for his Arabian kingdom, and now owned by the Queen, will be shown to the public for the first time. Lawrence designed the stamps for the short-lived kingdom of Hijaz, in the west of modern-day Saudi Arabia, and they became part of George V's collection.

Lawrence, one of the leaders of the Arab revolt against Turkish rule during the First World War, produced the stamps in proof form as part of his efforts to support the fledgling kingdom. The blue stamp sheet, along with a handwritten note from Lawrence, will be displayed as part of the Empire Mail: George V and the GPO exhibition at Guildhall Art Gallery from May 7.

The sheet of 50 stamps were found by a member of staff at the Royal Philatelic Collection. It had been folded over so it had not been noticed before in George V's impressive collection which is thought to include enough stamps to fill more than 2,000 albums, according to The Sunday Times.

Hijaz lasted from 1916 to 1924, covering an eastern coastal area of the Red Sea.

Source: telegraph.co.uk

A FRAUDSTER who forged stamps and sold them on to unsuspecting collectors for tens of thousands of pounds has been jailed.

Robert George researched postmarks that would have been used during certain historic periods in mostly Commonwealth countries.

He would then change these postmarks, as well as forging overprints.

He also bought less expensive mint examples of stamps and altered them to enhance their resale value.

Prosecutor Tom Wright told Southampton Crown Court how 67-yearold George sold fraudulent stamps for £30,000 over an 18-month period to one unsuspecting collector.

He also sold the forged stamps on the Internet, making sure his forgeries were different to those known to the philatelic community in their extensive library of known fakes.

“The extent of the fraud can only be guessed at but plainly this was a cottage industry in enhancing the value of a very wide variety of stamps,” said Mr Wright.

“This activity debases the currency of trust and confidence that the stamp-collecting community can place upon their transactions.”

George, of Winchester Hill, Romsey, pleaded guilty to possessing items for fraudulent use, including printing dyes, copied and altered postage cancels, black polyester translucent graphics, printing proofs and ink pads.

Robert Bolton, mitigating, said: “He has always struggled financially. Even when he has been unemployed he has never claimed benefits.”

The court was told that George had eight previous offences involving stamps, recorded against him in 1988, for attempting to obtain property by deception.

Sentencing George to 21 months’ imprisonment Judge Derwen Hope said that while the prosecution was unable to calculate an exact figure for the fraud, it was likely to run into tens of thousands of pounds.

Source: thisishampshire.net

Canada Post is proud to commemorate Canada's first Olympic gold medal on Canadian soil in history by issuing a special stamp featuring the medal. This previously unannounced stamp is now available at www.canadapost.ca/celebrategold and will be available in post offices in Vancouver tomorrow and across Canada starting Tuesday. This is the first time in Canada Post's history that the company commemorates an event the day it occurs.

This evening, Canadians were treated to the experience of a lifetime when our Canadian flag was hoisted above the Olympic podium at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games. "This is a moment of pride that will live on for years to come and we, at Canada Post, wanted to put our stamp on it," says Mary Traversy, Canada Post's senior vice president of Transaction Mail. "Of course, the victory was made even sweeter by the fact the medal was won by a member of the Canada Post Freestyle Team. Canada Post sends its congratulations to Alexandre Bilodeau and the entire Freestyle National Team for a very exciting weekend." Canada Post is the title sponsor of the Canadian Freestyle Team, a six-year agreement with the Canadian Freestyle Skiing Association started in 2006 to support the training and competitive commitments of the national team.

Canada Post's Vancouver 2010 program, which includes stamps and a special set of cancels, has already captured the hearts of Canadians. More than 800 million stamps featuring the Vancouver 2010 theme have already been sold to date and the set of Vancouver 2010 cancels was just launched on Friday. Overall, 15 stamps have been created to commemorate the 2010 Winter Games.

About the Gold Medal stamp

The stamp, designed by Naomi Broudo and Violet Finvers of the Vancouver-based firm, Tandem Design, showcases a Vancouver 2010 Olympic gold medal. Gold maple leaves scattered around the booklet and souvenir sheet are a special tribute to this Canadian celebration, and a creative play on the subject of the stamp. Five million of the stamps have been printed and they will be sold in booklets of ten stamps and on souvenir sheets of two stamps.

Additional information about Canadian stamps can be found in the News section of Canada Post's website, and photos of these new stamps are also available. Stamps and other products will be available at participating post offices, or can be ordered online by following the links at canadapost.ca/celebrategold, or by mail order from the National Philatelic Centre. From Canada and the USA, call toll-free: 1 800 565-4362, and from other countries, call: 1 902 863-6550.

Source: sys-con.com

When Halloween trick-or-treaters come to Bill Britton's door in Dublin, he gives them a choice: candy or a packet of stamps.

A basic knowledge of children might lead one to think that every kid would choose a Snickers bar over a Soviet Union stamp, but Britton said that about two-thirds of children choose the stamps.

"Fourteen-year-olds come up to me and say, 'I've been coming here for 10 years,' " Britton said.

His enthusiasm was matched by that of many others at yesterday's stamp show at Veterans Memorial.

In an industry characterized by aging collectors and dwindling mail use, the future of stamp collecting was a popular topic.

Like Britton, Lib Mary Reif encourages young people to collect. The Grove City woman worked at a table where any young person could choose from a pile of hundreds of free stamps.

A promising sign for the future was 9-year-old Megan Scheck of New Albany. She had a bag full of the stamps, mostly animal, floral and food-themed.

Scheck, who was looking while her father shopped, said all the girls in her fourth-grade class collect and trade stamps.

The boys don't, she said, because "they think it's too girlie."

A student brought some stamps to class earlier in the school year, and it's taken off.

"This never gets old," Scheck said while sifting through the pile.

Jim Linker has collected stamps for 61 years and dealt them for 45 years, including 35 in Columbus. He said that about 10 percent of his customers are in their 30s or younger.

Linker said that countries' stamps are "a microcosm of what they think is important."

But on the Internet, anyone can instantly take a virtual tour of an exotic locale once seen by many only on stamps.

"All that mystique is gone," he said.

The Postal Service had a table catering to young and older customers. There was a "Distinguished Sailors" set for sale featuring famous sailors of the past, next to a sheet of stamps celebrating "The Simpsons."

"We're learning how to deal with the times," said Chris White, a Postal Service employee working at the table. "It's kind of a mixed bag -- they're trying."

Postal Service statistics show that the volume of single-piece, first-class mail -- stamped mail -- has declined by 45 percent since 1996, from 57.3 billion pieces to 31.6 billion in 2009.

In the short run, the slide in mailings doesn't have much effect on stamp collecting, said Ken Martin, the American Philatelic Society's interim executive director. The bad economy might mean that collectors have less to spend, but the decrease in mail volume doesn't make a difference, he said.

But Martin said that the declining mail volume might mean that young people get less exposure to stamps, which could hurt collecting in the long term.

For Britton, the permanency of stamps, and of the envelopes and the letters inside them, is most appealing.

"Fifty years from now, what are people going to know about 2010?" he said. "Everybody's Tweeting and texting."

Source: dispatch.com

In February 2010, sports fans and top athletes from around the globe will gather together in Vancouver, British Columbia to attend one of the world's most anticipated and widely viewed sporting events-the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. To celebrate this momentous world-class event, Canada Post today issued two stamps featuring spectacular photographs of Vancouver and Whistler.

"The design team's goal was to create a souvenir for people coming to the Vancouver Winter Games," says Jim Phillips, Canada Post's Director of Stamp Services. "These two stamps focus on the venues with an emphasis on how stunning they are and link the scenic coastal city of Vancouver with the majestic ski slopes of Whistler."

With venues stretching from the cosmopolitan streets of Vancouver to the world-class mountain resorts of Whistler and Blackcomb, visitors to the Vancouver Games will get a taste of the urban appeal and the panoramic land and seascapes for which this part of Canada is famous. The two stamps feature spectacular photographs of Vancouver and Whistler, and represent the Vancouver 2010 Sea-to-Sky theme. This theme is extended on the souvenir sheet, where the stamps are positioned between a totem pole, grounded in the land, and an orca whale in the sea. The stamps are set against a photograph of the inukshuk that is located at the peak of Whistler Mountain.

About the stamps

The stamps measure 45.25 mm x 23.25 mm (horizontal) and have simulated perforations. Lowe-Martin printed 4,550,000 stamps, which are available in booklets of ten stamps and on souvenir sheets of two stamps. The stamps are pressure sensitive and printed on Tullis Russell paper using lithography in six colours. They are general tagged on four sides. The official first day cover will be cancelled in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Additional information about Canadian stamps can be found in the News section of Canada Post's website, and photos of these new stamps are also available. Stamps and other products will be available at participating post offices, or can be ordered online by following the links at canadapost.ca/collection, or by mail order from the National Philatelic Centre. From Canada and the USA, call toll-free: 1 800 565-4362, and from other countries, call: 902 863-6550.

Source: Marketwire

Jersey Post’s first stamp issue for 2010 marks the centenary of the Girl Guides, a youth organisation with ten million members worldwide and more than 500 in the Island.

The Girl Guides were founded in 1910 by Robert Baden-Powell a lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer and founder of the Scout Movement. The new movement was first overseen by his sister, Agnes, then by his wife, Olave, who was appointed Chief Guide in 1918.

The stamps were produced with the assistance of the Island Commissioner for Girl Guiding in Jersey, Hilary Hardy, and Girlguiding UK.

Mrs Hardy said: ‘I am delighted that Jersey Post has produced a set of stamps to mark our centenary. Guiding in the Island continues to flourish, offering an up-to-date programme for the girls of today. We are part of the largest global organisation for girls and young women, and the centenary is an opportunity to celebrate the impact the organisation has had on the lives of girls and young women over the last 100 years, and continues to do so today.’

Guiding first started in Jersey in 1919, as the demand for a similar movement to the Scouts for girls and young women gained momentum throughout the British Isles. Inspired like so many women by Baden-Powell's book Scouting for Boys, two Islanders, Miss Le Cornu and Miss Luce started the first two Guide units at the Ladies College (now Jersey College for Girls). Today, local membership stands at more than 500 with six Rainbow Units, 16 Brownie Units, eight Guide Units and one Ranger unit.

The stamps were painted by artist Colleen Corlett - who is based in the Isle of Man – from photographs supplied by Mrs Hardy and show guiding activities in the Island. The stamps depict the following themes: healthy lifestyles, global awareness, skills and relationships, celebrating diversity and discovery.

Philatelic Researcher, Susanne Lowman, thanked Mrs Hardy and Girl Guiding UK who kindly gave Jersey Post permission to use the picture of Agnes Baden-Powell on the First Day Cover envelope alongside Olave Baden-Powell.

Mrs Lowman said: ‘Although Lord Baden-Powell’s wife, Olave, was appointed Chief Guide in 1918, it is important to also recognise the key role of Agnes, who helped her brother found the association, then wrote a scheme for girls and implemented it. Girl Guiding UK also allowed Jersey Post to portray various badges, neckerchiefs and the specially commissioned centenary branding on the stamp products.’

Mrs Hardy said that she was thrilled with the quality and amount of detail captured in the stamps.

‘The brightly designed stamps not only reflect guiding in 2010 - a modern and relevant organisation appealing to the girls of the 21st century – they are a lasting memory of our centenary year for all of us here in Jersey, and my thanks goes to everyone who has been involved in this stamp issue,’ she said.

Source: ifcfeed.com

The Stamp and Its Invert Commemorate the 1959 St. Lawrence Seaway

The Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum will host the eighth annual Maynard Sundman Lecture, “The First Canada-U.S. Joint Issue: The 1959 St. Lawrence Seaway Commemorative and Its Famous Invert,” Saturday, Feb. 6, at 1 p.m. with guest speaker Charles Verge.

The United States and Canada issued stamps in 1959 commemorating the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Verge, a historian and award-winning philatelic expert, will share fascinating stories behind the stamps, which took as long to plan and produce as the seaway itself and resulted in the first invert error on Canadian postage. A book signing and reception will follow the lecture.

Verge is the past president of the Royal Philatelic Society of Canada and the American Association of Philatelic Exhibitors, curator of the Canadian National Stamp Collection and a prolific writer, exhibitor and judge. He has written three books and more than 200 articles related to philately in newspapers, specialized magazines and general publications. He is a member of local, national and international philatelic organizations. Verge has been honored as a fellow of the Royal Philatelic Society London and received the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002 for
his achievements.

The museum’s Maynard Sundman Lecture Series was established in 2002 through a donation by his sons, David and Donald. The Sundman lectures feature talks by authors and expert philatelists on stamps and stamp collecting. For those not able to attend the lecture, it can be viewed live at www.postalmuseum.si.edu/programs.

The National Postal Museum is devoted to presenting the colorful and engaging history of the nation’s mail service and showcasing one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of stamps and philatelic material in the world. It is located at 2 Massachusetts Avenue N.E ., Washington, D.C ., across from Union Station. The museum is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. (closed Dec. 25). For more information about the Smithsonian, please call (202) 633-1000 or TTY (202) 633-5285. Museum Web site: www.postalmuseum.si.edu.

Source: 7thspace.com

With the economy souring, many people have turned to newer, cheaper hobbies, including old standards such as stamp collecting.

Stamp collecting has surged in popularity in recent months, with eBay reporting a 30% increase in stamp sales and Britain's Royal Philatelic Society claiming a significant rise in membership.

This rise in popularity is also bringing celebrity stamp collectors out of the woodwork. One of these collectors is tennis star Maria Sharapova.

While Sharapova does not fit with the image of the typical stamp collector, she has actually gathered postage since she was a child.

Maria Sharapova told the London Evening Standard, "It is something introduced to me when I was very young. I have been very lucky over the years to travel to some amazing countries and I always try to collect stamps from every place I go. I am hoping one day that I will be able to hand my collection over to my kids.”

Sharapova recently got the chance to expand her collection when she traveled to Chile for a tennis exhibition and fashion show.

Source: examiner.com

For the second year MaltaPost has participated in the SEPAC joint issue. The theme chosen by SEPAC for this year was scenery which consisted of artworks or photos from each country member of SEPAC.



From this set MaltaPost chose a stamp that was included in a presentation pack issued by all SEPAC members. SEPAC (Small European Postal Administrations’ Cooperation) is a group of small postal administrations that, once a year, produces a set of stamps with the same theme. These postal administrations must be European and must have more than 50 per cent foreign clients. But how did SEPAC begin? In 1994 the Philatelist Paolo de Rosa started organising his annual conferences to discuss all the necessities of the small postal entities. All small European postal administrations started organising conferences in 1999 and all De Rosa’s delegates attended to these conferences. Through the years SEPAC has grown to such an extent that in 2005 and 2006 there were two conferences.



In 2007 there were 11 members that issued a joint issue with a theme that will remain the same till 2011. SEPAC has also an official logo for the use of its members. This logo was shown for the first time on the 2007 joint issue. Members of SEPAC are Aland Post, Faroe Islands Post, Gibraltar Philatelic Bureau, Post Greenland, Guernsey Post, Iceland Post, Isle of Man Post, Jersey Post, Liechtenstein Post Corporation, MaltaPost, Monaco Post, San Marino Post and Luxembourg Post.



MaltaPost’s Philatelic Bureau issued a set of four stamps on Wednesday 16 September portraying typical scenes from the Maltese landscape entitled scenery. These stamps portrayed four spectacular scenes which are: The powerful rough seas at Qbajjar Gozo, the Gnejna watchtower built by the Knights of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, the salt pans at Qbajjar Gozo and a view of the Ggantija Temples in Gozo. The stamps carried a face value of e0.02, e0.07, e0.37 and e1.02 respectively. These stamps have been designed by Stefan Attard and are 44.0mm by 31.0mm in size. All stamps have been offset printed on Maltese Crosses watermarked paper by Printex Limited and are available in sheets of 10. The e0.37 stamp depicting the Qbajjar salt pans formed part of the joint stamp issue in the SEPAC collection.

Source: independent.com.mt

The artwork that will grace the 2010-11 Federal Duck Stamp has been chosen.

The beautifully detailed painting of an American wigeon done by Waldorf, Md., artist Robert Bealle was selected from 224 entries in the oldest wildlife art contest in America. (The contest dates back to 1949 -- earlier stamps were done by commissioned artists.)

"The magnitude of this moment has not escaped me," Bealle said. "I'm so humbled and appreciative of this, I just don't know what to say."

The stamp, produced by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which all waterfowl hunters age 16 and older must possess, will go on sale in late June for $15. The stamps also allow free admission to any public national wildlife refuge.

Purchase of the stamps, also prized by philatelists, birding enthusiasts and conservationists, helps to support migratory bird habitat, raising about $25 million annually to fund the acquisition and preservation of wetlands for the National Wildlife Refuge system.

Source: latimes.com

With the help of his wife, daughter and grandchildren, Alan Roy spent 70 years painstakingly peeling off about two million stamps from envelopes.

The industrial-scale operation involved the family spending hours soaking thousands of the envelopes in water and carefully lifting the stamps off with tweezers.

Mr Roy would then meticulously dry them by lining them up in rows on kitchen cooling trays that snaked around the family's two-bedroomed flat.

His collection is so vast that it fills up 40 packing crates that stack as high as a house.

There are stamps from all over the globe and marking numerous historical events such as Olympic Games and World Cups.

Now, following Mr Roy's recent death aged 76, his family say they never want to see another stamp again and are selling the collection.

The stockpile is so great it could make them tens of thousands of pounds.

They are also having to be sold over a series of auctions as they would flood the market and cause stamp prices to plummet if they were made available in one go.

His daughter Janette Dorrell, 50, from Poole, Dorset, said her late father's hobby was the bane of her childhood.

She said: "You could say that I never want to see another stamp ever again.

"Dad started when he was very young, long before he became a postman, and it just grew and grew, it was relentless.

"I grew up surrounded by stamps. He used to get sacks and sacks of used envelopes delivered to the flat from various contacts from around the world and he used my old baby bath to peel them off.

"We had to put the bits of paper with the stamps on in the warm water and leave them for 20 minutes and let them detach.

"We then used tweezers to hook out each stamp very, very carefully and put them in rows on blotting paper placed on kitchen cooling trays and left them on the lounge floor to dry.

"There would be row after row of these trays and we had to be very careful where we trod or when we opened the door.

"The stamps were put in bundles of 100 and then packs of 1,000. He was very meticulous and labelled them ready for sale.

"As soon as I moved out and married when I was 21 he filled my old room up with his stamps.

"When I left my mother took over as the main helper but he often roped in my two twin daughters to help.

"He was going to sell them after he retired but he didn't get around to it and died.

"We are selling them now for him, that is what he wanted and what he was striving towards.

"But it is a huge emotional thing as well as they are so many memories of my father attached to these stamps."

The auctioneers selling them don't know for sure how many stamps there are as it is impossible to count them, but the collection is up to two million.

On average Mr Roy knocked out 80 stamps per day or nearly 30,000 per year.

Auctioneer David Elliott has been unable to put a true value on them because he is unable to complete the time consuming task of cataloguing them.

He said there are about one million stamps from Britain, 500,000 from Ireland, 400,000 from the rest of the world and 50,000 Christmas themed stamps and all dating back 70 years.

He said: "He was trying to sort them and catalogue them so he could sell them in little packs but he sadly died before he could finish it.

"This just consumed his life. It would take us another 70 years to thoroughly break them down so we are just going to break them up in marketable lots, like stamps from Ireland or ones relating to Christmas, and sell them in packs or boxes of several thousand.

"We expect to sell them to large stamp dealers who will have the resources to finish Mr Roy's work and organise them.

"It's a colossal amount of stamps. I've never seen anything like it."

Hugh Jeffries, editor of the stamp magazine Gibbons Stamp Monthly, said: "It's enormous and may well be one of the biggest collections, certainly by an individual.

"It is very uncommon to collect stamps in this manner. He has obviously gone for quantity over the individual rarity of stamps.

"But having done it that way, there is a very good chance of there being a few hidden gems in there. It will be a bit of a gamble for the dealers who buy them but it could quite easily pay off."

The first auction takes place at Elliotts of Wimborne, Dorset, on November 28.

Source: telegraph.co.uk

A unique collection of stamps marking key moments in NATO’s history are on display today at NATO Headquarters. The Croatian Atlantic Council brought the exhibition to Brussels after touring Dubrovnik and Zagreb.

Over the years, dozens of stamps have been issued across allied countries, commemorating their entry to NATO, anniversaries, summits, elections, and so on. The oldest stamp was issued when the Atlantic Charter was announced by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt on 14 August 1941. The first NATO stamp was issued by the United States on the eve of the Organization’s third anniversary.

The newest stamps, issued by the Croatian Post Office, mark Croatia’s accession to NATO in April 2009.

Prof. Radovan Vukadinovic, President of the Croatian Atlantic Council, and Dr Stefanie Babst, Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy, opened the exhibition, which is supported by the Croatian Delegation to NATO, NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division and the Belgian Philatelic Association. Also present was Ambassador Igor Pokaz, Permanent Representative of Croatia's Delegation to NATO.

