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'Stamps in the News' will return fresh and new in 2024
Margo
Begorrah! The Sydney Opera House … on an Irish stamp?
Reported at www.irishtimes.com
Fifty years ago this month Queen Elizabeth II opened the Sydney Opera House and it immediately became one of the best known buildings in the world, synonymous with Australia and universally admired as a masterpiece of 20th century architecture.
The opera house took 15 years to build and ran way over budget. The final cost was 14 times that originally envisaged when work began in 1959, but nobody denies now it was money well spent.
Irishman and structural engineer Peter Rice played a central role in creating the revolutionary modern structure using his mathematical expertise and artistic intuition to convert concrete, steel and glass into the world-renowned white sails roof structure.
Mr Rice was brought up in Dundalk, in Co Louth, and studied engineering at Queen’s University Belfast and Imperial College London. He then joined Ove Arup, the international engineering consultancy, which in the late 1950s secured the contract to design and oversee the construction of the Sydney Opera House.
Working in Australia as a young site engineer under the auspices of the building’s Danish architect, Jørn Utzon, Rice was able to solve the incredibly complex engineering challenges and make Utzon’s vision a reality.
Mr Rice went on to become one of the most sought-after engineers of the 1970s and 1980s, working on the Pompidou Centre in Paris and Lloyds building in London.
To mark the 50th anniversary, An Post has issued a stamp celebrating Rice’s involvement in the building. The illustration is by Irish artist David Rooney capturing the organic nature and acoustics of the building, while also referencing art created by First Nations Australians.
The stamp was launched on site in Sydney by Mr Rice’s son Kieran Rice, the Irish Ambassador to Australia Tim Mawe and Ronan Delaney of Arup Builders.
The Jenny flies again
Reported at www.bbc.com
A rare US postage stamp has sold for over $US2m (£1.63m) in a New York auction, setting the record for the most expensive single US stamp sold.
The famous red, white and blue "Inverted Jenny" stamp dates back to 1918 and originally cost 24 cents.
Its fame is tied to both its rarity - only 100 were printed at the time - and also because the plane it depicts is printed in error upside down.
It was purchased by stamp collector Charles Hack at an auction by Robert A Siegel Auction Galleries, based in New York City.
The 76-year-old told the Washington Post that he had been eyeing the coveted stamp since he was a child, calling it the "holy grail of postage".
The Inverted Jenny stamp was part of a collection made to mark the start of regular airmail service.
It features an image of the Curtiss JN-4 airplane in the centre, though it is printed upside down in error. Only 100 of those inverted stamps were sold to the public, and they have since become highly coveted by stamp collectors globally.
The stamp is so well-known that it once featured in a 1993 episode of the long-running American animated sitcom The Simpsons: Homer Simpson is seen looking at a sheet of Inverted Jennys while at a yard sale. "The airplane's upside down," he says, before throwing the sheet away in a pile of other priceless American artefacts, including a copy of the Declaration of Independence.
The stamp's value skyrocketed almost instantly after it was originally printed thanks to its rarity, and copies of it have sold at several auctions in recent decades.
Mr Hack himself is the owner of a few other Jennys, he told the Washington Post. He bought one in the early 2000s for about $300,000 (£244,329). In 2007, he bought another, better-quality stamp for nearly $1m.
The one most recently sold is number 49, which has long eluded aficionados of the Inverted Jenny as it had not been seen for a century since its original purchase in 1918.
It had been held continuously in a bank vault by its owner and his descendants, before it was sold in 2018.
It is regarded as "one of the finest centred examples" of the Inverted Jenny, according to Siegel Auction Galleries, as it has retained its colours, rarely having been exposed to light.
Mr Hack intends to continue protecting the stamp from light, calling it a piece of "American history."
Fijian rarity record reached
Reported at www.fijivillage.com
A two-pence Fiji stamp which was printed for the Fiji Post Office 145 years ago, has been sold at an auction in New York City for $US94,000.
The stamp was part of a collection of Fiji and Samoa stamps being sold by Barry K. Schwartz, the former business partner of Calvin Klein.
There are only three of these stamps in the world, and two of them will never be sold because they are held by the Royal family and a British museum.
Siegel Auction Galleries in New York City says the stamp’s colour is blue, and that’s what makes it so rare and valuable being the only copy in private hands.
The auction gallery says four bidders propelled the hammer price to US$80,000. With the standard buyer’s premium that Siegel adds to all lots, the total price comes to US$94,400.
President of Siegel Auctions, Scott Trepel says the purchase price might seem like a lot for a stamp from a small island post office in the South Pacific, but he thinks it is really a bargain.
The blue colour stamp was a mistake. It was supposed to be green. When the stamps arrived in Fiji in 1878, the government official responsible for placing the order immediately recognized the printer’s error and asked for a new shipment.
The 50,000 errors were locked up and never meant to be sold and in 1890 all but four of the original 50,000 blue error stamps were destroyed.
What happened to the four that were released?