Source: nato.int

HONG KONG -- In 1873, a clerk at the Boston, Massachusetts, head office of the Tudor Ice Company pasted three postage stamps to the front of an ordinary-looking envelope that ultimately would travel halfway around the world, via London, Brindisi, Alexandria and Bombay, to the company's storage facility in Calcutta, India.

Within a few decades, the envelope and its three bicolor stamps had captured the imagination of serious collectors. The Ice House cover, as it came to be known in philatelic circles -- "cover" refers to a stamp attached to an envelope -- was the only known example of an envelope bearing a rare 90-cent, full-face portrait of Abraham Lincoln. While the 1869 Lincoln stamp on its own was never worth more than a few thousand dollars, the unique Ice House cover was highly prized as early as the turn of the 20th century.

Over time, as the envelope with its curling script passed through the hands of several U.S. collectors, its value and reputation grew, and its story became more intriguing. In 1967, burglars broke into the Indiana home of a steel magnate, J. David Baker, and stole his stamp collection, including the Ice House cover. The precious envelope -- Mr. Baker paid $6,500 for it in 1964 -- was missing for almost three decades until an elderly couple stumbled on it along with a bundle of stamps while cleaning out the house of a deceased friend in 2006. The couple was cleared of all wrongdoing and the Ice House cover was returned to the Baker family.

Last June, when the Ice House cover went up for sale, the bidding at Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries was feverish, and offers came in from every corner of the world. In the end, the winning bid, a staggering $431,250, plus a 15% buyer's premium that brought the cost to almost half a million dollars, went to a Hong Kong physician and stamp collector, Arthur K.M. Woo.

Dr. Woo's bid was no record breaker. Siegel, a 130-year-old stamp auction house in New York, cites recent examples of several stamps that have sold for more than $1 million. But the sale points to a geographic shift in philately, which until now had centered mostly on collectors in the West: Asians from China to India to Japan are emerging as serious buyers willing to fork over large sums for sought-after stamps, thanks in part to rising fortunes in the region, as well as the ease with which fledgling collectors can now get access to stamp dealers, auction houses and philatelic societies thanks to the Internet. This burgeoning group also is helping to lift the nascent market for stamps from Asia, at a time when the value of stamps from other regions is drooping.

"In the U.S. and U.K., stamps, like other collectibles, have fallen in value during the past two years because of the financial crisis. This has not been the case in China, or other Asian markets, based upon bidding at our auctions," says Louis Mangin, director of Hong Kong-based stamp broker Zurich Asia. Just last week at a Zurich Asia auction in Hong Kong, a rare Chinese stamp from 1897 sold for HK$2,587,500 (about $334,000), including a 15% buyer's premium. The sale, to an anonymous buyer from China, set a world auction record price for a single Chinese stamp.

Despite the weaker global economy, a time when many have been forced to watch their spending, stamp collectors haven't lost their enthusiasm for "passion investing."

Frowned upon in China as a bourgeois pastime during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), stamp collecting there has become popular in recent years. China's National Post and Postage Stamp Museum opened in Beijing in 1985 and collecting was actively encouraged by the government, possibly to promote a patriotic interest in the nation's history. By some estimates, there are now 15 million active stamp collectors in China, out of 50 million world-wide.

Chinese collectors, especially those who lived through the Cultural Revolution, favor the colorful stamps, many featuring portraits of Chairman Mao Zedong, issued during that politically chaotic period. They were printed in great numbers and most remain relatively inexpensive, though some of the rarer issues go for hundreds and thousands of dollars. A few, which were withdrawn from circulation before being widely distributed, now sell for tens of thousands of dollars. Other sought-after stamps are those issued in areas of China that were under Communist control before the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949.

In April, the central Chinese city of Luoyang hosted the World Stamp Exhibition, the Olympics of philately, a decade after Beijing hosted the event for the first time in China in 1999. Visitor numbers for April's seven-day fair were said to have been in the hundreds of thousands. And the line to see the Royal Philatelic Collection -- one of the world's finest, started by King George V and carried on by succeeding British monarchs -- encircled the exhibition hall day after day.

"The people (in Luoyang) went crazy," says Andrew Cheng, chairman of the Hong Kong Philatelic Society. "They were not all rich people, but they were just buying everything. The masses, you just would not believe it. And compared to 1999, you've got a lot more serious collections by mainlanders."

China isn't the only hotbed of philatelic activity in Asia. Spink, a London-based auctioneer, held its first annual stamp auctions in Singapore and Hong Kong in 1997. "Each year we see new collectors emerging in Singapore and Malaysia leading to higher prices," says Tim Hirsch, Spink's managing director of global auctions. In Singapore in July, an auction of "Stamps of South East Asia" generated sales of about $1 million, "a fantastic sum," says Mr. Hirsch. The sale featured, among other rarities, a sheet of "Four Cents" stamps from the Straits Settlements -- the former British colony in Southeast Asia -- from March 1899, which sold for about $41,600.

Philately has its origins in the 1860s (the word was coined in 1864), when the first stamp catalogs -- complete listings of published stamps -- were issued in France and England. Back then, there were about 2,400 varieties; today there are more than 200,000, far too many for a single collector to amass. Most collectors tend to specialize in stamps of a single country, continent, subject or period of time. The rarer the stamp, the more valuable it is: Those issued between 1840 -- when the first postage stamp was printed in England -- and 1875 are the most rare and thus, the most valuable. Stamps with errors, such as the 1918 U.S. 24-cent airmail stamp with an airplane pictured upside down, are also valuable. And entire collections, when sold as one set, can fetch millions.

It can take years to build a valuable portfolio of stamps. But budding collectors who want instant gratification can now buy prepackaged portfolios from dealers such as venerable London broker Stanley Gibbons. The minimum investment in these portfolios is £10,000 (about $16,600), though the average investment is about $50,000. Each portfolio includes some "blue chip" stamps -- well regarded, expensive and expected to generate stable returns -- as well as other stamps from emerging markets that aren't worth much now but might be later.

Geoff Anandappa, a portfolio manager with Stanley Gibbons, says the firm has pulled in about $62 million in collectibles portfolios, which include autographs and other collectibles. Now he's hoping that Asian stamp enthusiasts will push that figure even higher. In the past 12 months, he has signed up Asian investment advisers to market the portfolios, including Wealth Management Group in Hong Kong and Pemberton Investments in Singapore.

"In Asia, you find that a lot of doctors, lawyers, architects and so on are collectors. It's seen as a hobby that a lot of professional people do, not as something for children, which is the way it has been in the West," says Mr. Anandappa. "When you talk to people (here), they know that stamps can be very valuable."

Source: wsj.com

Bill Gross, the founder of Pacific Investment Management Co. and an avid stamp collector, has given $8 million to the National Postal Museum in Washington to create a gallery that will exhibit some of his most prized acquisitions.

The 12,000-square-foot William H. Gross Stamp Gallery will house three rare items on loan from his collection, including a letter-carrying envelope from the Pony Express service.

Gross, 65, also will loan the museum a block of four 1918 “Inverted Jennys,” which were blue biplanes mistakenly printed upside down. The Inverted Jenny is the most famous U.S. stamp.

“Stamp collecting has been such a rewarding and educational hobby for me that I wanted to share the joys of philately in a way that would benefit future generations of students, citizens and scholars,” Gross said in a press announcement.

The gift will help fund the first expansion of the 16- year-old museum, which is a part of the Smithsonian Institution. The Gross gallery is scheduled to be completed in 2012, museum spokeswoman Meradyth Moore said in a phone interview. The National Philatelic Collection comprises more than 6 million stamps and related objects, including more than 5,000 stamps in the National Stamp Collection.

“Stamps are sort of a window into the history, heritage and heroes of the United States,” Allen Kane, the museum’s director, said in a phone interview. “We don’t have the space currently to display all these great items, and this gift enables us to attract new visitors.”

Gross, who runs the world’s biggest bond fund at the Newport Beach, California-based Pimco, has been a collector for years. In 2007, he auctioned off a rare British stamp collection for $9.1 million and donated the proceeds to Doctors without Borders.

Source: bloomberg.com

When HMS Blyth anchored at Barry Waterfront recently the crew and local young sea cadets took on board a challenge – helping launch a new set of stamps for Royal Mail.

The mine sweeper sailed into South Wales as part of a seafaring celebration at Barry Docks, and the crew was delighted to be involved in the philatelic salute to the history of the Royal Navy, via the Royal Navy Uniform stamps.

A group of Barry Sea Cadets, touring the impressive ship, took part in the stamp launch, holding giant stamps and standing alongside crew members of HMS Blyth. Among them were Barry sea cadets Daniel Davies, 14; Samantha Chambers, 14; Ian Crapnell, 14; Dan Cooper, 17 and Samantha Munson, 15, who are all eager to follow a naval career.

HMS Blyth crew members included Lieutenant Commander Des Donworth, Lieutenant Lee Aitken and Petty Officer Al Gibb.

Lieutenant Commander Donworth said: "This is a very impressive set of stamps and we are honoured to take part in the launch.

"We came down from our base in Glasgow to be part of the celebration at Barry Waterfront and this is an added bonus. It makes a pleasant change from our normal routine of mine sweeping off the mainland and being deployed in the Gulf."

The Royal Navy Uniform stamps are part of a series of military history, which began in 2007 with British Army uniforms and continued in 2008 with the Royal Air Force. The stamps are on sale now.

Source: barryanddistrictnews.co.uk

Craig Townend, from Rotherham, burst into philatelist Steven Bennett's seaside home last July with an accomplice and stole the £400,000 collection.

Townend was on parole when he forced Mr Bennett and his sons into hoods and handcuffs. In 2000 he was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for taking paintings worth £1.7 million from the York City Art Gallery.

A judge at Exeter Crown Court jailed Townend, 39, for life today for the latest raid. He will serve a minimum term of 10 years inside.

Townend and his accomplice - who has not been caught - were armed with handguns and wore police uniforms when they went to the stamp dealer's home in Torquay last summer.

The pair forced the collector to his knees with a weapon pointed at the back of his head, the court heard.

Mr Bennett and his two sons James and Timothy, were then bound, handcuffed and had hoods put over their heads before the robbers fled with the stamps.

Townend was found guilty of armed robbery, possessing a firearm with intent to commit robbery and three charges of falsely imprisoning Mr Bennett and his two sons on July 21, 2008.

He was given a life term on all counts, with the sentences to run concurrently.

At an earlier hearing the court heard that days after the robbery Mr Bennett received a death threat and a demand for £50,000.

He said the collection was not insured but was impossible to sell as all the stamps were known through his catalogues.

He said dealers were notified through the Philatelic Trade Society's Red Call alert system and he also rang round dealers he knew, telling them what had happened.

Townend was arrested after seven stamps appeared for sale on the auction website eBay and four of those were identified as coming from the Bennett collection.

Townend was convicted in 2000 for a raid at the York City Art Gallery.

He and an accomplice wore balaclavas and forced staff to lie face-down on the floor, where they were bound with cable ties.

Twenty pictures worth £1.7 million were then stolen by the raiders, although they were all later recovered.

He was convicted of armed robbery and possessing a firearm with intent to commit a robbery.

Source: yorkshirepost.co.uk

The Falkland Islands Philatelic Bureau has announced their new website. “We're so impressed with it and have told our friends,” says the website. FINN says the website is a “must read” site, especially if you are into philately. It allows the Philatelic staff here in the Falklands to place the new stamps up here as quickly as possible. We are planning many new features to the site over the next 12 months including a shopping cart.

If you want the site to have anything else please feel free to contact the Philatelic Bureau in Stanley and tell them.

This website is located at: http://www.falklandstamps.com

Source: sartma.com

“THE LONGEST letter in the world addressed to Santa Claus is to be displayed in the National Philatelic Museum in Bucharest on 15 August.
The letter is entitled ‘Saving our forests to save our youth’ and was written over a period of nine days by 2,110 children from Romanian schools at the end of last year.”

“The letter is 1,355 feet long and weighs an incredible 220 pounds and arrived in Rovaniemi, Finland in time for Christmas last year … The World Record letter was officially approved on 18 December 2008.”

Source: helsinkitimes.fi

“Her Majesty’s Stamps,” an exhibition now on view at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, Quebec, gives Canadian stamp enthusiasts a unique opportunity to view early stamps from Britain and Canada.

The collection, which is housed in St. James's Palace in London and includes 400 items, is considered to be the finest compilation of British and Commonwealth stamps in the world, according to the museum.

Queen Victoria’s second son, Prince Albert, was the first known member of the royal family to collect stamps. King George V was the one who built up the collection and in 1904 paid a record sum—approximately $2,600—for a Two Pence “Post Office” Mauritius of 1847. He was one of the most renowned stamp collectors of his day.

From 1840 to 1900 Queen Victoria’s portrait was the only subject on British stamps. The Twopenny Blue along with the Penny Black, the world’s first stamp which came into use in 1840, also featured the image of a young Queen Victoria.

While these, along with a sheet of 10 Penny Blacks acquired by the Queen in 2001 and estimated to be worth around $2 million, form the centrepiece of the exhibition, there are other rare stamps from Britain and Canada, said Bianca Gendreau, Curator of the Canadian Postal Museum.

“Visitors won’t want to miss many other famous but rarely seen pieces, such as an album of Canadian stamps commemorating Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897, and the first Canadian postage stamp, the Three Penny Beaver designed by Sir Sandford Fleming in 1851,” she said.

The Three Pence Beaver was issued on April 23, 1851, and marked the first time any image other than that of the Queen was shown on a stamp. It was over breakfast with Postmaster General James Morris that Fleming suggested the beaver as a motif for the first Canadian postage stamp. The beaver represented the industry, ingenuity, and perseverance of the fledgling country.

The collection also includes rare stamps depicting New Brunswick’s postmaster general Charles Connell who, in anticipation of the adoption of the decimal system by New Brunswick, ordered new stamps in 1959. However, he had his own likeness featured on the Five Cent stamp which caused an upset and led to Connell’s resignation and the destruction of most of the stamps.

King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II both contributed to what is known as The Royal Philatelic Collection. It is not on general public display because of the fragility of its contents. So Canadians should consider themselves privileged.

“Her Majesty the Queen has entrusted the Canadian Museum of Civilization with these treasures from her personal collection,” said Victor Rabinovitch, president and CEO of the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation.

A presentation of Canada Post, the exhibition is divided into four sections: A Royal Collection, The Birth of the Modern British Post, Canada Gains Its Postal Authority, and Canadian Treasures.

Today, the United Kingdom is the only country whose postage stamps do not feature the name of the issuing country, for the simple reason that the U.K. was the first country to produce stamps.

Notes from the museum explain that the word “philately,” coined in 1864, comes from the Greek words “philos” or friend, and “ateleia,” which means exempt from duties and taxes. Stamps confirm pre-payment of postal fees and exemption from any further charge.

The exhibition runs until January 3, 2010.

Source: theepochtimes.com/

Despite difficult financial times the lure of quality philatelic material was enough to bring in a record number of buyers to the Stanley Gibbons bi-annual auction held on 19th June, resulting in some fantastic realisations.

The auction was what we call a ‘double header’, consisting of two separate auctions: British Commonwealth and Foreign material being sold in the morning session and Great Britain material featuring in the afternoon session.

Nearly 1500 lots were auctioned on the day covering rare and not-so-rare stamps, First Day Covers (FDC’s), errors and varieties, collections and postal history.

In the Great Britain auction King George V, King Edward VIII and King George VI booklets were very popular with all lots sold and over 80% of lots achieving more than the catalogue estimates.

A collection housed in a two-volume New Imperial Album sold in the British Commonwealth and Foreign auction for a combined price of £50,000 and a rare positional block of six 8d purple-browns realised £40,500.

Collections also proved popular, with a third selling over estimate and 15% achieving more than double their pre-auction estimates. Lot 389, a Malayan 1c colour trial in grey-green and black (SG 139), did exceptionally well; estimated at £150-170, the item sold on the day for nearly four times estimate at £600.

The two auctions combined achieved impressive results with 35% of lots sold exceeding estimate.

As alternative investments receive more and more attention from learned investors, stamps, inevitably, have come to the forefront of investors' minds, with interest fuelled by the long-term stability of the market, the solid worldwide collector base upon which it is founded and the fact that stamps offer a portability superior to any other tangible investment.

Selling at auction is just one of the exit options available to investors with a Stanley Gibbons Guaranteed Minimum Return Contract. These contracts offer guaranteed returns of up to 5% p.a. and an unlimited upside. The results of this auction suggests that the guaranteed return may be the last thing on an investor’s mind as collectors are clearly paying big prices for top end material; positive signs that the rare stamp market is holding its own despite shakes in the wider financial markets.

Exciting times lay ahead for the stamp market. Those who invest in quality items today can hope to see excellent returns over the next ten years as classic stock becomes increasingly hard to find – even ‘mature’ i.e. worn, examples are attracting keen bidding.

It is for these reasons that investors should seriously consider diversifying into the rare stamps and collectibles market.

Stanley Gibbons offer a range of investment products that are carefully tailored to enable collectors and investors to make healthy returns in the investment market regardless of knowledge, experience or funds.

Source: proactiveinvestors.co.uk

Today, Canada Post issued a quartet of stamps to celebrate the efforts of four musicians who made remarkable contributions to the Canadian music scene: international rock superstar Bryan Adams, renowned folklorist Stompin' Tom Connors, pioneer in French-Canadian rock, Robert Charlebois, and Acadian singing sensation Edith Butler.

"A sequel to our very popular 2007 Canadian Recording Artists(i) series, these stamps showcase four individuals who helped build today's thriving Canadian music industry," said Robert Waite, Chairman of the Stamp Advisory Committee and Senior vice-president, Corporate Social Responsibility at Canada Post. "As a Global Superstar, Bryan Adams took Canadian music around the world and helped develop an infrastructure to propel other Canadians to the top of the charts. Stompin' Tom Connors protested the policies he felt were hindering Canada's artistic potential with songs that have become Canadian anthems. Robert Charlebois gave voice to and furthered the development of the chanson, and Edith Butler promoted a familiarity with and appreciation for Acadian culture in Canada and around the world. Together, these four artists have written a text book for music industry success."

The stamps are square in format, and feature a monochromatic photo of each artist alongside his or her Order of Canada insignia. To reflect the stardom of these "living legends," each is captured in the limelight by using close-cropped images that make it look like they are standing in a spotlight. The two cancellation sites of Timmins, Ontario and Paquetville, New Brunswick were chosen because of their relevance to these Canadian icons: Timmins is where Stompin' Tom Connors was first recognized, and Paquetville is the small Acadian village where Edith Butler was born and raised.

About the stamps

Each of the four 54-cent stamps measures 32 mm x 32 mm (square) with simulated perforations. Lowe-Martin printed four million stamps, which are sold in a booklet of eight and 275,000 souvenir sheets containing 4 PVA gum stamps presented in a CD-shape. The pressure-sensitive stamps were printed using lithography in nine colours plus varnish on Tullis Russell paper. They are general tagged on four sides.

Source: pr-use.net

It's the philatelic version of the Land of Lincoln: A collection of some 10,000 stamps, all featuring the nation's 16th president, is going on the auction block this week.

The collection, painstakingly amassed by an admirer of Abraham Lincoln, carries a pre-sale price estimate of more than $2 million, according to Dallas-based Spink Shreves Galleries, which is holding the auction Friday in New York City.

The stamps, some from as far back as the 1860s, all come from the U.S. or its current or former possessions, including Guam and the Philippines. It includes everything from preproduction items like proofs to stamps that were affixed to envelopes and sent around the world.

"If you're a Lincoln stamp collector, you'd be very interested in this collection," said Rick Miller, senior editor at Sidney, Ohio-based Linn's Stamp News. "It's a great Lincoln collection."

The sale comes just weeks after the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth, and Charles Shreve, auction house president, says it has generated worldwide interest.

Among the highlights is a proof of a block of eight 90-cent stamps of Lincoln with his image accidentally printed upside-down. The block, one of only two known, is expected to sell for $30,000 to $50,000, Shreve said.

"Some guy just happened to take one of those sheets and slip it in (to the printing press) upside down," said the owner of the collection, William J. Ainsworth.

Ainsworth, 67, who lives in Roswell, Ga., said that as a child he would watch his father work on his stamp collection. His father died when he was 12, and his mother later gave the collection to him.

That collection was destroyed in a flood in the mid-1970s and Ainsworth's interest in stamps temporarily cooled. A couple of years later, though, then-postmaster general Benjamin F. Bailar, whom he had met through a friend, helped rekindle his interest, suggesting he give his collection a focus.

For Ainsworth, who admired Lincoln and was then living in Illinois, the choice seemed obvious.

"The whole thing just came together," said Ainsworth, who has exhibited the collection throughout the world.

Ainsworth, a retired partner at accounting firm KPMG, said stamp collecting provided him with an escape from his high-stress job. Parting with something that has brought him so much joy is bittersweet, he said, but it's also exciting to see the interest it's generated.

"It's my time to pass it on," he said.

Source: AP

Stamps of 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac have been issued in more than 80 countries over 59 years to become the world's longest-running stamp theme, according to a report Wednesday.

Since 1950, these countries have issued more than 2,000 stamps depicting the traditional Chinese Zodiac animal signs, or "shengxiao", said Zhou Zhihua, senior member of All-China Philatelic Federation, at the ongoing World Stamp Exhibition in Luoyang City in central China's Henan Province.

About 2,000 years ago, the Chinese began to use 12 animals in a cycle to represent the lunar years. The zodiac sequence starts with rat, followed by ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig.

"Japan, which shares the traditional culture with China, issued the world's earliest shengxiao stamp in 1950. It was a tiger design," he said. "From then on, the Republic of Korea and other Asian countries followed Japan to issue shengxiao stamps."

In 1980, China issued its first shengxiao stamp with a golden monkey design.

"The stamp was only 0.08 yuan (about 1 U.S. cent), but the value has surged to about 4,000 yuan now. That's a whopping 50,000 times!" Zhou said.

Despite the Chinese origin of the shengxiao, a dozen of the countries neighboring China have the same custom, which influences a population of nearly two billion. People without the custom also have growing interests in shengxiao philately. The United States issued the stamp of rooster in 1993. France issued an ox stamp this year, he said.

Zhou said the issuance day of shengxiao stamps has become a "festival for stamp lovers," some of whom queue for more than 10 hours to buy just a few stamps in the morning.

"Some foreign collectors never came to China, but they told me they know under which animal signs they were born. The shengxiao stamps are a cultural ambassador for the Chinese people."

Source: xinhuanet.com/

Today, Canada Post issued two domestic rate stamps (54-cent) as part of an international postal awareness campaign on the effects of global warming. The theme of the campaign is "Preserve the Polar Regions and Glaciers." Canada Post's contribution to this omnibus issue focuses on the risk to Arctic animal habitats.

As polar ice melts, many animals are in danger of extinction as their natural habitats disappear, their food chain is disrupted and their migratory patterns are disturbed. "Canada Post is proud to be one of 27 postal administrations participating in this international awareness campaign, which was initiated by Chili and Finland", said Alain Leduc, Canada Post Manager of Stamp Products. "We know that Canadians are very concerned about the environment, so it seems only fitting that we are participating in this important stamp issue that involved countries from around the globe."

Both stamps feature spectacular wildlife photograph. One depicts the regal polar bear, whose habitat is already at risk. The second stamp features the majestic Arctic Tern, which serves as a link between North and South Poles, since it migrates every year between the two.

"The stamps show the brilliant work of photographers Amanda Byrd, Michael Quinton, Paul Nicken, Arthur Morris, Ralph Eldridge and Jan Will," said stamp designer Tiit Telmet of Toronto's Telmet Design Associates. In addition to the polar bear and Arctic Tern, the Official First Day Cover showcases penguins in the Antarctic, while the souvenir sheet includes photos of the Arctic Fox and Antarctica's Emperor Penguins.

About the stamps

The 54-cent stamps each measure 42 mm x 28 mm (horizontal) with 13+ perforations. Lowe-Martin printed 2 million stamps that will be sold in a pane of 16. The P.V.A. gum stamps will be printed using lithography in six colours on Tullis Russell paper. They are general tagged on all sides. The Official First Day Cover will bear the cancel EUREKA NUNAVUT, the home of Canada's most northerly post office.

Additional information about Canadian stamps can be found in the News section of Canada Post's website, and photos of these new stamps are also available. Stamps and other products will be available at participating post offices, or can be ordered online by following the links at Canada Post's website www.canadapost.ca/collection, or by mail order from the National Philatelic Centre. From Canada and the USA, call toll-free: 1 800 565-4362, and from other countries, call: 902 863-6550.

Source: pr-canada.net

The world's first airmail envelope, which piqued the interest of the French president, has been sold by a New Zealand dealer for almost $250,000.

The 140-year-old stamped envelope, mailed from France to Australia, was auctioned in Sydney this week by an Otaki dealer. It was originally valued at $61,732, but fetched a record-breaking $238,625.

In a daring bid to deliver the world's first airmail, letters were taken out of Paris by hot air balloon as the city was besieged during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. They were then delivered by sea.

The history behind the 1870 Siege of Paris Balloon Post Cover captured the attention of France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, who requested an auction list.

The collectable was bought by a French dealer, who flew in for the auction. The price was a record for any philatelic item sold in Australia or New Zealand.

Mowbray Collectables sold the envelope on behalf of an Australian, who had owned it for 20 to 30 years.

Managing director John Mowbray said: "This envelope is an example of the world's first airmail, and only one Paris Balloon Post Cover addressed to Australia is known."

He said the price fetched was not a surprise given the item's rarity and the fact that stamps were drawing very good prices.

Meanwhile, police are investigating the theft of an $80,000 stamp collection from Lower Hutt's Horticultural Hall on Sunday.

During an event at the hall, owner Bill Leggett turned his back for a few seconds then found his prized collection had been stolen. No arrests have yet been made.

Source: stuff.co.nz

A set of rare Two Penny Blue stamps which once belonged to the Queen have sold for more than £200,000 at auction.

The dozen 1840 Two Pence Blues - the sister stamp to the Penny Black - was bought by an anonymous telephone bidder from Spink auctioneers.

Although they have changed hands several times, they once belonged to the monarch as part of her Royal Philatelic Collection.

Dominic Savastano, stamp specialist at Spink, said: "They're rather nice. They have some creases and a tear but it's still an outstandingly rare block.

"We sold them originally for the Queen in 2003 but since then they have changed hands a couple of times."

He added: "They're the sister to the Penny Black, coming out at the same time."

Housed in St James's Palace, the Royal Philatelic is said to be the world's most comprehensive collection of postage stamps in Great Britain and the Commonwealth.

Starting in the early 19th century, it was put together and then added to by Royal stamp enthusiasts, most notably Queen Victoria's second son Prince Alfred and King George V.

Unlike the Crown Jewels and the Royal residences, the Royal Philatelic Collection is privately owned by the Queen, rather than belonging to the nation.

The 12 stamps, which would have originally been from a sheet of 240, sold for £207,100 including buyer's premium.

Source: ukpress

Electricity is an unusual interest for an eight-year-old girl. But power’s become the new focus of Amy Rosenfeldt’s stamp collection.

"I do like to collect stamps of the Queen, roses and butterflies and moths and I’ve started to collect electricity stamps,’ she says.

The year 4 Papatoetoe West School student had to select a theme for her stamp collection entry at the South Auckland Philatelic Society’s annual stamp exhibition and fair today.

So why the sudden switch from collecting stamps of Queen Elizabeth?

"My dad works at Contact Energy," she explains.

Her father took her to his work and showed her around, "including the control room", and she borrowed books on electricity from the library.

The result is an eight-page presentation of stamps, postmarks, stamp booklets and postcards from all around the world – and all to do with electricity.

Her mother Denise says the project includes different things to do with the mail, not just stamps.

Amy started working on it in January and is excited about the competition. She also aims to enter it into a national competition in Timaru later in the year.

She used photo corners to mount "big things like postcards" and hinges for "small things like stamps". A ruler helped ensure they were straight.

"She’s very particular," Mrs Rosenfeldt says.

Amy typed up her notes and did the layout and her computer skills impressed her mum.

"It shows the level of computer skills being taught in schools."

Amy started collecting stamps in 2005 and is part of the Auckland-wide children’s City of Sails Stamp Club.

She loves her hobby because "I get to learn things", she says.

For this project not only did she learn about different kinds of electricity generation, she also learned a lot about the postal system and what she could use in the project.

Mrs Rosenfeldt helped organise today’s event for the South Auckland Philatelic Society.

Stamp collecting is very much alive, she says, although the average age of those taking part in clubs is "going up".

Club members are also declining in number but she has noticed that with clubs in general.

She believes there are many "closet" collectors.

Seven stamp dealers and guest speaker Len Jury will be at today’s fair. It starts at 10am at the Papatoetoe Town Hall, St George St, Papatoetoe, and is open to the public.

Source: stuff.co.nz

PITTSBURGH, March 31, 2009 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ ----Bhutan Postal Corp. LTD announces its second issue in a series of world's first CD-ROM postage stamps with web portal. The extraordinary computer-age postage stamps chronicle the remarkable recent accomplishments of the Himalayan country.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090331/NE87475 )

"Bhutan: Voting for Happiness" illustrates the country's peaceful transition from heredity monarchy to constitutional democracy. "Bhutan: Coronation 2008" documents the coronation of Bhutan's new king, His Majesty Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck. The colorful stamps illustrate Bhutan's recent history for all time.

These new CD-ROM stamps with web portal follow in the footsteps of the two CD-ROM stamps released by Bhutan in 2008, and are the latest in a series of philatelic "firsts" by Bhutan since the 1960s. The stamps are mini-CDs that fit into exquisitely decorated, self-adhesive envelopes. When affixed to a larger envelope, the CD-ROM stamp can be used as postage. When inserted into a computer, the CD-ROM plays an 8-minute video about Bhutan, and also offers a web portal to www.BhutanToday.net, with news about Bhutan in real time. The "stamp that never goes out of date" also can be added to a collection or displayed in a frame.

The stamps were developed by Bhutan Postal Corp., LTD. in partnership with Creative Products International of Pittsburgh, PA, USA, a product design, custom outsourced manufacturing and importing company known for its innovative manufactured goods. For the last three decades, Creative Products has been involved primarily in importing from Asia and the Pacific Rim to the US.

The company was founded by Frances Todd Stewart, whose father, the late Burt Kerr Todd, is believed to have been the first American to visit Bhutan, back in 1951. He also developed more than 60 distinctive and unusual postage stamps for Bhutan throughout his lifetime.

The new CD-ROM stamps were offset printed by Toppan Printing Co., LTD of Hong Kong, and the CDs were replicated by Smartlink Group, also of Hong Kong. Toppan is one of the world's top security printers, and is listed on the "Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations." Smartlink is a worldwide leader in the secure replication of digital material.

More information is available at www.BhutanPostageStamps.com and www.BhutanToday.net.

Source: foxbusiness.com

The George Town Girls Brigade enthusiastically delved into a stamp lesson provided by the Cayman Islands Postal Service (CIPS) recently at Elmslie United Church.

The postal service stated that the group of 55 Girl Brigadiers, ranging in age from eight to 17 years, received 35 stamp kits to build on their stamp collecting hobby. The stamp kits are equipped with an album, 200 new stamps, tweezers, and a magnifying glass. The kits are sponsored by Butterfield Bank, the Water Authority Cayman Islands, LIME and the Postal Service. They are part of the Stamp Camp programme, which is a CIPS youth philatelic programme.

CIPS class instructors Ivan Burges and CIP’s Philatelic Manager, Karen McField gave practical instructions on how to soak used stamps and where to get stamps for their collections. They also gave a brief history of stamps and why stamps are collected and cancelled.

“People collect stamps for many different reasons. Some like to learn about the designs. Others like to try to get all the stamps of one country. But most of all, stamp collectors have fun with their stamps because no collection is ever complete, so there is always a challenge,” said Philatelic Manager, Karen McField.

“Stamps are one way of sharing an interest with other people -- your friends, a parent or perhaps a neighbor,” she added.

Acting Captain for George Town Girls Brigade, Joan McField was pleased with the level of interest her group showed.

“The children took it in and were happy to learn more about the subject. The older girls will be taking stamp collecting as one of their subjects for the Duke of Edinburgh Scheme,” she explained.

Karen McField encouraged companies to assist CIPS or any of the groups involved in stamp collecting. “Companies can assist us by providing the postal service with their used stamps. We need stamps to give to these youngsters and this would be an inexpensive way to help,” she said.

So far the Cayman Islands Postal Service’s Stamp Camp groups extend to Savannah Primary, Savannah and George Town Girls Brigade and West End Primary.

Any organisation or school that would like the Cayman Islands Postal Service to get them started with stamp collecting may call Assistant Postmaster General Tara Bush at 814-6506 for more information.


Soaking Stamps

Set aside any stamps on brightly colored paper —especially those on red or green — or on paper with a colored backing. Pastel colors are usually okay. Pick out any stamps with colored cancellations, especially with red or purple ink. These potential problems should be handled carefully later, one at a time. Trim the envelope paper close to the stamp, being careful not to cut the perforated edges or otherwise damage the stamp. You should leave about a quarter of an inch on all four sides of the stamp.

Use a shallow bowl and fill it with several inches of cool-to-lukewarm water. Use bottled water or water that is not chlorinated or has in sodium. Use hot water only for difficult-to-remove self-adhesives. Float the stamps with the picture side up. Make sure the stamps have room to float and do not stick together. Don’t soak too many at one time. Let the stamps float until the glue dissolves and the stamps slide easily off the paper.

Paper is very weak when it is wet and it’s easy to tear a wet stamp if you handle it roughly. Be patient; let the water do its work. Rinse the back of the stamp gently in fresh water to make sure all the glue is off. Change the water in the soaking bowl often to ensure that it is clean. Place the stamps to dry on an old bath towel or paper towels. It is a good idea to use stamp tongs to lift the wet stamps, instead of using fingers. Lay the stamps in a single layer so they are not touching one another. Let the stamps dry on their own.

Source: caymannetnews.com

A renowned international philatelist who died in London last year has left his entire stamp collection to two Israeli charities.

Sotheby’s is to auction the collection, worth around £500,000, bequeathed by David Barton to the Weizmann Institute and Shaare Zedek Medical Centre.

Mr Barton, who died aged 67 in March, was a scientist at Westminster University and a member of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, St John’s Wood. He left his entire estate, of which the stamp collection is the centrepiece, to the two charities. The auction is on March 6.

Angela Margolis, the former executive director of Shaare Zedek UK, said: “When he was nine, David’s father gave him a stamp collection which he had started, and he became passionately interested.”

The collection, which spans stamps from across the globe, is particularly strong on the US, but also includes a British penny black in mint condition.

Richard Ashton, Sotheby’s philatelic consultant, said: “I first met David Barton 46 years ago and even then he was a stamp collector in the truest sense. He was also an exceptionally humane individual and it is apt that he gifted the proceeds from his collection to charity.”

Source: thejc.com

Antigua and Barbuda has now placed on sale Barack Obama stamps at the General Post Office.

According to Post Master General Royden Selwood, due to the late arrival of the shipment, the stamps could not be released for sale on the day of the President’s inauguration as scheduled.

The first day of the sale will be 20 Jan.

The stamps come in a souvenir sheet of small size comprising of four stamps at $2.75 each and one souvenir sheet at $10.00 each.

Post Master General Royden Selwood said the stamps will remain on sale for three months until 19 April or earlier if stocks become exhausted before that date.

No First Day Covers are available but individuals who wish to prepare their own may have these date-stamped “First Day of Issue” at the Philatelic Bureau at the General Post Office.

Source: antiguasun.com

Antigua and Barbuda on Stamphead

DANBURY -- A New Milford man convicted of stealing thousands of dollars worth of rare stamps from a Bethel business where he had worked was sentenced Friday in Superior Court to serve nearly three years in jail.

Daniel McCauley, 22, pleaded guilty last October to first-degree larceny and conspiracy to commit first-degree larceny in connection with thefts from Nutmeg Stamp Sales.

In accordance with his plea deal, McCauley would have received a 90-day jail term from Judge Susan Reynolds had he provided full restitution in his case, or $53,373. But by Friday he had only come up with $9,000.

Without full restitution, the plea deal called for three years behind bars, with one month off for every $2,223 in restitution, so Reynolds handed down a 10-year prison term to be suspended after 32 months.

McCauley and a co-defendant, Andrew Mastrianni of Danbury, were arrested last June. Mastrianni also worked in the shipping department of Nutmeg Stamp Sales, a nationally known dealer of high-end philatelic material in Bethel.

Police began an investigation in January 2008 after the company's president, David Coogle, and its chief operating officer, Lawrence Gibson, reported some stamps shipped to customers hadn't made it to their destinations.

Police said they found some of the missing stamps on eBay, but many had been sold to collectors.

Mastrianni was sentenced last month to serve 90 days in jail after coming up with about $37,000 in restitution. He is currently behind bars at Bridgeport Correctional Center, according to Correction Department records.

While on probation, McCauley must write a letter of apology to Nutmeg Stamp Sales and the Bethel Police Department and provide any restitution remaining in the case.

When McCauley appeared in court last month, State's Attorney Stephen Sedensky said he wouldn't object to a motion to modify McCauley's sentence at a later date if his family comes up with more money while he's in jail, although Reynolds noted in court Friday it's not part of the plea agreement in the case.

"You're not going to be coming in here every month with $2,000," she said.

Source: newstimes.com

The Cambridge stamp club meets twice a month at the Allan Reuter Centre: the first Thursday and third Monday. Meetings start with passing around of "circuit books" between members, where stamps are available for trade. Clubs members from other cities are invited, because that means an influx of fresh stamps to the pool.

As collectors talk shop and catch up on gossip, many examine stamps using tweezers. They're only interrupted when someone comes around hawking draw tickets to win -- what else? -- batches of donated stamps.

Like Adkin, Tom Griffith is optimistic stamp collecting isn't going to die away any time soon.

Griffith is a member of the Grand Valley Philatelic Association and a former school teacher who lives near Smithville, southeast of Hamilton. Along with travelling to stamp clubs across the district, he helps set up stamp-related programs in public schools, like sending away for "first day of issue" stamps, where the images are related to classroom studies.

Griffith was also involved in a youth stamp club run at the Waterloo Region Children's Museum in Kitchener over Christmas.

Stamps don't tend to hold young people's attention when teenage hormones kick-in, Griffith said.

"When the kids reach puberty, you lose them, but when they hit their 40s, they come back," Griffith said.

Stamp collecting is huge in Europe, but it faces a tough fight here for the attention of young people in an age of video games, said John Kneitl of Guelph. While frustrated with the hurdles to attracting new blood, he doubts stamp collecting will disappear as a hobby.

The growth of email and decline in mailing letters may turn into a boon for stamp collectors, he said. A century ago, tens of millions of the same stamp were printed. Today, only a few million are printed -- and Kneitl is busy buying up whatever he can.

"I think the new stuff, if I look back in 15 years, will be even more rare than the old stuff."

Source: therecord.com

A set of stamps depicting Bermuda then and now have been launched at the Island's first capital the Town of St. George to commemorate the Island's 400 years of settlement.

Each stamp in the Bermuda Post Office Philatelic Bureau 400th anniversary stamp issue reflects the landscape of the Island as it appeared during that era, alongside a current view of how the landscape appears today.

The liner notes that accompany the first-day cover detail each image and its historical significance.

Acting Minister of Energy, Telecommunications and E-Commerce, Elvin James said: "This stamp issue offers everyone an opportunity to own a piece of Bermuda's history.

"Few could have imagined that from a twist of fate a storm tossed shipwreck off a small land mass in the middle of the Atlantic in 1609 we could be gathered here today to commemorate the 400th year of our settlement.

"Over the four centuries of our development Bermuda has prospered and our economy and our system of democracy make us a model for countries around the world to emulate."

He added: "From an island of shipwreck survivors, we have evolved into a nation with much to celebrate in our history.

"I encourage everyone in Bermuda to join in our celebration by owning this historic 400th anniversary stamp issue.

"I also encourage you to support all of the activities that have been organised this year as part of Bermuda's commemorative 400th year celebration."

Source: royalgazette.com

Bermuda Stamps

Whistler – Next year, athletes from more than 80 countries will come together to showcase their skills, learn from their peers and claim their sport's ultimate bragging rights. As Canada prepares to welcome the world, Canada Post is inviting all Canadians to share the pride.

Canada Post, an Official Supplier for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, on Jan. 13 unveiled its starting Olympic and Paralympic stamp lineup. The 10 stamps are part of a three-year program that, upon its completion, will be among our country's most significant philatelic milestones. In 2010, Canada Post plans to issue additional stamp designs honouring the Games.For the first time in Canada's postage stamp history, the country's definitive stamp roster ˆ — almost a billion stamps — will focus on one theme. “As these stamps find their way across this country, to the United States and around the world, people will know that Canada is the very proud host of the 2010 Winter Games,” Moya Greene, president and CEO of Canada Post, said in a statement. “As a company so closely connected to the daily lives of all Canadians, we’re thrilled to bring this level of awareness to the Games and we are honoured to share the pride in delivering the 2010 Winter Games with all of Canada and our employees.”The stamps were unveiled at Vancouver's main post office to an enthusiastic crowd including Grade 1 and 2 students from Grandview Elementary School and Canada Post Freestyle Team athletes Audrey Robichaud, Vincent Marquis and Warren Tanner, all medal hopefuls at the Games, and the stamps' designers. Also attending was postal employee Donna-Marie Gurr, a swimmer who won the bronze medal for the 200-metre backstroke at the Munich 1972 Olympic Summer Games.