One found its way into King George V’s stamp album and is still part of The Royal Philatelic Collection. Another was pasted down in a book of stamps kept in the Crown Agents archives, located today in The British Library. Those two will never become available to collectors.
As for the other two error stamps, one was acquired sometime before 1892 by the famous Parisian collector, Count Philipp la Renotiere von Ferrary. After Ferrary’s death in 1917, his copy of the error stamp was sold at auction in Paris and passed from collector to collector until 1983, when it suffered a fatal tragedy in the Ash Wednesday bush fires in Australia. It was owned at the time by a collector named John Gartner (former owner of The Australian Stamp Monthly).
As the fires spread to his house, Gartner and his wife fled to the safety of the swimming pool and watched the blaze consume their home and his beloved stamp collection.
The blue error stamp turned to ashes, leaving just one in private hands.
Stuff the British took?
Reported at www.theguardian.com
The royal family appears to have appropriated two sets of stamps that were official state gifts, incorporating them into an extraordinarily valuable private stamp collection that King Charles inherited from his mother.
The gifts, a mint collection of historical Canadian stamps and a rare set of stamps from Laos, were formally given to the royal family as state gifts. They appear to have been subsumed into the royal philatelic collection (RPC), a private trove of rare stamps estimated to be worth at least £100m.
The Canadian stamps were given by the government of the Dominion of Canada in 1939 – before the policy on gifts was introduced in the mid-1990s. The rules do not state whether they should be applied retrospectively.
The framed Laos stamp set was an official gift from June 2016. A present to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s 90th birthday, it was received by the UK’s ambassador to Laos, to be sent to London and added to the RPC.
A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said: “The Royal Philatelic Collection is privately owned, and thus we would not comment on any of the issues you raise.”
Douglas Muir, the former senior curator of philately at the Postal Museum, said the king’s private stamp collection should be transferred to the royal collection, a trove of artworks not owned by the monarch, but held in trust by him or her for the nation.
The king’s stamp collection consists of 328 albums collected by George V, and 30 more albums collected by George VI and, most recently, Queen Elizabeth II. Four philatelic experts told the Guardian it was worth at least £100m.
“In its breadth and depth, it is the biggest and the best in the world,” said Chris Harman, a former president of the Royal Philatelic Society of London, who chairs its expert committee.
The scale of the collection suggests it has met George V’s edict in a February 1908 letter to his philatelic adviser, whom he told: “I wish to have the best collection and not one of the best collections in England.”
It is unsurprising the royals have acquired an impressive stamp collection, given George V’s obsessions. His official biographer, Harold Nicolson, noted how, for 17 years, the king “did nothing at all but kill animals and stick in stamps”.
Such was the king’s appetite for stamps that, in 1915, the then postmaster general, Herbert Samuel, complained of the “mutilation of the standard registration sheets” – the public record of the first sheet of stamps of each kind to be printed. These were being harvested to fulfil George V’s demand for stamps from the original registration sheets.
Further acquisitions appear to have come from the monarch’s sense of entitlement over British colonies. While in India in 1911, where he was crowned emperor of India, George V is said to have personally taken material from Indian postal records in which he was interested.
Courtiers sent abroad gathered stamps for George V. Kenneth Rose’s biography, King George V, noted a 1920 letter from the king’s assistant private secretary, to the private secretary to the future Edward VIII: “The king is delighted to hear that you are endeavouring to pinch as many stamps for him as you can during your travels.”
The royals’ gift policy distinguishes between “official gifts”, which are generally those received in connection with a royal’s official role or during the course of a formal engagement, and “personal gifts”, received from people who members of the royal family know personally, which are not publicly declared.
It states that “all official gifts given to the sovereign from a head of state or host government automatically become part of the royal collection”, which is maintained by the Royal Collection Trust.
Calls for the RPC to be given to the nation date back to at least 1937 when, after Edward VIII’s abdication the previous year, the Sunday Express reported “the suggestion that it should be bought for the nation by government grant and public subscription”. Since then, there have been sporadic questions about the merits of such a valuable stamp collection being retained “for the eyes of the royal family alone”.
“Why not just merge the royal philatelic collection with the royal collection? A lot of people have said that; me included,” said Muir. “Whether they would want it or not – that would be another perfectly acceptable solution.”
Costa Rica goes nostalgic
Reported at www.larepublica.net
Each year the member countries of the Postal Union of the Americas, Spain and Portugal (UPAEP ) designs a new stamp issue to a common theme, similarly to the annual Europa stamp issues. The 2023 theme is “Philately and the postage stamp”.
The origins of the UPAEP are in the postal treaty concluded in Colombia, in 1838, and ratified by Ecuador, Venezuela and Colombia, by which the Gran Colombian Union was founded.
By 1911, this Union had morphed into the UPAEP, an International Intergovernmental Organization, made up of 28 member countries whose primary purpose is to promote technical cooperation among the postal operators of the member countries.
For the 2023 theme, Correos de Costa Rica has issued two souvenir sheets that celebrate 160 years since the first postage stamps circulated in Costa Rica.