Source: whistlerquestion.com

Olympic Stamps

The Connell stamp is coming home and generating renewed interest in stamp collecting.

The infamous stamp which once belonged to the late premier Richard Hatfield was purchased for $2,500 at an auction Tuesday night by an anonymous New Brunswicker.

"The person who purchased it wanted people to know it was coming home to New Brunswick," said Ian Kimmerly, president of Ottawa-based Sparks Auctions.

"I understand he has some connection with Woodstock. It might be on display for some period of time.''

The Connell stamp is rare and controversial because it was ordered in 1860 by Charles Connell, who was New Brunswick's postmaster general.

The five-cent stamp caused a scandal when it arrived in the province because the image on the stamp was of Connell's face.

Connell had to resign due to public protest and most the 500,000 stamps printed were burned on the front lawn of his home in Woodstock.

But a few survived and have become valuable.

The stamp sold Tuesday night was owned by a relative of Hatfield's who didn't want to be identified.

Kimmerly said the stamp was expected to sell for between $1,500 and $2,000, plus the 15 per cent buyer's fee.

But the huge amount of publicity in this region about the sale of the stamp drove the price higher, he said.

"We had three advance bids, all $1,600," said Kimmerly. "They took it up fairly quickly to $2,500. After all the publicity, I am not surprised it went over $2,000."

There were also three plate proofs of the Connell stamp up for auction Tuesday. A plate proof is a test a printer does before running off the real stamp.

Kimmerly said the plate proofs also sold for more than expected because of the publicity.

They sold for $120, $230 and $275, he said.

Also up for sale this week were several one-cent stamps ordered by Connell which bore the image of a New Brunswick train, the first stamp in the world to show a train.

They were also from Hatfield's estate.

Kimmerly said the train stamps didn't sell for as much as he expected.

"They sold for $250," he said. "I would have expected about $300."

Oromocto stamp collector Michael Nowlan, who's also on the board of the Royal Philatelic Society of Canada, said he was delighted that the Connell stamp came home.

"Now we know for sure that there are two of them in New Brunswick," he said.

The other Connell stamp is owned by the Carleton County Historical Society, said Nowlan.

"I was surprised it went for so low a price," he said.

A pristine Connell stamp can sell for up to $15,000, but the stamp that was auctioned off Tuesday wasn't in great condition, said Nowlan.

He said the auction and the publicity were good for the hobby of stamp collecting in New Brunswick.

"Your story got so much attention," he said. "I had several phone calls from people who are looking for someone to help them dispose of stamp collections they have inherited.

"They are all generated by your story. There is no question it is good for the hobby."

Source: canadaeast.com

New Brunswick Stamps

DANBURY -- One of the two men accused of stealing tens of thousands of dollars worth of rare stamps from a Bethel business was sentenced to serve 90 days behind bars Friday in Superior Court, after he paid restitution.

Andrew Mastrianni, 22, of Advocate Place in Danbury, had pleaded guilty to conspiracy and first-degree larceny in the case.

Mastrianni and a co-defendant, Daniel McCauley of New Milford, were arrested last June. Both had worked in the shipping department of Nutmeg Stamp Sales, a nationally known dealer of high-end philatelic material located in Bethel.

Police began an investigation in January after the company's president, David Coogle, and its chief operating officer, Lawrence Gibson, reported some stamps shipped to customers hadn't made it to their destinations.

Police said they found some of the missing stamps on eBay, but many had been sold to collectors.

Mastrianni's lawyer, Jeffrey Jowdy, said Friday his client's behavior was an "aberrant act" and that he provided about $37,000 in restitution in the case.

"From the beginning my client has acknowledged his responsibility," he said.

Mastrianni also apologized for his actions to Judge Susan Reynolds.

"I'm truthfully sorry, and something like this, it wasn't me. I really just got caught up in the moment and didn't really know what to do," he said.

The plea agreement in the case called for Reynolds to impose a 10-year prison sentence, suspended after 90 days, if Mastrianni provided full restitution, which he did.

Reynolds said jail time might seem severe to Mastrianni but noted the seriousness of the charges -- first-degree larceny is a Class B felony -- before handing down the 90-day sentence.

"It seems like a long time, but it's truly a remarkable resolution and a fair resolution ... for this incredibly stupid thing you have done," she said.

McCauley, Mastrianni's co-defendant, was also in court Friday, but his case was continued after he asked Reynolds for more time to come up with restitution money. He will return to court Feb. 6.

Source: newstimes.com

A rare and controversial New Brunswick stamp that dates back to 1860 and was once owned by the late premier Richard Hatfield is up for auction Tuesday.

It's the Connell stamp and Ian Kimmerly, president of Ottawa-based Sparks Auctions, which is auctioning off the stamp, said it could go for more than $2,000.

"The genuine Connell comes up so infrequently," he said. "You have to wait years and years for one to come up and then it can be very expensive."

Oromocto stamp collector Michael Nowlan, who is also on the board of the Royal Philatelic Society of Canada, said the Connell stamp could go for as much as $15,000, depending on its condition.

He said he expects there to be a lot of interest in the stamp by collectors in New Brunswick, Canada and around the world if there is enough publicity about the auction.

Nowlan said the attraction of the stamp to collectors is the scandal associated with it and its rarity.

"There aren't that many of the Connell stamps," he said. "There could be as many as 60 out there."

According to the website of the Carleton County Historical Society, Charles Connell was elected to the New Brunswick legislative assembly to represent Carleton County in 1846 and became the New Brunswick postmaster general in 1859.

Once of his first acts as postmaster general was to start daily mail service between Saint John and Halifax.

In 1860, the legislature directed Connell to order new stamps because the province was switching from English pence to Canadian cents.

But when the stamps arrived from the American printer, there was an immediate outcry because the new five-cent stamp bore Connell's face.

He quickly resigned as postmaster general and burned the 500,000 stamps on the front lawn of his Greek revival-style mansion in Woodstock.

But he kept a few of the 100-stamp sheets and it's believed he shared them with friends and family.

"There are all kinds of stories about them, how they were put in somebody's watch case and the corners got bent," said Kimmerly. "Most of the genuine Connells have faults."

He said Hatfield was well known as a collector of New Brunswick memorabilia.

Kimmerly said the Connell stamp was inherited by a Hatfield relative after the former premier died and that relative assigned Sparks Auctions to sell it.

Connell never explained why he ordered the five-cent stamp with his face on it.

In his 21-page letter of resignation he wrote, "I believed I was authorized in the actions I had taken" and "each head of a public department should be left to administer its duties as would be most beneficial to the public interest."

In the same year that he ordered the infamous Connell stamp, he also ordered one-cent stamps bearing the image of a New Brunswick train, the first stamp to carry such an image in the world.

It's now highly sought after by collectors.

Some of the one-cent train stamps are also up for auction by Sparks Auctions on Tuesday.

As for Connell, he stayed on as MLA after resigning as postmaster general.

He was defeated in the 1861 provincial election, but was re-elected in 1864 and was appointed surveyor general in 1866. He died in 1873.

Source: canadaeast.com

New Brunswick Stamps on Stamphead.com

OTTAWA -- Sending a letter by snail mail is going to cost a few more pennies starting Jan 12/08.

Canada Post has raised the price of domestic stamps by two cents, from 52 to 54 cents.

The new price will affect all letters, cards, and postcards sent within Canada weighing up to 30 grams.

The price of the U.S. stamp will also go up two cents, from 96 cents to 98 cents. Stamps for mail sent internationally are increasing five cents, from $1.60 to $1.65.

These stamp price increases were part of a proposal approved last year for a two cent-increase on stamps every year for three years. The cost of a stamp will be 56 cents in 2010 and 58 cents by 2011.

Source: canada.com

Mint Canada on Stamphead.com

There's something decidedly macabre about storing your collection of old letters in caskets, regardless of how gilded the boxes may be.

And the fact that Shirley Griff's collection showcases a wide variety of letters about death is fitting, but morbid nonetheless.

Still, the upbeat St. Catharines real estate broker does not at all see the dark side of her new-found pastime or the three miniature caskets she can store her letters in. A self-described workaholic, Griff, who's been selling houses in Niagara for nearly 30 years, is just happy to finally have a hobby in her life.

"Because of my work and my Type A personality, I've really not pursued any interests or hobbies," explains the owner of Griff Real Estate Ltd. in Thorold. "My kids find it interesting that I've found something that catches my eye. "

Griff's sad letters of woe signalled news of death for the recipient and were commonly edged in black to warn the bearer of sorrow. Her collection numbers about 200 and includes an expression of thanks signed by Jacqueline Kennedy after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

"I was in high school when they told us JFK had been assassinated," recalls the 60-year-old. "When I saw that note it was, `Wow!' It brought back all those memories of that time."

"To me, this collection is personal. I can feel the pain and hurt in these letters. I feel as if I'm there with them. This was before email and phones even. It was a way of preparing people. I can't imagine getting a letter with that kind of news in it without some kind of warning."

Once as common as birth announcements are today, these dire dispatches of the 19th and early 20th centuries usually included a black border around the envelope's edge or around the stamp. Some had black wax seals or an embossment of a flower or crown on them.

Griff discovered her new hobby thanks to the philatelic cache of St. Catharines stamp dealer Bill Coates, who she married last year after a six-month courtship. Coates's offerings included some mourning covers until Griff got hold of them for her own collection. To add to her supply, she explores stamp shows across Ontario with her husband.

One gold-and-black mini-casket that holds most of her letters is also quite a conversation piece. Griff got it from a Thorold funeral home that used to show the tiny models to grieving loved ones as samples. About 12-inches long by four-inches wide and 6-inches deep, the top and sides have raised reliefs depicting Jesus on the cross and the Last Supper.

While the practice of posting letters edged in black eventually died out in North America, some European countries still use it, though not as widely. Griff's letters include one from Germany from 2005.

The custom was memorialized in an American country song called "Letter Edged in Black." Written in 1897 by the dulcimer-playing Hattie Nevada, the lyrics tell of a son getting news from his dad: "Come home, my boy, your dear old mother's dead." It's been recorded by numerous artists including Marty Robbins, Hank Snow and Johnny Cash.

Griff's collection includes letters mourning the deaths of Queen Victoria, King George V and George VI. A more recent note to a Toronto stamp collector who knew the Kennedys is signed by Jacqueline Kennedy thanking the bearer for his sympathy on the death of the popular president.

"The Victorians did not pound their chests and weep," says Bret Evans, managing editor of Canadian Stamp News, a magazine for stamp collectors. "These letters were considered tasteful public displays of mourning. What makes them so fascinating to collectors is that they're very poignant little pieces of history."

Griff is so enthusiastic about her hobby that she joined the somewhat obscure Mourning Stamps and Covers Club. The rarity of her hobby shows in its low numbers: She is the association's 61st member.

One of the largest collections of these doomsday letters belonged to Ernie Mosher of Topeka, Kansas, who, before selling it off, owned 4,000, including one from Ethel Kennedy after the death of Bobby Kennedy. He recently published the hobby's definitive bible Mourning Covers: The Cultural and Postal History of Letters Edged in Black.

Source: thestar.com

Mourning Covers on Stamphead.com

WASHINGTON, Dec. 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- What do Lassie, The Tonight Show, Abe Lincoln, Gary Cooper, Gulf Coast Lighthouses, Civil Rights Pioneers and Wedding Cakes have in common? They're all 2009 stamp subjects the U.S. Postal Service is providing a sneak peek at today. All stamp issuance dates and dedication locations are subject to change. The public is welcome to attend unless otherwise noted.

Alaska Statehood

The Alaska Statehood stamp will be dedicated 11:30 a.m., Jan. 3, at the Captain Hook Hotel in Anchorage to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Alaska statehood. Comprising more than 570,000 square miles of land, Alaska is the largest of the 50 states and home to approximately 670,000 residents. The name of the state derives from an Aleut word meaning "great land."

The stamp features a photograph by Jeff Schultz of a dogsledder taken in 2000 near Rainy Pass in the Alaska Range. Text on the stamp reads "1959 ALASKA."

Lunar New Year: Year of the Ox

The second of 12 stamps in the Lunar New Year series, The Year of the Ox begins Jan. 26, 2009, and ends on Feb. 13, 2010. The dedication ceremony is scheduled to take place at 11 a.m., Jan. 8 at the Katie Murphy Amphitheatre, Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), 7th Ave. at 27th St., in New York City.

Art director Ethel Kessler of Bethesda, MD, worked on the new series with illustrator Kam Mak, an artist who grew up in New York City's Chinatown and now lives in Brooklyn and is an associate professor in the Illustration Department at FIT. Kessler and Mak decided to focus on some of the common ways the Lunar New Year Holiday is celebrated. To commemorate the Year of the Ox, they chose a lion head of a type often worn at parades and other festivities. Dancers wear such heads, often made of papier-mache and bamboo, as they perform for delighted crowds. "Being a Chinese American and having celebrated Lunar New Year all his life," Kessler says, "Kam is uniquely able to show how this holiday is observed in America." The illustration was originally created using oil paints on a fiberboard panel.

Kessler's design also incorporates elements from the previous series of Lunar New Year stamps, using Clarence Lee's intricate paper-cut design of an ox and the Chinese character -- drawn in grass-style calligraphy by Lau Bun -- for "ox."

Oregon Statehood

The sesquicentennial of Oregon's statehood is dedicated on a First-Class stamp in Portland on Jan. 14. Oregon was officially welcomed as the 33rd state in the Union on Feb. 14, 1859. Today, Oregon boasts a diverse population, an active and innovative urban scene, and some of the most beautiful and fertile landscapes in the country.

Artist Gregory Manchess, of Beaverton, OR, was inspired by his own experiences along the Pacific coast to create the painting for the stamp. The result is an evocative piece that incorporates several elements of the coastline -- trees, rocks, cliffs, and pounding surf -- without illustrating a specific place.

"I wanted to make it an icon, an impression, of what the shoreline feels like when you look at the stamp," says the artist. The public is invited to attend the 11 a.m. stamp dedication ceremony at the World Forestry Center's Miller Hall, 4033 S.W. Canyon Rd., in Portland.

Edgar Allan Poe

The 200th anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe, one of America's most extraordinary poets and fiction writers, will be immortalized on postage. For more than a century and a half, Poe and his works have been praised by admirers around the world, including English poet laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who dubbed Poe, "the literary glory of America." British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle called him "the supreme original short story writer of all time."

The stamp portrait of Edgar Allan Poe is by award-winning artist Michael J. Deas of New Orleans, whose research over the years has made him well acquainted with Poe's appearance. In 1989, Deas published The Portraits and Daguerreotypes of Edgar Allan Poe, a comprehensive collection of images featuring authentic likenesses as well as derivative portraits.

The dedication ceremony will take place at 11 a.m. on Jan. 16, at the Library of Virginia in Richmond at 800 E. Broad St.

Abraham Lincoln

The 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's (1809-1865) birth will be recognized on four commemorative stamps Feb. 9, in Springfield, IL. The 10 a.m. dedication ceremony takes place at the Old State Capitol Historic Site, Representative Hall, #1 Old State Capitol Plaza, in Springfield.

The stamp art was created by Mark Summers, who is noted for his scratchboard technique, a style distinguished by a dense network of lines etched with exquisite precision. Each stamp features a different aspect of Lincoln's life. Summers worked under the art direction of Richard Scheaff of Scottsdale, AZ.

Rail-Splitter

The stamp showing Lincoln as a rail-splitter includes the earliest-known photograph of Lincoln, dated 1846, by N. H. Shepherd, and depicts Lincoln as a youth splitting a log for a rail fence on what was then the American frontier. When he was a candidate for president in 1860, the Republican Party used the image of Lincoln as a "rail-splitter" to enhance his appeal to the workingman.

Lawyer

The stamp featuring Lincoln as a lawyer includes a photograph of Lincoln, dated May 7, 1858, by Abraham Byers, and shows Lincoln in a courtroom in Illinois, the state where he was a practicing attorney for nearly 25 years.

Politician

The stamp of Lincoln as a politician includes a Feb. 27, 1860, photograph of Lincoln by Mathew Brady, and shows Lincoln debating Stephen A. Douglas during their 1858 campaign for a U.S. Senate seat from Illinois.

President

The stamp featuring Lincoln as president, includes a Nov. 8, 1863, photograph of Lincoln by Alexander Gardner, and depicts Lincoln conferring with generals Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman toward the end of the Civil War. The depiction is based on "The Peacemakers" (1868), a painting by George P. A. Healy.

Miami University Stamped Card

On Feb. 17 in Oxford, OH, the Postal Service will commemorate Miami University's bicentennial by issuing a stamped card in the Historic Preservation series. The image on the card depicts MacCracken Hall, a residence hall located on the South Quad of Miami University's main campus in Oxford, OH. The stamped image on the card is a computer-generated illustration of MacCracken Hall created by artist Tom Engeman.

Civil Rights Pioneers

The public is welcome to attend the Feb. 21 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Board Meeting in New York City, when the Postal Service immortalizes the courage, commitment and achievements of 12 civil rights leaders. The dedication ceremony will take place at 10:15 a.m. in the New York Hilton Hotel and Towers' Trianon Ballroom, 2nd Floor, 2335 Ave. of the Americas.

Art director Ethel Kessler and stamp designer Greg Berger, both of Bethesda, MD, chose to approach this project through photographic montage. Pairing two pioneers in each stamp was a way of intensifying the montage effect.

Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954)

Throughout her long life as a writer, activist, and lecturer, she was a powerful advocate for racial justice and women's rights in America and abroad.

Mary White Ovington (1865-1951)

This journalist and social worker believed passionately in racial equality and was a founder of the NAACP.

J. R. Clifford (1848-1933)

He was the first black attorney licensed in West Virginia; in two landmark cases before his state's Supreme Court, he attacked racial discrimination in education.

Joel Elias Spingarn (1875-1939)

Because coverage of blacks in the media tended to be negative, he endowed the prestigious Spingarn Medal, awarded annually since 1915, to highlight black achievement.

Oswald Garrison Villard (1872-1949)

He was one of the founders of the NAACP and wrote the "Call" leading to its formation.

Daisy Gatson Bates (1914-1999)

She mentored nine black students who enrolled at all-white Central High School in Little Rock, AR, in 1957. The students used her home as an organizational hub.

Charles Hamilton Houston (1895-1950)

This lawyer and educator was a main architect of the civil rights movement. He believed in using laws to better the lives of underprivileged citizens.

Walter White (1893-1955)

Blue eyes and a fair complexion enabled this leader of the NAACP to make daring undercover investigations.

Medgar Evers (1925-1963)

He served with distinction as an official of the NAACP in Mississippi until his assassination in 1963.

Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977)

She was a Mississippi sharecropper who fought for black voting rights and spoke for many when she said, "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired."

Ella Baker (1903-1986)

Her lifetime of activism made her a skillful organizer. She encouraged women and young people to assume positions of leadership in the civil rights movement.

Ruby Hurley (1909-1980)

As a courageous and capable official with the NAACP, she did difficult, dangerous work in the South.

Love: King and Queen of Hearts

The Postal Service pays clever tribute to what is said by many to be world's favorite "game" with the issuance of the King and Queen of Hearts, the latest stamps in the Love series. The two stamp designs, one of the King and one of the Queen, are based on images from 18th-century French playing cards. Stamp artist Jeanne Greco of New York City created the art on her computer.

Greco and art director Derry Noyes of Washington, DC, settled on a design flowing through the stamp perforations to make a continuous pattern. The Postal Service began issuing its popular Love stamps in 1973. Over the years these stamps have featured a wide variety of designs, including heart motifs, colorful flowers, and the word "LOVE" itself

Wedding Cake

Sure to add a touch of beauty and romance to wedding correspondence, the 2009 Wedding Cake stamp will be issued at the two-ounce mailing rate to accommodate the heavier weight of an invitation, as well as other mailings such as oversize cards or small gifts that require extra postage.

The stamp, designed by Ethel Kessler, features a photograph of a wedding cake taken by Renee Comet of Washington, DC. The photograph depicts a three-tier wedding cake topped with white flowers, their green stems and leaves a delightful contrast to the cake's creamy white frosting.

Wedding Rings

A new one-ounce stamp featuring wedding rings is intended for use on the RSVP envelope often enclosed with a wedding invitation. The stamp features a photograph of two gold wedding rings resting on a small white pillow; a slender ribbon of white silk unites them. The photograph also was taken by Renee Comet.

Bob Hope

Bob Hope (1903-2003) returns to a "stamping ovation" May 29 on the USS Midway in San Diego when the Postal Service issues a stamp in his likeness on what would have been his 106th birthday. Kazuhiko Sano of Mill Valley, CA, worked under the direction of art director Derry Noyes of Washington, DC, to create the stamp image. The image is based on a composite of 1980s photographs of Hope.

Hope devoted his life to making people laugh. He is most known for his unwavering commitment -- from World War II through Operation Desert Storm -- to supporting morale by entertaining military personnel serving overseas. He had a top rated television show on NBC, and also found success on the live stage, in radio shows and in motion pictures. He became one of the most honored and beloved performers of the 20th century.

Although Hope never officially served in the U.S. Armed Forces, he dedicated a significant part of his life to entertaining America's men and women in uniform, starting in 1941 and continuing through the Persian Gulf War five decades later. After giving hundreds of performances overseas, he earned the nickname "G.I. Bob" and in 1997 became the first person recognized by the U.S. Congress as an "honorary veteran of the United States Armed Forces."

Hope's thousands of honors also included the Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Among his many friends were several U.S. presidents, with whom he often played golf for charity. Bob Hope died at his home in Toluca Lake, CA, on July 27, 2003, two months after his 100th birthday.

Anna Julia Cooper (Black Heritage)

As the 32nd inductee into the Black Heritage series, the Postal Service honors Anna Julia Cooper (c.1858-1964), an educator, scholar, feminist and activist who gave voice to the African-American community during the 19th and 20th centuries -- from the end of slavery to the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. The stamp features a portrait of Cooper created by Kadir Nelson, who based his painting on an undated photograph. Nelson worked under the direction of art director Ethel Kessler.

Flags of Our Nation (Set 3 of 6)

On June 12, the Postal Services begins unfurling the second of a three-year wave of its Flags of Our Nation series by issuing 10 stamp designs: Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts Mississippi, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri and Stars and Stripes.

Flags of Our Nation (Set 4 of 6)

Another 10 will be issued Sept. 4: Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota and Stars and Stripes.

In addition to the flag art, each stamp design includes artwork that provides a "snapshot view" of the state or other area represented by a particular flag. In most cases, an everyday scene or activity is shown. Occasionally the view is of something less commonplace -- rare wildlife, perhaps, or a stunning vista. Unlike some previous multi-stamp issuances, this series is not limited to official animals, flowers, or products, nor is it meant to showcase well-known buildings, landmarks, or monuments.

"Snapshot" art for the Stars and Stripes stamps was inspired by the opening lines of "America the Beautiful," written by Katharine Lee Bates (1859-1929). The spring 2009 design features "amber waves of grain," while the fall 2009 design features "purple mountain majesties."

The multi-stamp series featuring the Stars and Stripes, 50 state flags, five territorial flags and the District of Columbia flag was launched in 2008. Ten stamps were issued last spring, followed by 10 more last fall. The process continues in alphabetical order in 2009 and 2010, for a total of 60 stamp designs. Four of the six groups of 10 include a Stars and Stripes stamp.

Hawai'i Statehood

It's surf's up when the 50th anniversary of Hawai'i's statehood is commemorated on 2009 stamp. Artist and historian Herb Kawainui Kane of Captain Hook, HI -- who has dedicated much of his life to studying Hawaiian culture and history -- created the painting on the stamp. In the art, a surfer rides a wave on a longboard, a popular choice among surfers for centuries. Next to him, two people paddle an outrigger canoe to shore. Kane has extensive knowledge and experience in surfing and canoe construction, a skill he developed from building a traditional sailing canoe himself. Kane worked under the art direction of Phil Jordan of Falls Church, VA.

Gulf Coast Lighthouses

The popular lighthouse stamps series continues to shine with the issuance of Gulf Coast Lighthouses next summer. Featuring paintings by artist Howard Koslow of Toms River, NJ, the five stamps depict the lighthouses of Matagorda Island, near Port O'Connor, TX; Sabine Pass, near Sabine Pass, LA; Biloxi, in Biloxi, MS; Sand Island, near the entrance to Mobile Bay in Mobile, AL; and, Fort Jefferson (also known as Garden Key Lighthouse), 50 miles west of Key West, FL, in Dry Tortugas Park.

Known as "hurricane alley," the Gulf Coast weathers many powerful storms each year, including Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the region in 2005. In addition, the land along the coast is swampy and marshy in many places and given to erosion, making it doubly difficult for lighthouses to withstand heavy rains and winds. The five lighthouses featured on the stamps are some of the few that remain standing.

American Treasures: Edward Hopper

A sunlit painting by Edward Hopper is showcased in this ninth entry in the American Treasures series. The Long Leg, painted in oil on canvas around 1930, depicts a boat sailing against the wind near Provincetown, MA. The Long Leg is in the collection of the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, in San Marino, CA. Art director Derry Noyes of Washington, DC, cropped the painting for use in the stamp art.

The American Treasures series was inaugurated in 2001. It is intended to exhibit beautiful works of American fine art and crafts. The stamp will be dedicated Aug. 6 at the American Philatelic Society Stamp Show in Pittsburgh, PA.

Early TV Memories

Block your calendar for Aug. 11 to attend the dedication of the Early TV Memories stamps, scheduled to take place in Los Angeles. For more than half a century, Americans have turned to television for entertainment and information. To those watching in its early days, TV offered the additional excitement of the new. Whether laughing at the first situation comedies, tingling at crime dramas, or identifying with ordinary people who had their day in the spotlight on game shows, audiences were charmed by the novelty of the young medium. Today, memories from television's "childhood" -- often especially vivid -- are a pure pleasure.

The Early TV Memories commemorated in the 20 stamp set include: Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet; Alfred Hitchcock Presents; Dinah Shore Show; Dragnet; Ed Sullivan Show; George Burns & Gracie Allen Show; Hopalong Cassidy; The Honeymooners; Howdy Doody; I Love Lucy; Kukla, Fran and Ollie; Lassie; The Lone Ranger; Perry Mason; Phil Silvers Show; Red Skelton; Texaco Star Theater; Tonight Show; Twilight Zone; and, You Bet Your Life.

Richard Wright

On April 9, former Chicago Post Office employee and reknowned author Richard Wright (1908-1960) becomes the 25th inductee into its Literary Arts series. The dedication ceremony will take place at 11 a.m. in the lobby of the Chicago Post Office, 433 W. Harrison St.

Best remembered for his controversial 1940 novel, Native Son, and his 1945 autobiography, Black Boy, Wright drew on a wide range of literary traditions, including protest writing and detective fiction, to craft unflinching portrayals of racism in American society.

The stamp artwork by Thomas Blackshear of Colorado Springs, CO, features a portrait of Richard Wright in front of snow-swept tenements on the South Side of Chicago, a scene that recalls the setting of Native Son. Nelson's portrait of Wright was based on a circa 1945 photograph. Blackshear worked under the direction of art director Carl T. Herrman of Carlsbad, CA.

Thanksgiving Day Parade

Four stamps featuring iconic scenes of a Thanksgiving Day Parade -- a lively marching band, large balloons of favorite animals and popular characters, and crowds of delighted onlookers -- begin marching out of Post Offices Sept. 9, once the stamps are dedicated that day in Macy's in New York City.

Drawing on the long and rich visual history of Thanksgiving Day parades in the U.S., artist Paul Rogers of Pasadena, CA, collaborated with Art Director Howard E. Paine of Delaplane, VA, to base the stamp designs on American advertising and poster art from the mid 20th century. Rogers used a combination of airbrush and digital medium to create the colorful and nostalgic images featured on the stamps.

Gary Cooper (Legends of Hollywood)

On Sept. 10, Gary Cooper (1901-1961), becomes the 15th inductee into the Legends of Hollywood series when the Postal Service honors the popular leading man from Hollywood's "Golden Age." For decades, Cooper was the all-American hero, whose believable performances and strong, silent appeal brought him a lifetime of fame.

Art director Phil Jordan designed the stamp using a portrait by artist Kazuhiko Sano of Mills Valley, CA. The image is based on a black-and-white photograph of Gary Cooper taken by George Hurrell circa 1940. The selvage art -- or area outside of the stamps -- is based on a still from High Noon (1952), depicting Cooper in his Academy Award-winning role as the courageous Marshal Will Kane.

United States Supreme Court Justices

The contributions of United States Supreme Court Associate Justices Joseph Story, Louis D. Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter, and William J. Brennan, Jr. will be commemorated next September with the issuance of the United States Supreme Court Justices stamps.

Joseph Story ranks as one of the nation's most influential jurists. The author of dozens of volumes of legal commentary, Story -- who viewed law as a science -- gave shape to American jurisprudence while also making the law more accessible to practicing attorneys. His devotion to the uniform enforcement of federal regulations by all the states helped establish the preeminence of the Supreme Court.

Louis D. Brandeis was the associate justice most responsible for helping the Supreme Court shape the tools it needed to interpret the Constitution in light of the sociological and economic conditions of the 20th century. "If we would guide by the light of reason," he once exhorted his colleagues, "we must let our minds be bold." A progressive and champion of reform, Brandeis devoted his life to social justice. He defended the right of every citizen to speak freely, and his groundbreaking conception of the right to privacy continues to impact legal thought today.

Felix Frankfurter was arguably one of the most enigmatic and controversial figures ever to sit on the Supreme Court. As the Court's strongest proponent of judicial restraint, Frankfurter -- who served 23 years as an associate justice -- believed that judges should disregard their own social views when making decisions. "History teaches," he wrote, "that the independence of the judiciary is jeopardized when courts become embroiled in the passions of the day."

William J. Brennan, Jr., the author of numerous landmark decisions and the inspiration behind many others, believed that law is an essential force for social and political change. Brennan -- the Court's most determined opponent of the death penalty -- championed equal rights for all citizens and steadfastly regarded the Constitution as a living document that should be interpreted to fit modern life. "The genius of the Constitution," he declared, "rests not in any static meaning in a world that is dead and gone, but in the adaptability of its great principles to cope with current problems and current needs."

Nature of America: Kelp Forest

To celebrate October as National Stamp Collecting Month the Postal Service issues the 11th stamp pane in an educational series focusing on the beauty and complexity of major U.S. plant and animal communities.

The 2009 Nature of America: Kelp Forest stamps will be dedicated at the Monterey Aquarium in Monterey, CA. The stamp pane features a kelp forest off the central California coast on the front and identifies each creature with its scientific name on the back.

A kelp forest is a remarkable undersea ecosystem dominated by very large marine algae more commonly known as seaweeds or kelp. To illustrate the biodiversity of a kelp forest, artist John D. Dawson of Hilo, HI, depicted more than 27 different species in his colorful acrylic painting. The scene itself is imaginary and a dense grouping of creatures was necessary to illustrate as many species as possible on the stamp pane. Even so, all of the species could be encountered at or near the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, the area featured on the pane. All of the species and their interactions are appropriate and were recommended by scientists. Dawson worked under the art direction of Ethel Kessler.

Christmas: Madonna and Sleeping Child by Sassoferrato

Since 1978, the theme of each "traditional" Christmas stamp has been the Madonna and Child. The 2009 Christmas stamp features Madonna and Sleeping Child, a painting by Italian artist Giovanni Battista Salvi (1609-1685), more commonly known as Sassoferrato. The painting is currently in the collection of Hearst Castle in California. The issuance of the stamp coincides with the 400th anniversary of the birth of the artist. Carl T. Herrman designed the stamp.

The painting depicted on the stamp shows a blond Madonna clothed in red and cradling the sleeping Christ Child in purple cloth. From each of the two top corners, the childlike face of a cherub looks down from the clouds.

Winter Holidays

The 2009 winter holiday season will be celebrated with stamps featuring a reindeer, snowman, gingerbread man and toy soldier.

A merry reindeer dangles a red bulb ornament from his antler. Flurries of large flakes dust a snowman sporting a top hat, coal buttons and a carrot nose. A gingerbread man is decorated for the season, with green, red, and white icing. A toy soldier smiles while standing at attention. Borders of evergreens, stars, wreaths, and holly add another holiday touch to the stamps.

Stamp artist Joseph Cudd, of Greensboro, NC, created the stamps under the direction of Richard Scheaff of Scottsdale, AZ.

Angel with Lute

This 2009 stamp features a detail of a fragment of a circa-1480 fresco by Melozzo da Forli (1438-1494). Clad in red and green, an angel with a halo strums a lute and glances downward. The original fresco fragment is in Room IV of the Vatican Pinacoteca (art museum), and measures approximately 37 inches by 46 inches.

The musical angel on this stamp was originally part of a larger fresco depicting the ascension of Christ in the apse of the Basilica dei Santi Apostoli (Church of the Holy Apostles) in Rome. The complete fresco included Christ, the Apostles, and several angelic musicians. It was painted around 1480 but destroyed in 1711 when the church was reconstructed.

Although few of Melozzo's works have survived, art historians have praised his skilled use of perspective, and he is sometimes considered one of the great fresco artists of his day. In recent years, his depictions of musical angels have enjoyed a newfound popularity.

Hanukkah (menorah)

The 2009 Hanukkah design features a photograph of a menorah with nine lit candles. The menorah was designed by Lisa Regan of the Garden Deva Sculpture Company in Tulsa, OK, and photographed by Ira Wexler of Braddock Heights, MD.

Spanning eight days and nights, Hanukkah is a joyous yearly festival celebrated by Jews around the world. The holiday commemorates the successful revolt of the Jews led by Judah Maccabee against the oppressive government of Antiochus IV and the Seleucid Empire in 165 B.C.E.

Hanukkah is the Hebrew word for "dedication." Tradition relates how a miracle took place during the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem, which had been desecrated. The remaining supply of sacramental oil, thought to be enough for only one day, burned for eight days.

The eight days and nights of Hanukkah begin on the 25th of Kislev in the Hebrew calendar, a date that falls in late November or December. Hanukkah begins on Dec. 11 in 2009, and on Dec. 1 in 2010.

During Hanukkah, family members gather each night during the festival to light candles on a special candleholder. Other Hanukkah traditions include singing, the exchange of gifts, and the spinning of the dreidel, a four-sided top. Children typically use chocolate gelt (coins) to make bets on the outcome of each spin of the dreidel.

Kwanzaa (family)

With this colorful stamp, the Postal Service celebrates Kwanzaa, a non-religious holiday that takes place over seven days from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1. Kwanzaa draws on African traditions and takes its name from the phrase for "first fruits" in Swahili, a widely spoken African language. Stamp artist Lloyd McNeill of New York City, created a festive, highly symbolic design to celebrate the holiday.

The bold colors in the stamp art are complemented in the top right corner by the colors of the Kwanzaa flag -- green for growth, red for blood, and black for the African people -- which are the same colors as the Pan-African flag. The field of green around the borders symbolizes growth and a bountiful harvest. In the hoop that the girl holds in her hands, as well as in the family grouping of mother, father, and child, McNeill symbolized unity.

This is the third stamp design issued by the Postal Service in celebration of Kwanzaa. The first Kwanzaa commemorative stamp was issued in 1997. McNeill worked under the direction of Art Director Carl T. Herrman.

An independent federal agency, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation,

146 million homes and businesses, six days a week. It has 37,000 retail locations and relies on the sale of postage, products

and services, not tax dollars, to pay for operating expenses. The Postal Service has annual revenue of $75 billion and delivers nearly half the world's mail. To learn about the history of the Postal Service visit the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum:

Source: prnewswire.com

USA Stamps at Stamphead.com

Celebrating the 25th year of the issuing of Christmas stamps in Sri Lanka

By Kishanie S. Fernando

In 1980, the first Sri Lankan Christmas stamps were issued by the Philatelic Bureau of the Department of Posts Sri Lanka.

This was the result of years of negotiations and perseverance by Rev. Fr. Noel Elmo Perera himself an enthusiastic stamp collector who later become the Bishop of Galle and the Archbishop of Colombo the most Rev. Dr. Oswald Gomis, at that time the Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Colombo and in charge of Christian Cultural Affairs.

It is said that after getting approval for issuing of this first set of Christmas stamps, Bishop Elmo went ahead looking for an artist to carry out this historic task. An art competition was held without satisfactory results. He was then informed of a 18 year old artist seminarian Priyantha Silva who produced a fitting art work for the purpose. Encouraged by the rector of the Seminary Rev. Fr. Kingsley C. Jayamane, Rev. Fr. Benedict Joseph and art teacher Francis Fernando, the seminarian who was later ordained a priest, was at that time the youngest to design a stamp and went on to produce 12 more Christmas stamps for Sri Lanka .

The design of the first set of Christmas stamps in 1980 showed the Holy Family and the Magi who came to visit the family on the birth of the infant Jesus, beautifully coinciding with the Church’s dedication of that year to the family. These stamps were unique because they indigenized the Christmas scenes with carefully selected local art motifs, colours, and other features which were introduced into the picture. The stamps bore the denominations of .35 and Rs. 3.75.

Today Christmas stamps have become an annual issue in the form of a souvenir sheet. (NB four years Christmas stamps were not issued).

The 50 stamps to date have included the art of renown artists like David Paynter (1996), Sybil Wettasinghe (2001), Kala Booshana S.S. Silva (1993, 1994), Sri Lal Nanayakkara (1999, 2000) and the youngest stamp artist Minura Ranathunaga of grade 1 Kingswood College Kandy (2006). They have marked important pilgrim shrines like Our Lady of Madhu (1985), Our Lady of Matara (1985), St. Anthony’s Wahakotte (2006) St. Mary’s Bolawatte (2004). They have featured historic artifacts like the Nestorian cross (1995), the cross of Bl. Joseph Vaz at Galgamuwa (2005) and architectural monuments like St. James church Mutwal (2007), the cathedral church Galle (2008) and one of the first churches depicting indigenized architecture St. Philip Neries church Katukurunda (2003). They have also commemorated illustrious Catholic priests like Rev. Fr. Jacome Gonsalvez and the Rt. Rev. Dr. Edmond Peiris (2004) and marked the 150th anniversary of the Anglican diocese of Kurunegala and Colombo (1995).

The stamps for this article were provided by stamp collectors Mr Keerthi Sri Perera and Sanath Rohana Wickramasinghe.

Source: dailymirror.lk

Sri Lanka on Stamphead.com

Last week the Good Lord evidently realized that not enough people had been reading Hyman Minsky’s explanation of how financial cycles end in Ponzi schemes – the stage in which banks keep the boom going by lending their customers the money to pay interest and thus avoid default. So He sent Bernie Madoff to dominate the news for a week and give the mass media an opportunity to familiarize newspaper readers and TV watchers with just how Ponzi schemes work. What Mr. Madoff did was, in a nutshell, what the economy as a whole has been doing under the moniker “wealth creation.”

If the media were able to wait until as late in the financial collapse as last week to provide helpful diagrams about how Ponzi schemes need to keep on growing exponentially, it is simply because bad foreign financial news is not deemed newsworthy in North America. But Europe has been having its own run-throughs, headed by Spain – which by no coincidence is now experiencing the biggest real estate bust outside of the post-Soviet economies.

The best case study occurred two years ago. On May 9, 2006, Spanish police raided 21 homes and offices of Afinsa Fienes Tangibles SA, the world’s largest postage-stamp dealer, and rival firm, Forum Filatélico. They charged eleven men with running a $6.4 billion pyramid scheme that (and Afinsa)took in some 343,000 investors – 1 per cent of Spain’s entire population, making the fraud one of the largest in Spanish history.

An economy either is in trouble or has lost its sense of balance when investors shy away from tangible capital formation in favor of buying postage stamps and similar collectibles. Unlike machinery and technology, stamps do not produce real goods and services. They have long since been printed and sold by the government, and will never be used actually to mail letters. However, stamps have shown themselves to be a great vehicle to attract savers who think that buying them can produce an exponential earnings growth – or more technically, “capital” gains, if we can stretch economic terminology far enough to call a stamp collection “capital.”

If value resulted merely from scarcity, then postage stamps, coins and master paintings all would seem to increase almost automatically over time, just like most land does. But these trophies of wealth do not promote rising production, consumption or living standards. As stamps do not earn money by employing labor to produce goods and services, their price gains are neither profit nor capital gains as classically understood. They are what economists call a windfall.

The Spanish postage-stamp scheme seems to have taken off in 2003, the year in which Spain’s free-market conservative government deregulated public insurance and oversight for non-financial investment funds. Afinsa Group bought two-thirds control of the New Jersey stamp and coin auction house Greg Manning and merged it with the Spanish auctioneer Auctentia to create Escala as the world’s third largest auction house (after Sotheby’s and Christie’s). Escala moved its operations to New York City and listed its stock on the Nasdaq over-the-counter market. Despite the stock market’s lethargic trend, the company’s earnings showed such rapid growth that in just three years its share price soared from under $5 to $35, tripling in 2005 alone.

Afinsa’s purchases accounted for 70 per cent of Escala’s profits, thanks largely to the fact that as its Spanish parent’s sole supplier, Escala marked up its stamps by a reported 1,150 per cent, out of all proportion to the usual 25 per cent. Afinsa thus was carrying stamps for which it paid 58 million euros on its books at €723 million, over ten times their catalog values – which are fictitiously high in any case, being published mainly for the benefit of stamp dealers to give their customers the idea that they are getting a good buy. But as Forum Filatélico’s chairman, Francisco Briones, explained to a reporter from London’s Financial Times: “It was ‘normal’ to charge clients such inflated prices because of the services provided . . . including the custody and conservation of stamps.”