One of them dedicated to the centenary Central Post and Telegraph Building, which was recently decorated with the UNESCO Blue Shield .
The second souvenir sheet shows a grandfather sharing the hobby of studying and collecting postage stamps with his granddaughter.
“The generational change in terms of stamps and collecting is a topic that is currently in discussion worldwide, since the guarantee of the continuity of stamp collecting as a cultural practice depends on the success of this transition,” a spokesperson said.
Jersey goes crafty
Reported at www.bbc.co.uk
Jersey's rich knitting history has been celebrated with a new stamps issue.
Over time, the island has been renowned for its knitted stockings, undergarments and the Jersey fisherman's jumper, Jersey Post said.
English illustrator Chris Wormell has depicted the life of island knitters in the 17th Century - the peak of the industry, when the island's strategic position led an influx of materials and a "flourishing system" of production and export of fine knitted goods to Europe.
Reportedly, Queen Elizabeth I was delighted to be gifted a pair of Jersey stockings by Sir Walter Raleigh, who was Governor of the island at the time. While Mary Queen of Scots is said to have been wearing a pair of Jersey stockings at her execution.
In 1606, the fear that the "knitting craze" would distract people from working the land led to a ban on knitting for every person over 15 during vraicing season, when seaweed was harvested, and during the month of August.
This is why the set features a miniature sheet showing a vraic harvester knitting in his horse-drawn cart.
Knitting fell off in the 19th Century due to "interrupted trade, the advent of machine knitting and new industries such as shipbuilding", according to Jersey Post.
Philippines goes to the dogs
Reported at www.sunstar.com.ph
The Philippine Postal Corporation (PHLPost) launched new stamps and souvenir sheets featuring “dogs from Philippine history”.
The “Dogs in Philippine History” issue was inspired by the book “Dogs in Philippine History”, authored by Ian Christopher B. Alfonso. PHLPost has utilized the book in designing these beautiful stamps which are expected to be appreciated by dog and history lovers.
“The stamps awaken our understanding and treatment of dogs as it unfolds with the history of our country”, Postmaster General said.
Featured dogs include Kabang, a rescued female Aspin-crossed German Shepherd, who saved two kids in Zamboanga City from a vehicle accident in 2011, resulting in the loss of her snout.
“These historic dogs have left their paw prints on different chapters of our history. Their stories are a testament to the deep connection between humans and dogs, showcasing bravery and loyalty and the unique roles these furry friends have played in our lives”, he said.
Canada sees the light
Reported at www.indianlink.com.au
Canada Post has issued a new stamp celebrating Diwali, the festival of lights observed by Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and other communities across the world.
Designed by Kristine Do and illustrated by Rena Chen, the stamp’s design has been inspired by torans – garlands that are draped across the entrances and facades of homes and temples.
“This stamp highlights two traditional elements: marigold flowers and mango-tree leaves. The diyas (small clay oil) appear in the four corners of the stamp,” the Canada Post said.
This is Canada Post’s fifth Diwali stamp. The first four were issued in 2017, 2020, 2021 and 2022.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau participated in an event on Parliament Hill organised by Cabinet Minister Anita Anand, President of the Treasury Board.
Trudeau told the gathering that the celebrations were “a symbol of the light we all need more of.”
The Diwali celebrations in Canada coincide with the ongoing Hindu Heritage Month in the country, which is held annually in November to acknowledge the significant contributions made by the Indian community.
Canada is home to nearly 1.4 million people of Indian ethnic or cultural origin, about 3.7% of the country's total population, according to the 2021 census.
Postal services graded
Reported at www.statista.com
People living in DACH countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) can expect to receive their post more efficiently than anywhere else in the world - at least according to the latest Postal Development Report.
The annual assessment, published last week by the Universal Postal Union, analysed the services of 172 countries in 2022 and ranked them according to reliability, reach, relevance and resilience, which looks at how well postal services can weather crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic and economic downturns.
Switzerland maintained its top spot for the sixth year in a row with a perfect score of 100, while Austria received 96.7 and Germany 95.7.
The lowest-ranked postal service in the world is in Guatemala, followed by the Central African Republic. As a whole, countries around the world scored an average of 31.8 points, up from 1.8 the previous year.
The DACH countries were all in the very top tier, or PDL 10, a spot shared only by France and Japan.
“Countries that attain a ranking in PDL 10 are indisputably in the vanguard of postal excellence, offering what can be considered the world’s pinnacle of postal services,” stated the report.
African and Latin American countries receive poor grades for their postal services, failing especially in the metric that measures whether services offered are relevant to customers. Many African nations are also far behind when it comes to reach and reliability.
Asia boasts some better postal services in developing countries, for example in Thailand, Malaysia and China. The latter country was rated as having the 10th best postal service in the world by the report after climbing 15 ranks.
Overall, the report measures progress in the world of postal services globally. While the median postal service received a score of 30 out of 100 in 2021, this was up to 31.8 in 2022.
The best postal service in Sub-Saharan Africa was that of Ethiopia, while Morocco had the best among Arab countries. Brazil won best postal service in Latin America.
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