Afinsa paid its stamp investors an annual rate of 6 to 10 per cent interest, beating most competing yields as the global financial bubble was pushing interest rates steadily downward. (Spanish government bonds paid only 3.5 per cent.) To build up trust, Afinsa gave its clients post-dated checks for the gains that were promised. It also promised to buy back the stamps it sold, at the original price. This gave an appearance of liquidity to the normally illiquid market in stamps, fine arts and other collectibles, where 25 per cent commissions to auction houses are normal. These ploys convinced the majority to simply re-invest the money to buy yet more stamps, which the company held in its offices ostensibly for safekeeping and preservation.

Money poured in, giving stock-market investors in Escala much higher returns than the stamp-buying customers nominally were receiving. As one news report remarked, why buy stamps and coins when you can invest in companies dealing in them? But within a week of the arrests, Escala’s stock plunged below $4 a share.

The denouement came shortly after Lloyd’s of London withdrew from a €1.2 billion policy to insure Afinsa’s stamps. One of its experts noticed that if $6 billion really had been invested, it would have bought up all the investment-grade stamps in the world many times over. The fact that stamp prices did not reflect any such extraordinary buying implied that few bona fide stamp transactions occurred at all, and there had been a massive over-billing.

As matters turned out, most of Afinsa’s stamps had no investment value. This explained why there were no receipts for transactions with Escala. The police found €10 million in €500 banknotes (worth about $650 each at the exchange rate of $1.30 per euro) by breaking open a newly plastered wall at the Madrid home of Afinsa’s main stamp supplier, Francisco Guijarro. What they could not find were any receipts for the stamps that he allegedly bought. And despite the remarkably high markups charged for curating the stamp collection, it was rife with phonies, as Lloyd’s had suspected. Concluding that the bills Senor Guijarro had sent to Afinsa were just a cover for a money laundering operation, the prosecutors charged the family members and officers who controlled Afinsa with embezzlement, money laundering, tax evasion, fraudulent bankruptcy, breach of trust and forgery.

The arrests recalled memories of a more famous U.S. fraud involving postage stamps some 86 years earlier, in 1920, by Charles Ponzi – the man who bequeathed his name to history in the form of Ponzi pyramid scheme. He is reported to have arrived in Boston in 1903 with only $2.50. Not speaking much English, he took menial jobs. Fired as a waiter for shortchanging customers, he moved up to Montreal and became an assistant teller in an Italian immigrant bank. It grew rapidly by paying double the normal 3 per cent rate of interest on savings accounts, but failed when its real estate loans began to go bad. The bank’s attempt to give the impression of solvency seems to have given Ponzi the idea of paying interest out of new deposit inflows rather than actual earnings. As long as clients felt they were receiving interest regularly, they tended to be calm about the principal balance.

Ponzi was sent to a Canadian prison for forgery, and then was jailed in Atlanta for trying to smuggle Italian immigrants into the United States. After his release he moved back to Boston and got a job selling business catalogs. A Spanish customer sent him a postal reply coupon, which allowed its holder to buy stamps in foreign countries for return mail rather than using domestic currency to buy a stamp.

Prices for these coupons were long out of date, having been set in 1907 by the International Postal Union. World War I drastically shifted exchange rates, enabling buyers to pay a small amount in Britain – or even less in Germany with its depreciated currency – and obtain a return stamp order that was good in the United States.

The markup on these tiny postal orders was large. An American penny could buy foreign stamp orders that could be converted into six cents in U.S. stamps, for a 500 per cent profit. The problem was that it would take a truckload of such postal orders to make serious money. A million-dollar investment would involve a hundred million penny coupons – which then would have to be converted into stamps and sold in competition with the U.S. Post Office, presumably at a discount, mainly in immigrant neighborhoods.

Focusing on the principle of arbitrage rather than such laborious implementation, Ponzi explained that he could make a 400 per cent gain after expenses. He promised that investors could double their money in 90 days, pretending to take due account of the costs and shipping time from Europe to America. When his Securities Exchange Company paid early investors the high returns he had described, they spread the word to others. Ponzi’s inflow of funds rose from $5,000 in February 1920 to $30,000 in March, and $420,000 by May. By July an estimated $250,000 a day was flowing into his firm, mainly from small investors who let their book credits build up rather than taking out their money. Some people put their life savings into the plan, and even borrowed against their homes.

Ponzi spent most of the money on himself, buying a mansion and bringing his mother over from Italy. The financial reporter Clarence Barron (publisher of Barron’s) noted that if he really had invested the money as he told his investors he had done, Ponzi would have had to purchase 160 million postal reply coupons. Yet the post office reported that few were being bought at home or abroad, and only 27,000 were circulating in the United States.

Federal agents raided Ponzi’s offices in August, and did not find any postal reply coupons, just as Spanish police did not find investment-grade postage stamps in the scheme’s 2006 replay. Ponzi was sentenced to prison yet again, but jumped bail and tried to make some quick money selling Florida real estate. He soon was recaptured, and was deported back to Italy upon his release in 1934.

What Ponzi sold was hope, pandering to peoples’ unrealistic desire to believe that a new way to make easy gains had been discovered, with no visible upper limit as to how long gains can persist in excess of the economy’s own rate of growth. It is a measure of how much harder it is to make returns in today’s world – and hence, how little hope needs to be excited – that whereas Ponzi promised to double his investors’ money every three months, the Spanish stamp scheme paid only a 6 to 10 per cent annual return. Neither fraud actually made any trading gains or profits, but simply paid investors out of new money coming in from fresh players. New inflows were treated as earnings. That’s how pyramid schemes work.

It was almost as if the Spanish operators had read one of the biographies of Ponzi that began to appear as observers noticed the common denominators between the global financial bubble of the 1990s and earlier bubbles. These bubbles provide a classic contrast between the real wealth of nations and what the business press these days calls “wealth creation” that simply takes the form of rising asset prices – “capital gains,” most of which are land-price gains.

No doubt stamp collectors would have viewed the bidding up of stamp prices as wealth creation if it actually had occurred. But all it would have achieved was to inflate the price of old stamps, much as the world’s growing ranks of billionaires were bidding up prices for master paintings and modern art, designer furniture and beachfront homes. If all the economy’s savings went into Rembrandts and Picassos, their price obviously would soar, just as putting $6 billion into postage stamps would have established higher plateau levels for stamp prices.

The flow of funds into any category of assets bid up their prices. This is true most of all for land, one of the most universal economic needs and conspicuous-consumption status measures. But does this really “create wealth”? Do market prices reflect use values, living standards and the progress of civilization?

The requisite characteristic for such price gains is indeed scarcity, but not so much that there is not enough for large numbers of buyers to make a market. If psychological utility is the key, “scarcity” has value only as a compulsive acquisitive character – wealth addiction. It means having what other people lack, with connotations of denial. Most money in search of mere scarcity is not going into trophies of the nouveau riches, but into the world’s most abundant yet also most universal scarce resource: land. Nature is not making any more of it. Yet everyone needs land to live on, making it the object of personal and business saving par excellence. Even in today’s postindustrial economies, land and its subsoil wealth represent the largest components of national balance sheets.

But inasmuch as land cannot be manufactured, savings cannot increase its supply by active investment. This poses a traumatizing problem for economists. National income statistics count any money spent that is not consumed as saving. Following John Maynard Keynes, they define saving as equal to investment. This sows the seeds of confusion with regard to the character and preconditions of economic growth. Can we really call it “wealth creation” when society directs its savings merely into speculation rather than into building up productive powers or living standards?

Classical economists vacillated over treating land as a factor of production or as a legal property right to extract a tollbooth around a given site and levy an access charge much like a user-tax. A factor of production contributes to production and income as more income is invested in it. A rent-yielding property reduces the economy’s flow of income. In the latter case land is part of the institutional property system, not the technologically based production sector of the economy.

What is beyond dispute is that real estate is highly political at the local level. Urban development tends to be shaped by insider dealing and public infrastructure spending to increase local property prices and lobbying to obtain low tax appraisals. It is axiomatic that the more economically powerful a source of wealth becomes, the greater its political power to lobby for special tax advantages. At the national level, real estate uses part of its revenue to back politicians who give it a widening wedge of special income-tax favoritism.

In the financial sphere, every bubble has been led by governments. Bubbles need to be orchestrated by opinion makers, topped by public officials giving a patina of confidence. The “madness of crowds” is a euphemism designed to divert blame away from governments onto the public. In the United States, Alan Greenspan played the role of public bubblemeister similar to that which Walpole had played in England’s South Sea bubble and John Law in France’s Mississippi bubble nearly three centuries ago, in the 1710s.

Today’s balance sheets confuse bubble wealth with real capital formation. “Investment” has become whatever accountants say they are. So have asset and debt values, given today’s leeway for financial fiction. The practice of “marking to market” permits accountants to project hypothetical gains at astronomical rates of interest, or trivializing by discounting, applying purely mathematical functions that have lost all connection to realistic rates of growth. The result is that the financial sector itself has become decoupled from the “real” economy.

The tragedy of our time is that saving today is being diverted in ways that are decoupled from real capital formation, but merely add to the economy’s debt and property overhead.

Suppose that Ponzi actually had bought International Postal Orders, and that the Spanish stamp companies actually had invested $6 billion in rare philatelic items and coins, driving up their price to create paper gains for the investors. To whom would they sell, in order to take their gains? (This is the proverbial “greater fool” problem.) More to the point, how positive would have been the broad economic effect of such asset-price inflation?

The recent stock market and real estate bubbles are much like pyramid schemes in the sense that what is bidding up stock and property prices is an exponential inflow of new money from pension plans and mutual funds (for shares) and bank credit (for real estate). Venture capitalists are “cashing out” while corporate managers exercise their stock options.

Suppose that mortgage-packaging companies are honest in their appraisals of current price trends. The real estate bubble is nonetheless speculative and postindustrial. The analogy is found when financial managers endorse government policies that encourage the inflation of price for stocks and bonds, stamps and coins, Rembrandts and modern art by claiming that this creates wealth and hence, by definition, pulls living standards and culture onward and upward.

What is wrong with this picture? For starters, it fails to define value as distinct from price, windfall and capital gains as distinct from earned income. It also neglects the fact that market prices rise and fall, but the debts remain in place. And when debts cannot be paid, savings are wiped out.

On May 9, 2006, the price of Escala shares fell by half as news of the police raids spread. By Friday its stock was down almost 90 per cent. On Monday it jumped by 50 per cent, from $4.34 at Thursday’s close to $9.45 a share. Hedge funds were making and losing money hand over fist, dwarfing the gains and losses made from stamp trading. A veritable market in crime, punishment and beating the rap was in play.

What does this have to do with true capital formation? Individuals are getting rich while the economy is polarizing between creditors and debtors, property owners and rent-payers. Unproductive investment occurs when it takes the form of windfall “capital” gains, and when it involves going into debt for real estate, stocks or bonds, or “collectibles.” Unproductive credit occurs when commercial banks make loans that merely finance the purchase of property, companies or financial securities already in place.

Two centuries ago, French followers of Count Henry St. Simon outlined an industrial system that was to be based mainly on equity financing (stocks) rather than debt (bonds and bank loans). Their idea was to make industrial banking a kind of mutual fund, so that claims for payment (and hence, the value of savings) would rise and fall to reflect the economy’s earning power. The industrial banking that developed largely in Germany and central Europe differed from the short-term Anglo-American collateral-based trade credit and mortgage lending. But since World War I, global financial practices have been more extractive than productive.

The consequence has been that debts on the economy-wide level have grown more rapidly than the ability to pay. Instead of reducing this debt overhead by earning their way out of debt, economies have sought to inflate their way out of debt. However, the mode of inflation is not the familiar rise in consumer prices, much less wage inflation. Rather, it is asset-price inflation, emanating largely from the United States. Since the gold-exchange standard gave way to the paper dollar standard in 1971, the U.S. economy has become unique in being able to create credit – and foreign debt – without constraint. The result has been an unparalleled growth in debt relative to income, production and wages. This “debt pollution” has been likened to environmental pollution.

We have entered an era in which financial markets resemble the stamp-buying funds. Governments have replaced industrial growth with purely financial wealth creation in the form of a real estate and stock market bubble. This has turned the economic universe upside-down relative to what the classical writers expected to result from the technological progress unleashed by the Industrial Revolution and its parallel agricultural, commercial and financial revolutions. Property and credit have become costs instead of a benefit, institutional forms of rent- and interest-extracting overhead rather than helpful inputs.

Source: counterpunch.org

The collector market for rare stamps is holding its own in turbulent times -- so much so that Geneva philatelic specialist and auctioneer David Feldman plans to launch a rare stamp investment fund in 2009.

"It doesn't seem like a time to start a fund, but we think it could be in the case of stamps," he says.

Mr. Feldman believes that unique stamps will be increasingly seen as a sound investment. He says rare stamp prices are not subject to big ups and downs, and are supported by a "passionate" collector base (around 300 million people worldwide).

Last month, Mr. Feldman privately sold the famous Mauritius Post Office Ball Envelope to Singapore collector Vikram Chand. The Ball Envelope is franked with a one-penny stamp issued in Mauritius in 1847 that was first used to pay postage on invitations to a fancy dress ball thrown by the governor's wife. Only three such envelopes survive; one is in the British Library Museum, another is owned by Queen Elizabeth II. The price paid was not released; but the envelope, according to Mr. Feldman, is insured for $4 million.

At Mr. Feldman's "Rarities of the World" auction in October a unique Imperial Russian cover with stamps from 1857 and 1858 sold for €1.3 million, a new world auction record for a Russian philatelic item. The "Countess Caroline" cover from 1883, so named because the letter was sent from Shanghai to Germany addressed to Gräfin Caroline Tattenback, fetched €1.17 million, the highest auction price ever for a China cover.

At London dealers Stanley Gibbons, investment portfolio manager Geoff Anandappa says the financial crisis has not brought a downturn in demand for investment-quality stamps. Stanley Gibbons publishes an annual May-to-May Great Britain Rarities Index which was up 38.6% on an annual basis this May. Mr. Anandappa expects to see the index up again when published next year. "British stamps are very active," he says.

At Spink, the world's largest stamp auctioneers, London specialist David Parsons is cautious. "We have to wait for sales in the New Year to really assess what impact the financial crisis will have," he says. But he notes that recent auctions have performed well.

A highlight of the year at Spink was the "Monarch" collection, a two-part auction held in May and October which fetched £3.12 million. The collection was assembled over 20 years by a private collector who strove to own an example of nearly every philatelic item related to King George V (1865-1936), an ardent stamp collector.

A Royal Philatelic Collection provenance can boost prices. At Spink on Dec. 3, a number of such items fetched well above estimates, including a Queen Victoria, two-pence, deep lilac-rose stamp from 1871 which went for £21,850 (estimate: £6,000-£7,000).

Here, some stamp auction highlights at the start of 2009:

Spink's British Empire auction on Jan. 22 features rare highlights from British Guiana, Cape of Good Hope, Madagascar, Trinidad, New Zealand and Nyasaland.

Bonhams auction house in London on Jan. 28 will have stamped mail delivered by the German Zeppelin aircraft to various European countries in the 1930s; and World War II British prisoner-of-war mail from Japanese-occupied Asia.

The Spink Shreves Galleries sale in New York on Feb. 18-19 will feature London-based art collector Joseph Hackmey's famed New Zealand and Ceylon stamps. They are expected to fetch more than $10 million.

Source: wsj.com

Rare Stamps on Stamphead.com

Like most veteran casino dealers, Denny Moreau heard plenty of stories about the working stiffs who made a score from a George high roller.

A generous gambler with a gargantuan bankroll has handed the price of a starter home to more than one fortunate dealer or cocktail waitress over the years, but Moreau just earned a living.

Before retiring in 2004, the dice jockey spent 40 years working in local gambling halls. Although he'd collect ID badges from the Fremont, International, Dunes, Tropicana, Aladdin, Silver Slipper, Castaways and Riviera, he spent most of the past two decades at the Las Vegas Hilton. He worked from the Las Vegas era depicted in Scorsese's "Casino" well into the megaresort phase of the Strip's evolution.

At 67, Denny Moreau wasn't a wild guy. He was a regular guy with a nice wife named Olga. Although he possesses a lounge comic's repertoire of one-liners, his hobby is stamp collecting.

That's right, stamps. Want to make something of it?

Moreau is a proud member of the American Philatelic Society. He's collected for 30 years.

But how can I put this gently?

Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant didn't star in "The Philatelic Story." Although Moreau is a genuine green-felt Vegas guy, Robert DeNiro wasn't the favorite to play him in a movie.

But this is where our story begins. Moreau finally retires from the casino racket and gets a chance to relax and pursue his philatelic passion. He rediscovers a small, white box that once held Andes Candies but is now filled with canceled and tattered 2-cent stamps with George Washington in blushing hue. He bought the box two decades earlier from a friend for $7.50. Its contents helped collectors study their craft.

The box had bounced around through several moves, in and out of storage. It sat in the back of a desk drawer for years waiting for Moreau to get around to it.

When he did in June 2007, he sorted through the various "2-cent reds" and came across one particularly intriguing specimen with a specific and completely intact perforation known as a Schermack. He couldn't believe his eyes.

"I wouldn't allow myself to believe I had made a find like that," he recalled.

After all, he was a regular guy. And stuff like this doesn't happen to regular guys, does it?

So he put the stamp away.

How rare could it be?

Do you recall the upside down airplane stamp? Although the "Jenny" stamps have fetched nearly $1 million at auction, there are 100 known in the philatelic world. By comparison, just 40 of the 1920 482A, 2-cent deep rose stamps are known to exist.

After a second examination, Moreau, regular guy, was sure in his heart and mind that he possessed one. He followed proper protocol, packaged the prized specimen and sent it to the Philatelic Foundation for authentication.

Soon, he received a letter essentially informing him the stamp wasn't worth much more than the paper it was printed on. How had he been so wrong? Could the experts be wrong and Denny Moreau right?

He persevered, asking for an appeal. Hey, it was only postage. The foundation still had his stamp. It also had the final say on whether it was genuine.

One year after Moreau got around to opening that Andes Candies box, he received another registered letter from the foundation. Its new opinion: The stamp was genuine.

"I just jumped to my feet," he recalls. "I couldn't believe it. I was running around the house screaming, saying, 'I can't believe it,' for two hours. Suddenly, I'm vindicated. Olga was crying. It wasn't the money. It was the fact that I had known I was right. And I was vindicated."

Siegel Auction Galleries of New York noted with relative breathlessness: "EXTREMELY FINE. EASILY ONE OF THE FINEST OF THE 40 RECORDED EXAMPLES OF THIS MAJOR 20TH CENTURY RARITY. FROM A NEW DISCOVERY AND OFFERED FOR THE MARKET FOR THE FIRST TIME."

At auction, the stamp's opening price was $55,000. It sold for $95,000 and is considered one of the rarest finds of the 20th and now 21st centuries.

And it happened all because a regular Vegas guy stuck to his guns.

Knowing that, I expect DeNiro to call Denny any day.

Source: lvrj.com

USA Stamps on Stamphead.com

The five species of breeding penguins in the Falkland Islands will soon be winging their way through letter boxes, appearing on a new issue of postage stamps – Breeding Penguins – which were released this week by the Falkland Islands Post Office.


Available to visitors to the Islands, including cruise passengers, and to collectors worldwide, the colourful set of six stamps comprises head profiles of each type of the five breeding penguins found in the Falklands – Magellanic, rockhopper, macaroni, king and gentoo. An unusual picture of the rare albino rockhopper penguin also features.

The official first day cover and the background for the sheetlet show king penguins waddling along one of the many white sand beaches found in the Falklands archipelago, which is made up of over 700 islands. The stamps are illustrated by local photographer Alan Henry and Reinhard Mischke.

Penguins are generally regarded as being synonymous with the Islands and it comes as no surprise since an estimated 770,000 penguins have their natural environment in the Falklands.

However it must be said that the Falkland Islands are not just about penguins, there are also the spectacular black-browed albatross, southern sea lions, leopard seals and elephant seals, plus its stunning scenery and fascinating history.

The stamps, Airmail Postcard rate stamps (currently 55p), are available singly in sheetlets of 10 and combined in a souvenir sheet.

They can be purchased online from the Philatelic Bureau in Stanley (visit Falkland Islands Philatelic Bureau), or contact John Smith, General Manager, Pobjoy Mint on jcs137@pobjoy.com for details of dealers who stock the stamps.

Source: mercopress.com

Falkland Islands on Stamphead.com

The global meltdown has put alternative investment firmly in focus with people having had their fingers and bank balances severely burnt in traditional markets. And within the alternative sector, positively exotic funds are now springing up that can smooth out the ups and downs of cyclical markets.

Two of these exotic funds were creating a lot of interest at Fund Forum Middle East 2008.

It may not seem the most obvious way to get financial growth and protect capital, but investing in stamps and guitars have a lot to offer, specifically if the investment is part of a large portfolio in a fund.

Stanley Gibbon (Guernsey), part of the oldest philatelic company in the world, was one of the investment companies that came to Bahrain to promote its new fund which offers growth potential and a hedge against the volatility of traditional markets.

"Rare stamps produced a return of more than 600 per cent between 1970 and the present day and during any five-year period have never declined in value," said Stanley Gibbon (Guernsey) director Phillip Dawe.

"On average rare stamps have appreciated by 10 per cent a year and they have practically no correlation with other asset classes as their value is underpinned by the millions of collectors across the globe."

The company has been developing portfolios, at a minimum investment of £5,000 ($7,371) successfully for some time, aimed at the individual retail investor in a scheme that requires investors to hold the products for five years but offers a guaranteed return.

And in the new year, the company plans to take its investment offer further by launching a rare stamps fund.

"This will be a closed end fund with investors probably locked in for five years," he said.

"We are still looking at different ideas but it is a very good medium to long-term investment that avoids market ups and downs."

The portfolio is expected to specialise in high value British and Commonwealth stamps which have enjoyed strong value growth in recent years.

"While the number of young people collecting stamps in the UK has declined as people favour playing with electronic games there has been a boom in the stamp collecting market in emerging markets like Russia, Brazil, China and elsewhere in Asia," he added.

Source: gulf-daily-news.com

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Hongkong Post issued a set of special stamps to salute the Judiciary in the special administrative region on Thursday, the first of its kind in the city.

The stamps feature the Statue of Justice, the Court of Final Appeal, judicial robes of the various court levels and the Chief Justice's mace, with their par varying from 1.4 HK dollars to 5 HK dollars.

Also on sale at all post offices across Hong Kong were official first day covers for one dollars each and other associated philatelic products.

At the special stamps' launching ceremony, Chief Justice Andrew Li said the stamps highlight the importance judges attach to the administration of justice and the maintenance of public confidence in the judiciary.

According to Li, there are 180 judges in Hong Kong, half of whom sit at the magistracy and tribunal level while the others sit at the District Court, the High Court and the Court of Final Appeal.

Source: people.com.cn

Hong Kong Stamps on Stamphead.com

Professional Stamp Experts (PSE) has created an innovative stamp album based on PSE's acclaimed "A Guide to U.S. Design Numbers," a simplified system for building a basic collection of United States postage stamps by major design type.

"Like the guide book, the album represents an entirely new approach to collecting U.S. stamps from 1847 to 1947. The first century of U.S. stamps is a compelling story with numerous artistic and colorful items. This album tells that story," said Michael Sherman, President of PSE, the philatelic expertizing and certification division of Collectors Universe, Inc. (NASDAQ: CLCT).

The 74-page album is printed on acid-free paper. It contains spaces for 435 regular-issue U.S. postage stamps issued between 1847 and 1947 and intended for use on letters or parcels. Each stamp design is illustrated and includes a number that corresponds to its "USD" number listed in the U.S. Design Numbers booklet.

The booklet is available free. The album can be purchased for $35 each, postpaid, and is available with a plain left edge or with a three-hole punch.

"It is hoped that this approach will open the door for thousands of new collectors to enjoy this fascinating and time-honored hobby," explained Sherman.

Veteran collectors have enthusiastically endorsed the ability of the PSE design numbers concept to attract new collectors and assist novices who may be confused by the huge number of complicated, nearly-identical minor varieties of U.S. stamps.

"I applaud your suggestion that collectors adopt a fresh approach to collecting 19th and early 20th century U.S. postage stamps. Your design type approach provides a rational way for collector to assemble and display their collections of early U.S. stamps and covers without getting lost in the minutiae...or getting discouraged by all those blank spaces at the front of their albums," an Illinois collector wrote to Sherman soon after the design numbers guide became available this past summer.

A Maryland collector stated: "This is the greatest thing I have seen in a long time. I had been trying to assemble an early collection. The huge range of varieties proved so frustrating, I lost interest in the hobby.... Your book will be the answer to my quest."

For additional information or to place an order for the album, "United States Postage Stamps by Design Type, The First Century 1847 - 1947," contact Professional Stamp Experts, P.O. Box 6170, Newport Beach, CA 92658. Phone: (949) 567-1346. E-mail: PSE@collectors.com. Online: www.PSEstamp.com.

Source: news-antique.com

Classic US Stamps on Stamphead.com

In a reception at the Garrison Library, the Gibraltar Philatelic Bureau unveiled a new set of ten stamps which depicts the history of the Royal Gibraltar Regiment. Amongst those present at the launch were His Excellency the Governor, Lt Gen Sir Robert Fulton, Mr Joe Holliday the Deputy Chief Minister, the Mayor Momy Levy and the Regiment’s new Honorary Colonel Denis Duarte.

‘It was difficult to show, in just ten stamps, the origin of the Regiment – from the Volunteer Corps of the first World War all the way to our present day soldiers serving in Afghanistan today,’ said Lt Col John Perez, the Commanding Officer. ‘This has been done by giving representation to every single era of the Regiment’s steps through the years.’

Colonel Denis Duarte added, ‘These stamps are a very simple but very effective way of upholding our regimental history and, at the same time, reminding Gibraltarians about their regiment’s professionalism.’

‘I felt from the start that the release of these stamps was a great idea – not just from a philatelic point of view but also in recognising the work carried out by the regiment,’ said Deputy Chief Minister Joe Holliday. ‘The stamps are impressive and they mark milestones in the Regiment’s history.

Having been on sale for just a few days, over 45,000 sets of the stamps have already been sold. Glendon Martinez, head of the Philatelic Bureau, is therefore convinced that this set will become one of the Bureau’s most popular editions and will prove to be a certain favourite with many stamp collectors around the world.

Source: gibfocus.gi

Gibraltar Stamps on Stamphead.com

To mark the occasion of the arrival in Malta, of RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 on her last voyage toward Dubai, MaltaPost p.l.c. Philatelic Bureau is issuing a set of 4 stamps in the maritime series, entitled ‘Cruise liners’.

The departure of the Queen Elizabeth 2 from Southampton on November 11 marks the end of an era which will see the last of the great ocean liners sail through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal en route to her final resting place in Dubai. From November 27, Cunard's longest-serving liner and flagship will become a floating "hotel, retail and entertainment destination" at the Palm Jumeirah, the enormous palm-shaped artificial island currently being developed as a complex of tourist hotels and apartments, also by Dubai World from 2009.

The stamps, designed in-house by Daniel Mangani, have a face value of Euro 0.63, Euro 1.16, Euro 1.40 and Euro 3.00. The stamps are 44.0 mm by 31.0 mm in size, with a perforation of 13.9 by 14.0 (comb.). All stamps are offset printed on Maltese Crosses watermarked paper by Printex Limited, and are available in sheets of ten.

The stamps reproduce four world class liners that regularly visit Valletta Grand Harbour. The liners are MSC Musica, MS Voyager of the Seas, MS Westerdam, and obviously the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2.

The stamps will be on sale from the 18th November at MaltaPost postal branches in Valletta (Dar Annona), Victoria, Gozo, Head Office, Marsa, the MaltaPost mobile retail branch, and the Philatelic Bureau in 305, Triq Hal Qormi, Marsa, (tel. 2596 1740, e-mail philately@maltapost.com).

For this occasion the MaltaPost mobile retail branch will be stationed in the Valletta Waterfront close to the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 quay.

Source: hellmail.co.uk

Ships on Stamps on Stamphead.com

The Cayman Islands Postal Service’s Christmas stamp issue is a cheerful and animated collection that reflects the light side of the 2008 holiday season. Entitled Unique Transportation, the issue is scheduled for release on Wednesday.

Rich in hue and meticulous in detail, this stamp issue depicts the Islands’ tourist attractions and transportation available to residents and tourists alike.

The four stamps –– 25¢, 75¢, 80¢ and $1 –– and First Day Cover feature Santa using different modes of transport as he delivers gifts throughout the islands. On the 25¢ stamp, he cruises into George Town Harbour on the Jolly Roger to begin his deliveries to local children.

Then on the 75¢ stamp, we see Santa standing by a horse buggy as he prepares to deliver gifts in West Bay, but he is more adventurous on the 80¢ stamp, which pictures him flying by helicopter to deliver some Christmas cheer on Little Cayman. Finally, on the $1 stamp, Santa has fun at the racetrack in the first–ever Cayman Islands Winston Cup race car.

The first of two images on the First Day Cover depicts Santa taking a submarine ride; even the stingrays are caught up in the moment as they greet the jolly fellow. The second image displays green turtles pulling Santa’s sleigh through Cayman Brac’s Lost City of Atlantis.

“This light–hearted series is a continuation of our 2001 Christmas issue, which depicted Santa riding a manta ray, on board a catboat, parasailing and on a dock,” explained Philatelic Manager, Karen McField.

“We wanted to have fun with our Christmas stamps again this year and we thought that combining Santa with the Islands’ tourist attractions would be something for the enjoyment of collectors and children world–wide. The result is a bright and colourful series, which I am sure, will prove popular,” she said.

Unique Transportation stamps will be on sale at all post offices. For more information, please visit our website at http://www.caymanpost.gov.ky

Source: caycompass.com

Cayman Islands on Stamphead.com

Memorable moments from the life of the Prince of Wales are included in a commemorative sheet containing ten 1st class postage stamps and stamp labels issued to mark the 60th birthday of the future King of England, on Friday November 14, his actual birthday.

The labels, attached to the 1st class Welsh definitive stamps, will bring back many happy memories of notable events in the life of Prince Charles for older readers of The Times. In particular, his Christening in the Music Room at Buckingham Palace by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Geoffrey Fisher, on December 15 that year, and his Investiture as the Prince of Wales, by his mother The Queen, during a spectacular ceremony at Caernarfon Castle on July 1, 1969.

These stamp labels also depict informal pictures of a happy Prince Charles pictured with Nelson Mandela, the former President of South Africa, and comedians Eric Morecombe and Ernie Wise. Further photographs and information about the life of the Prince of Wales are illustrated in a souvenir pack supplied with the sheet. These include his education, his love of painting, playing polo, the work of the Prince’s Trust, his interest in architecture and his wide ranging charitable patronage.

The engaging bilingual sheet, produced for the philatelic market in Welsh and English, will appeal to stamp collectors and devotees of all things connected with the Royal Family. It has been thoughtfully designed by Sedley Place, an independent company of designers based in south London, and printed by French security printer Cartor, using the litho process. The sheet, price £13.50 is available by mail order from Royal Mail Tallents House based in Edinburgh and at selected post offices. Unfortunately Royal Mail has chosen to sell this commemorative sheet at a premium over face value of the 1st class stamps as a way of making extra revenue from stamp collectors. As a result this philatelic item will not be listed in the famous Stanley Gibbons stamp catalogue.

This is the third special Royal Mail commemorative sheet and follows issues to mark the centenary of the Territorial Army released in April and the 1908 London Olympic Games Centenary on July 24 2008. These sheets are used by Royal Mail as a way of marking anniversaries and events that did not make it into the stamp programme. What a great pity that Royal Mail did not take the opportunity and issue a special set of commemorative postage stamps to mark this important milestone in the life of the Prince of Wales.

Despite the Royal Mail Stamp Department’s mistaken belief, there are still millions of people throughout the world, particularly those who live in the former British Empire, who collect and eagerly await new stamps depicting members of the Royal Family.

The island of Jersey is also celebrating the Prince of Wales 60th birthday with a special £4 value stamp (issued in sheetlets of four) depicting a magnificent portrait of the HRH The Prince of Wales, also printed by Cartor. After 12 months this fine commemorative stamp will become the £4 definitive stamp in the current range on sale on post offices in Jersey. Royal Mail please take note.

The Prince of Wales is no stranger to Jersey having visited the Island on a number of occasions and Jersey Post has incorporated the single stamp into an attractive miniature sheet that shows a relaxed Prince of Wales pictured with his sons Prince William and Prince Harry, during a skiing holiday at Klosters in Switzerland.

Source: timesonline.co.uk

Stamps of Royalty on Stamphead.com

A U.S. company wanted to buy the most valuable Czech postage stamp, displayed in New York and Washington these days, for one million dollars, but its owner, famous Czech philatelist Ludvik Pytlicek, refused to sell it, he has told CTK.

"I have told them that this stamp will stay in the Czech Republic since it would be a shame if we had to go abroad to see our most valuable stamp," Pytlicek told CTK in New York.

The four-crown green stamp with a reversed overprint saying Posta ceskoslovenska (Czechoslovak Post) 1919 originates from the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy, part of which the Czech Lands were until the establishment of the first Czechoslovakia in 1918.

The stamp is one of the world's rarities as its exists only in eight copies, philatelists say.

Pytlicek bought it for 2.6 million crowns. It is insured for 10 million crowns.

Pytlicek transports it in a special briefcase. Moreover, he travels "incognito" telling no one where and when he would fly for security reasons, he said.

Czechoslovak postage stamps have beet displayed in New York at a two-day exhibition of rarities from some 20 prestigious philatelists from all over the world, Pytlicek said.

He presented 16 sheets with over 30 stamps there.

Then the display will be opened in the Postal Museum in Washington this weekend.

The most valuable Czechoslovak stamps come from the period around Czechoslovakia's establishment when the state used overprinted old Austrian-Hungarian stamps due to the lack of finances, Pytlicek explained.

Pytlicek owns one of the best collections of Czechoslovak stamps in the world, comprising some 5000 sheets, and he has won many awards at international philatelic exhibitions.

Pytlicek has displayed his stamps in Brazil, Japan, Russian and the United States.

He is a member of the most prestigious club of philatelic rarities - Club 100 de Monte Carlo de 1 Elite de la Philatelie.

Foreign insurance companies have valued his collection at over 100 millions crowns.

Source: praguemonitor.com

Czechoslovakia on Stamphead.com

As the first snow flakes make their way to the ground they bring with them the joy of winter. Children radiate with excitement as they adorn hats, mittens and scarves to enjoy the long-awaited Canadian winter. To celebrate the joy of winter outdoor activities, Canada Post will issue three secular stamps entitled Christmas: Winter Fun, in addition to a traditionally-themed stamp entitled Christmas: The Nativity.

A Dunedin stamp collector has won gold at a world exhibition in Prague.

Greg Francis (68), of Waverley, was one of five New Zealanders invited to submit collections to the Praga 2008 World Philatelic Exhibition and he was the only one to collect a gold medal.

Mr Francis presented about 200 original envelopes which had either been posted from or posted to Otago since 1840 - part of his postal history collection.

"Postal history is actually collecting the markings and the rates and the routes of letters as opposed to postage stamps," he said.

His oldest letter was posted on March 17, 1840, from Port Otago by the captain of the whaling ship Columbus to the ship's owners in Fairhaven, Massachusetts.

Because stamps were not in use then, the letter has a handwritten mark showing US14c had been paid.

Mr Francis has spent 50 years building up his collection of envelopes sent to or from the goldfields.

Pride of place is held by the only known surviving envelope destined for Gabriels Gully, near Lawrence.

It was posted to the gold receiver, a Mr De Lacey, in July 1861, only two or three months after gold was discovered.

Mr Francis also has one of only three envelopes postmarked "Otakou".

The letter was sent from Edinburgh in 1848 and stamped Otakou when it arrived in New Zealand.

However, Mr Francis said Presbyterian settlers Thomas Burns and William Cargill took issue with Catholic postmaster John McCarthy's use of the name Otakou and, in 1848, the settlement's name was designated "Otago".

Mr Francis said he was delighted to have won the gold medal, which arrived in the post yesterday.

His interest in postal history began when he was given a large bundle of stamps at the age of 8 and found one postmarked "Spit".

Intrigued, he and his father discovered that "The Spit" was the former name of Port Ahuriri, Napier.

"I started from there.

''I went through all these bundles of stamps and took out all the postmarks and I've been collecting ever since."

He would not reveal the value of his collection.

Greg Francis displays one of the most valuable items in his gold-medal-winning postal history collection.

The one shilling stamp was cut in half in 1859 because the new Suez Canal route halved postal rates between New Zealand and Britain.


Source: odt.co.nz


New Zealand on Stamphead.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — An extra penny for your thoughts.

Mailing a letter costs a penny more this week, with the price of a first-class stamp rising to 42 cents Monday.

But folks who planned ahead and bought Forever stamps for 41 cents each can still use them without extra postage.

Sorry, Forever stamps also went up to 42 cents. But buyers may want to stock up anyway, looking ahead to next May when prices are expected to be adjusted again.

The cost to mail a post card will also went up a penny, to 27 cents.

Other new rates:

_Large envelope, 2 ounces, $1, up 3 cents.

_Certified mail, $2.70, up 5 cents.

_First-class international letter to Canada or Mexico, 72 cents, up 3 cents.

_First-class international letter to other countries, 94 cents, up 4 cents.

_Priority mail flat-rate envelope, $4.80, up 20 cents.

_Express mail flat-rate envelope, $16.50, up 25 cents.

Postage rates last went up in May 2007, with a first-class stamp jumping 2 cents to 41 cents.

• U.S. Postal Service: http://www.usps.com

The modern world of communication has become a frantic place: E-mails, phone texts, Skyping, "crackberrys" pinning each other. The sheer volume of messages flitting around the world in microseconds can overwhelm you with a digital downpour.

Sometimes it helps to find solace in a quieter era, as a group of British enthusiasts did recently, celebrating an anniversary with their Canadian cousins. The Canadian Philatelic Society of Great Britain is the quintessential British club: Quirky, eccentric and unique. They are interested in Canadian stamps and Canadian stamps only.

Unveiled to a burgeoning populace mid-way through the 19th century, when Canada was still 16 years away from becoming a country, three stamps saw the light of day: The 3p Beaver, the 6p Prince Albert and a 12p Queen Victoria. The 3p Beaver, it turns out, is one of the first "thematic" stamps in the world.

Club President Graham Searle says this group of collectors, formed in the 1930s in a Glasgow coffee shop, has been getting together pretty continuously since not long after the Second World War. "Boys of a certain age look for things to collect and stamps were cheap and fairly plentiful," he points out. "You must remember a lot of Canada was settled by Scots, so many of us had family over there that were sending us letters. They seemed fairly exotic."

Some of the members use their collections as a social history of Canada, Searle says. "Stamps and of course letters perfectly illustrate immigration and district history in Canada."

The number of members has been in decline over the last decade. "Kids just have more things to do these days, like computers," Searle wryly observes.

Eye-Catching Motion Captured In Stamp Sheet

New Zealand imaging company, Outer Aspect, has utilised pioneering MotionPrint imaging technology to produce a commemorative mini-sheet stamp, celebrating Year of The Surf Lifesaver in Australia.

Outer Aspect’s marketing executive, Sharmila Patel says close liaison with Australia Post and its designers was required to ensure the correct movements, wave sequences and overall look were achieved.

“The video footage provided was converted into a series of small clips and output onto specially-formatted lithographic plates then printed onto the reverse side of clear optical plastic lens,” says Ms Patel.

“A specialised coating was then put on the back to make it reflective rather than a translucent image. This was followed by the application of a specialised adhesive produced especially for the philatelic market.”

“The work was finished by adding unique security features that make a bona fide stamp and die cutting to enable the stamp to be removed from the sheetlet.”

The job, which marked the centenary of surf lifesaving in Australia, was also the first MotionPrint mini-sheet to be produced for Australia Post.

Despite Outer Aspect having established itself as the world-leader in this technology throughout the philatelic community, Ms Patel says this job was the “most technically difficult” mini-sheet yet undertaken by Outer Aspect.

“We were required to provide motion across the whole mini-sheet, whereas prior to this we had only done MotionPrint at individual stamp size.”

“It required all of our skills and through the process we hit the limits to what the printing press can achieve -- the tolerances required proved to be beyond what a standard printing press can do.

“Our company is always pushing the boundaries of technical development and each job has its own unique requirements that require constant development of market innovation.”

Israel Postal Company director-general Avi Hochman said Sunday that the stamps constituted part of the Israeli experience and that the designs were symbolic. He hoped they would serve as tiny paper ambassadors of goodwill around the world.

The memorial stamp, with a face value of NIS 1.55 and designed by Ronen Goldberg, shows a flaming-red flower representing memory, reddish clouds representing the war and its cost, and white doves and blue skies representing hope and peace.

The "60 Years of Independence" stamp, also NIS 1.55, is based on the official symbol of the event and was designed by Miri Nistor. A sheet of six stamps based on independence anniversary posters from five different years in Israel's history (from 1952 to 2006) costs a total of NIS 13.50 and was designed by Jaimi Kivkovich.

A Hatikva memorial sheet costing NIS 15 and designed by Baruch Na'eh shows Theodor Herzl and David Ben-Gurion, with a Star of David made from perforations.

This set of stamps was done with a "dash of flair" according to Deputy Postmaster General (Administration), Glennamoe McNabb.

Unique series

"The Jamaican Stamp Advisory Committee wanted to introduce an element that would make this series unique, and so a 'se-tenant' pair format was chosen as part of the design," she said.

McNabb said a 'se-tenant' is a philatelic term referring to the fact that stamps are joined: in this case, a set of two stamps (paired) form the se-tenant. The se-tenant consists of the runners in the women's 4x100m final, and both stamps are of the same value.

Veronica Campbell.

Asafa Powell.

Source: jamaica-gleaner.com

A full house with 32 people attended the meeting and the newly added "Stamp-Trade" hour.

After the reading of the minutes and dealing with club business, the program turned to planning for the May 3 show at the Knight of Columbus Hall east of Hanover on Highway 4.

Eleven dealers have reserved tables. A lunch counter, with soup, sandwiches, coffee, tea, pop, and desert, will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The anniversary cake is to be cut at 2 p.m.

A wide variety of displays will be set up. Full 16 page frames, single sheet frames, single display frames and the newly added students page, made up by the students of Hanover Heights Community School.

Kathy Baumann of Hanover send her collection from way back. Peter Butler of Toronto, a director of the Royal Philatelic Society, and Martin DeKeyzer of London have donated catalogues, tweezers, magnifiers and other supplies that can be handed out to students to help them in this educational hobby of stamp collecting.

Toronto jewellery designer Reena Ahluwalia never dreamed that one day her work would appear on a postage stamp.

But one of her diamond necklaces is being featured by the Belgian postal service to celebrate Antwerp as a world diamond capital.

"This is beyond any aspiration," Ahluwalia remarked from her home/studio in downtown Toronto. "One does not create thinking that one day your work will be on a postage stamp. I feel deeply honoured and really overwhelmed."

The diamond necklace featured on the stamp uses 101.0 carats of diamonds and took five months to make. Created in collaboration with diamond sponsor Diarough N.V, Belgium and jewel sponsor Shrenuj & Co. Ltd., the piece was a finalist in the HRD Awards 2007 design competition, organized by the Antwerp World Diamond Centre.

The theme for the competition was "A Night at the Opera" and the design pays homage to the legendary diva Maria Callas.

The stamp is one of five Antverpia 2010 postage stamps released by the Belgian post office.

Ahluwalia, who's in her 30s and moved to Toronto from India six years ago, is a freelance designer for top-tier jewellery houses and private clients around the world.

Mr Payne led the men back to the base through enemy territory and was later awarded the highest military decoration for valour, the Victoria Cross.

Yesterday, he joined the Chief of the Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, at the Shrine of Remembrance to launch of a series of Anzac Day postage stamps. The Anzac dawn service next Friday would be a time of pride, reflection and personal sorrow, he said.

"I think about all the people that I know that gave their lives and it's a very quiet and hard time," Mr Payne said. "(But) with the turn of the century there seems a lot more young people coming out and trying to find a bridge to what they need to do for our nation."

The five new stamps include images of war veterans marching, a bugler playing the Last Post and young Australians holding up the national flag.

They also depict the "Ode", from For the Fallen, a poem by English poet Laurence Binyon: "They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them."

SARANAC LAKE, N.Y. (AP) - The U.S. Postal Service is honoring Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau - a pioneer in tuberculosis research - with a postage stamp.

Trudeau went to the Adirondacks in the late 1800s suffering from tuberculosis and was eventually cured with lots of rest, good food and mountain air.

He dedicated himself to the study of TB, founding a sanitarium in Saranac Lake and the Trudeau laboratory. His mission was later reorganized into the Trudeau Institute, which still researches diseases of the lung today.

The 76-cent first-class stamp that will bear Trudeau's image is the eleventh in the Distinguished American series, honoring influential people in the arts and sciences.

The global interest in a set of rare stamps held by a Wellington man suggests there are quite a few people who probably would.

Part of the deceased estate of philatelist David Jarvis, who died last year having never married and childless, a lifetime's collection of 500 lots of stamps with an estimated value of $400,000 will go under the hammer at an auction in the capital tomorrow.

Among the compilation are all three of the 1855 Full Face Queens - New Zealand's first stamps - and a set of about 40 penny blacks - the world's first postage stamps used in Great Britain in 1840.

And while these stamps were once just a penny, these days you'd be lucky to get a penny black for anything under $300.

"For a penny black in good order that's probably the cheapest you'd pay," said Christopher Burtt of stamp auctioneer John Mowbray International.

Mr Burtt said bidding was likely to be competitive for the "very sought-after" Prussian Blue, which Mr Jarvis also had in his collection.

The stamp commemorates the 1935 silver jubilee of King George V and Queen Mary but because printing was done in the wrong shade of blue all were withdrawn from circulation except for a single sheet.

"We have an estimate of $10,000 on this one and I'd like to think that's fairly conservative," said Mr Burtt.

Also on offer is a Queen Victoria Inland Revenue 1 official, which originally sold for ?1 but is likely to fetch more than $7500.

"Stamps are not a bad investment and it's worth being patient if you've got rare material. You can never go wrong with quality," he said.

Considerable interest had come through postal biddings.

Mr Burtt was unclear where the proceeds of Mr Jarvis' estate were going to as he was a "particularly private person", although the executor is understood to be living in New Zealand.

EXPENSIVE STAMPS

* 1935 2d Prussian Blue Silver Jubilee, error of colour, estimate $10,000.

* 1840 1d Black "VR" Official, estimate $7500.

In major cities across China, like Shanghai and Xi'an the stamps went on sale right after the Olympic torch was lit. Stamp collectors waited in long queues, wanting their share of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

A Shanghai resident said, "For all Chinese, lighting the torch is lighting the passion. We've been waiting for the Olympics for over a hundred years."

For the first time since Canada began issuing stamps in 1851, one has been completely redesigned due to an artwork error. After five small first-class letter-rate stamps went on sale Dec. 27, a lighthouse keeper who had operated the Pachena Point lighthouse on Vancouver Island's mid-west coast tipped a Victoria paper that the house shown on its left was in the wrong position.

When the story broke in January, B.C. Senator Pat Carney called for a correction.

Canada Post apologized for the error and said the photo was "flopped" printed backwards from the original negative or digital image supplied by a stock agency. It blamed a firm hired to scan the image onto its website.

With 800,000 stamps featuring the century-old lighthouse already printed and distributed to post offices across Canada, no recall was ordered. Instead, a reprint was announced.

The corrected image appears in the latest edition of a promotional magazine sent to collectors and post offices.

The reprint will start rolling off the security printer's presses in May and likely will be on sale by July.

Only the edge of the house appears, to the right, shadows from the lighthouse now appear on the right instead of the left. A Maple Leaf flag is on the upper left of all such regular-issue stamps, which are sold for 52 cents plus GST.

The lighthouse was built in 1908, two years after 117 people died when the Valencia, an American ship, sank nearby in 1906. It ranks as one of the north Pacific coast's worst ocean-going disasters.

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Philately belongs to every person who has ever mailed a letter or admired a beautifully crafted postage stamp. I entered the world of stamp collecting as a young boy at the age of twelve, and several decades later my passion burns as bright as ever. The purpose of this article is to describe the reasons why philately should live, grow and expand throughout the world. This message is for those who have not yet experienced the passions of the art of stamp collecting, and to showcase the intellectual and practical benefits of this wonderful activity. Everyone is welcome into the world of philately, and there are no barriers to entry.

Philately is the perfect word for stamp lovers. Philately was created in 1864 from two words “Philein” meaning “To Love” and “Ateliea” meaning Tax Exemption. Loving stamps is in fact a way of living in a cultural world constantly in motion and with expanding boundaries. Philately is also a way to learn more about the outside world and ourselves, and "as we learn, we also grow," said Alessandra Coderoni the author's wife and philteliste as well.

WHY COLLECT STAMPS?

To the children I would answer that stamps can teach history, geography and culture in an entertaining way. Philately can also stimulate the brain, exercise the memory and improve concentration and focus. These beautiful tiny vignettes can transport collectors into the world’s largest museum where they can discover historical events, lives of famous people and secrets of the arts.

Stamps will teach children the importance of details and research. They are also a catalyst to create great friendships that can last a lifetime. For a child to discover the charm of a stamp and learn his country’s fascinating history is a great experience, and the knowledge gained stays with them throughout adulthood.

To the adults I would suggest that philately can work exceptionally well as a diversion when confronted with the stresses of our professional life. With philately, one can build a historical and financial asset that can appreciate in value over the years. Philately can stimulate creativity, especially concerning vacation places which may otherwise seem to lack interest or excitement.

For the elderly, when the time of retirement approaches there is often an emptiness that philately can fulfill. Philately also provides a way to keep abreast of current events, as well as friends and a reason to socialize, allowing us to keep in touch with the world. To be passionate with something new can be converted to positive energy which strengthens the soul and builds resistance against physical diseases, melancholy or depression.

I shall conclude with the words of two lovers of philately, the first man, compels great admiration because of the dimensions of his work, and thus I refer to the words of Arthur Maury in the conclusion of his text “To Collectors” (Arthur Maury, Timbres-postes album du collectioneur – Published by Maison Arthur Maury, 1904) “Care, Patience and Perseverance”.

IT’S that time of the year for creative kids wanting to get their images sent around the country and world on stamps this Christmas.

The NZ Post design a stamp competition is now open, to school students aged five to 12.

Works from three lucky winners will grace the 50c, $2 and $2.50 stamps, all of which can be used to post mail overseas at Christmas. The children’s designed stamps will complement the traditional Christmas range.

It’ll be the third year NZ Post will have run the competition. The three category winners will each receive $1000, while $3000 goes to their school.

NZ Post stamps general manager Ivor Masters says this year’s competition theme is a Kiwi Christmas.

“We’re asking children to really let their imagination run wild, but at the same time to think about what might look good on a stamp. Since stamps are small, children need to keep their designs simple and use bright, strong colours.”

• Entry forms and tips on what makes a good stamp image can be downloaded from www.nzpost.co.nz/designastamp. Entries close on May 9 and the stamps will be available for sale from October 3.

Entries can be sent to: FreePost Design A Stamp, PO Box 38707, Wellington Mail Centre, Lower Hutt 5045.

Nhan Dan- All three collections of Vietnamese stamps sent to the 21st Asia – Pacific Stamp Exhibition held in Taipei have won prizes.

The collection “Golden Hands” by Tran Dinh from Quang Nam won silver and bronze prizes; and “Past and Present Information” by Nguyen Ngoc Tram from Gia Lai and “Flower Festival” by Vo Minh Luong from Can Tho won bronze prizes.

Bahrain issued a set of two commemorative stamps to mark the Arab Productive Families Day.

The two special edition stamps feature the portrait of His Majesty King Hamad and pictures of hands creating a new craft.

They are issued by Bahrain Post and will be available in denominations of 100 and 200 fils.

The Royal Mail is marking the centenary of the SOS distress signal with a set of six stamps highlighting the work of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, which regularly risk their own lives attempting to save those of others.

The Edna Windsor lifeboat from Barra in the Outer Hebrides is the Scottish representation among the six stamps. The nine-year-old Severn-class lifeboat is the largest in the fleet, at 41 tonnes.

The stamps highlight the actions of the crews of the coastguard rescue helicopters working closely with the RNLI, whose headquarters are in Poole, Dorset. The helicopter crews have been called out more than 80 times already this year and 618 times during 2007, undertaking a wide variety of search-and-rescue missions in often hostile environments.

The Giant's Causeway and Carrickfergus Castle feature on two 1st Class stamps, while two 78p stamps have illustrations of Belfast and St Patrick.

The stamps are not available individually but a sheet costs £2.24.

The Northern Ireland miniature sheet is the third in a Royal Mail series of stamps honouring patron saints, ahead of St Patrick's Day next Monday.

The first in the series celebrating Scotland and St Andrew was issued in 2006 while last year's stamps featured England and St George.

Celebrating Wales will be issued to coincide with St David's Day in 2009.

Michael Kennedy of Royal Mail said they hoped the stamps would help promote Northern Ireland around the world.

By Michelle Hsu, Special to the China Post

While showcasing the most representative stamp collections of these countries, the exhibition in conjunction with the FIAP annual meeting will provide a critical venue for FIAP member representatives to exchange viewpoints on the issues concerning stamp-collecting and postal service development in the international community.

The FIAP, since it was established as a non-profit and non-political organization in 1974, has seen rapid expansion in its membership, which is now composed of 30 member countries in Asia, Australia, the Middle East and Africa. Among the 30 member countries, 24 (Taiwan and 23 foreign countries) will organize delegations to take part in this year's Taiwan-hosted stamp exhibition and FIAP annual meeting.

The 24 participating countries are:

Asia (16): Bangladesh, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Macao, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan and Vietnam

Australia (2): Australia and New Zealand

Middle East (5): Bahrain, Iran, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)

Africa (1): South Africa

International stamp collections

"The participation of the 24 countries will make the stamp exhibition very international," said Ho Nuan-Hsuan, who, as chairperson of event organizer Taiwan Post Co., is the president of the Organizing Committee of the 21st Asian International Stamp Exhibition. In terms of the number of participating countries, Ho believes that Taipei 2008 Stamp Exhibition will be one of the largest international events held in Taiwan.

A significant advantage of the wide international participation is the extensive range of stamp collections to be displayed at the 5-day exhibition. "A total of 1,012 frames of stamp collections will be on display during the event. Among them, 740 frames, or 73 percent, are from abroad," confirmed Ho. These stamp collections are classified into two categories of non-competitive and competitive. The former includes 20 honorary collections that have been honored with awards at various international occasions in the past. As Ho said, this event provides exceptional opportunities for local residents to see the most precious stamp collections of other countries.

Patronage and support

"As organizer of the most important annual event for philatelists in Asia, we have seen enthusiastic patronage and participation of the FIAP member countries for this year's stamp exhibition," Ho observed. In arranging the Taipei 2008 Stamp Exhibition, Taiwan Post is joined by the Chinese Taipei Philatelic Federation (CTPF) and the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA), the two other major co-organizers of this event.

According to Ho, the Organizing Committee, which is composed of members from FIAP member countries, has held numerous meetings prior to the exhibition, with two major ones participated in by FIAP President Surajit Gongvatana (from Thailand) and FIAP Senior Consultant Tay Peng Hian (from Singapore). "They especially arranged trips to join the preparatory meetings in Taiwan, and both will attend the exhibition as distinguished guests," said Ho.

"Thanks to the patronage and support of FIAP members, preparatory work for the exhibition has gone very smoothly and successfully," Ho stressed. For this exhibition, he added, "we have only six or seven months to prepare for it from the contract-signing at the Thailand 2007 Stamp Exhibition last August to the formal commencement in early March."

Taiwan Post can successfully prepare for the big international event in such a short period of time partly thanks to its experience in arranging similar occasions before. In fact, as Ho noted, "it's the third time for Taiwan Post to organize the international stamp exhibition." Previously, it had held the 10th Asian International Stamp Exhibition in 1996 and the 18th Asian International Stamp Exhibition in 2005, in addition to the Asian International Invitation Stamp Exhibition in 1993.

Logo and spokeswoman

The theme of the stamp exhibition for this year is "Ecological Beauty of Taiwan," under which Taiwan Post invites Chi Cheng, notably known as the "Flying Antelope" in Asia, to serve as spokesperson of the exhibition and uses the image of the Mikado Pheasant, a native species endemic to Taiwan, for the exhibition logo.

Chi, as the first Taiwanese to win a gold medal in the Olympic Games during the 1970s, has been devoted to athletics in Taiwan for several decades. She is now the chairperson of the Hope Foundation and CEO of the Kaohsiung Organizing Committee for the World Games 2009.

Postal Service honors sand dunes with stamps

The glorious sand dunes that line portions of all five Great Lakes are about to get national exposure.

A new line of stamps set for release later this year features 10 Great Lakes dunes stamps, each one depicting different animals, insects and vegetation found at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, west of Traverse City. The stamps are the 10th installment in the U.S. Postal Service's Nature of America educational series.

Commemorative stamps celebrate Sir Viv’s birthday

Friday March 07 2008

A set of commemorative stamps bearing Antigua and Barbuda’s four National Heroes will go on sale at the post office today. The release date carries much significance as it will mark the birthday of the country’s only living National Hero Sir Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards. According to the National Heroes Day Committee the $1.50 denomination will draw attention to our first named national hero, the Rt. Hon. Dr. V.C. Bird, while the $1.00 denomination will be that of Sir Viv. The other national heroes, King Court and Dame Georgiana “Nellie” Robinson will carry stamps valued at 90 cents each. A souvenir sheet with all the national heroes will be available for National Heroes Day 2008 at a cost of $5 each. The Heroes Day Committee has expressed gratitude to the General Post Office for collaborating in this venture and sees this as an avenue to boost the country’s history and culture both here and broad. The committee is encouraging citizens especially schoolchildren to take time out to learn more about Antigua and Barbuda’s National Heroes. National Heroes Day is celebrated on 9 Dec., each year. This is another significant date as it commemorates the birthday of the late Sir V.C. Bird. The National Heroes Day Committee is headed by Stanley Bowen and comprises members from various departments and private sector organisations.

The stamps will be dedicated during a ceremony today at noon at Madison Square Garden’s WaMu Theater.

The four scientists appearing on the stamps are:

Theoretical physicist John Bardeen (1908-1991) co-invented the transistor, which was arguably the most important invention of the 20th century. Bardeen also collaborated on the first fundamental explanation of superconductivity at low temperatures, a theory that has had a profound impact on many fields of physics. He remains the only person ever awarded two Nobel Prizes in physics.

Biochemist Gerty Cori (1896-1957), in collaboration with her husband, Carl, made important discoveries — including a new derivative of glucose — that elucidated the steps of carbohydrate metabolism and became the basis for our knowledge of how cells use food and convert it into energy. Their work also contributed to the understanding and treatment of diabetes and other metabolic diseases.

Astronomer Edwin Hubble (1889-1953) played a pivotal role in deciphering the vast and complex nature of the universe. His meticulous studies of spiral nebulae proved the existence of galaxies other than our own Milky Way, paving the way for a revolutionary new understanding that the cosmos contains myriad separate galaxies, or “island universes.”

Structural chemist Linus Pauling (1901-1994) determined the nature of the chemical bond linking atoms into molecules. He routinely crossed disciplinary boundaries throughout his career and made significant contributions in several diverse fields. His pioneering work on protein structure was critical in establishing the field of molecular biology and his studies of hemoglobin led to many findings, including the classification of sickle cell anemia as a molecular disease.

“We are here to honor four extraordinary individuals who pushed back the frontiers of knowledge on behalf of all of mankind,” said James Miller III, member, Board of Governors, U.S. Postal Service. Miller will officially dedicate the stamp at the ceremony, which will be attended by family members of the honored scientists.

Joining Miller will be Eric Jackson, president, American Stamp Dealers Association; and for the Postal Service Marie Therese Dominguez, vice president, Government Relations, and David Failor, executive director, Stamp Services.

William Bardeen, son of physicist John Bardeen, one of the stamp’s honorees, said, “This is a high honor for my father and my family. We appreciate the Postal Service’s recognition of my father and the important role science has played in making America great.”

“If my mother were alive today, she would think this recognition was wonderful and one of the best things that could have happened to her,” said Tom Cori, son of biochemist Gerty Cori.

“The whole family is delighted with this honor,” said Linda Pauling Kamb, daughter of structural chemist Linus Pauling. “It is especially significant that he is being recognized for his work in molecular biology and his discovery that the sickle cell anemia disease is a molecular disease.”

For each stamp, artist Victor Stabin of Jim Thorpe, PA, with the assistance of art director Carl Herrman of Carlsbad, CA, created a collage featuring a painted portrait of each scientist combined with diagrams or photographic representations associated with their major contributions.

The first series of American Scientists stamps was issued in 2005 and featured geneticist Barbara McClintock, thermodynamicist Josiah Willard Gibbs, mathematician John von Neumann and physicist Richard Feynman.

A three-stamp set commemorating the Beijing Olympics will be issued by the Philatelic Bureau of MaltaPost today.

The stamps, which have been designed by Darren Duncan, have face values respectively of €0.05/2c, € 0.12/5c and €1.57/67c.

The stamps are 44.0mm x 31.0mm in size, with a perforation of 13.9 x 14.0 (comb). The stamps have been offset printed by Printex Limited on Maltese Crosses watermarked paper, and will be available in sheets of 10.

Sixteen days of intense competition will follow the grand opening of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 8, as 10,700 elite athletes from around the world compete for the 302 gold medals on offer in 28 different sports.

The events will be held in a total of 37 venues, of which 31 are competition venues in Beijing. One World One Dream has been selected as the slogan for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, reflecting the essence and the universal values of the Olympic spirit: Unity, Friendship, Progress, Harmony, Participation and Dream. It expresses the common wishes of people everywhere, inspired by the Olympic ideals, to strive for a bright future for mankind.

Team Malta members at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games are expected to participate in athletics, judo, shooting and swimming. The Games, ending on August 24, will be followed by the XIII Paralympic Games to be held at the same Olympic venues, between September 6 and 17.

This Olympics set is available in First Day Cover format, mint or cancelled, and as a Souvenir Folder and Presentation Pack.