This page is the archived News Page from the April to June 2014 period. All contents have been dispatched in the respective open pages. However there may still be open questions and any complementary information remains welcome. As soon as an information is archived, the text will not be changed anymore. So if news are linked to the below, this information will be displayed as a new heading in the currently open News page.

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June 29, 2014
The first image of the Bulgarian stamp from the Bulgaria-Russia joint issue to be released on July 7, 2014, became available (information provided by Grzegorz Omelanczuk, Poland):

June 23, 2014
Jaap Sarelse (The Netherlands) discovered a postal stationery item issued by Moldova on May 28, 2012 and celebrating the 20th anniversary of diplomatic relationship between Moldova and Azerbaijan. This item looks similar to the postal stationery issued also by Moldova on September 10, 2012 (T20120910), celebrating the 20th anniversary of relationship with Hungary.
Although the stamp refers to a "common issue", no Azerbaijan counterpart (stamp or postal stationery) has been identified so far. If someone knows about such item, please contact us.

20140629: On January 30, 2012, Moldova issued also stamps at the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the relationship with The People's Republic of China. These stamps appear on first day covers but no counterpart in terms of stamps or postal stationery has been issued by China. However China produced covers with a text related to this event and canceled items from January 30, 2012 were available (information Grzegorz Omelanczuk).

Also, Ehsan Mehmood (Pakistan) could provide the philatelic program from Nepal which announces a joint issue between Nepal and Pakistan in September 2014 (Mount Everest and Mount-K2). Unfortunately, Pakistan has not yet confirmed this issue and any additional information is welcome.

June 23, 2014
The Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM) and El Salvador will release on June 25, 2014 a joint issue at the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the foundation the Salvadorian SMOM association. The stamps are showing specific local buildings (Information provided simultaneously by Fabio Bonacina, Italy, Karl Haberer, Germany, President of the International Study-Group of the Philately of the SMOM, Enzo Cafaro, Italy). SMOM stamps are issued with a central label and El Salvador stamps in panes of se-tenant stamps [2px5]. El Salvador stamps are printed at only 59,200 stamps in total.

June 23, 2014
Grzegorz Omelanczuk (Poland) was able to find a series of information about joint issues to be released in the forthcoming months:
The first image of the Russian stamp from the next joint issue between Russia and North Korea has been released. This stamp is expected to become available on October 12, 2014 and shows bird of preys: Osprey and Eurasian sparrowhawk.

Australia Post plans a joint issue with the Norfolk Island. The expected release date is July 22, 2014. Stamps will be identical and the design has been recently published. As the island is still tied with Australian administration, the issue should be treated as territorial.

Egypt represented by Egypt National Post Organization (ENPO) won first place in a contest to design the first joint stamp for Postal Euromed members countries for 2014, titled “the Mediterranean”. Last December, Postal Euromed announced organizing a contest among union countries to design the first stamp for the union. Egypt applied among six other member countries including Cyprus, Lebanon, Malta, Morocco and Slovenia to take part in the competition which aims to boost communications among member states in the union. This design is suppsed to be taken up by several countries in the forthcoming issue from Euromed countries.
Euromed Postal is a convention grouping together 18 postal operators on both shores of the Mediterranean: Algeria, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Malta, Monaco, Portugal, Palestine, Slovenia, Spain, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey. In theory countries such as Albania, Croatia, Greece, Israel or Serbia could also become members. If these countries (or some of these countries) will release an identical stamp at the same date, we will consider it as a joint (and even twin) issue. Euromed stamps will be considered the same way as Euro CEPT stamps, ASEAN stamps or Norden stamps. If design and dates are different we will report these stamps, but consider them as non-joint [N]. For the time being we have only seen this announcement and we have to watch carefully the first common issue based on the Egyptian design. So far Cyprus and Palestine have announced a stamp related to Euromed for the date of July 9, 2014, but designs have not been shown (and apparently the Palestinian stamp is a delayed issue from 2013 that will be released at the common date but could have a different design). Here is the adopted design:

June 23, 2014
Portugal and Mexico issued two identical stamps each at the occasion of 150 years of diplomatic relations. The release date was June 6, 2014 (Information Grzegorz Omelanczuk, Poland; Don Birschel, USA). Initially these stamps were expected to be released on October 20, 2014

June 23, 2014
At the occasion of the issue of the stamps involving Russia and Switzerland on May 21, 2014, the Russian postal administration issued a folder containing the 4 stamps mint and two first day covers with however only the Russian stamps cancelled from Moscow and Saint Petersburg (Jaap Sarelse, the Netherlands)

June 23, 2014
There were so many stamps released on March 21, 2014 and related to the popes Francis, John-Paul II and John XXIII (involving Vatican and countries such as Poland, the Philippines), that we forgot we forgot to report about the joint issue between Italy and the Vatican State (also released this same day for Vatican, on March 24, 2014 for Italy), and related to Pope John XXIII. These stamps were brought to our attention by Gabriele Gatti, Italy. Here are the pictures. Italian stamp is self-adhesive.

Using the same format and design, Italy did also issue a stamp dedicated to Pope John-Paul II. This stamp is not officially part of any of this or the other joint issues (Information provided by Jaap Sarelse, the Netherlands).

May 25, 2014
The picture of the Israel stamp, to be issued jointly with Thailand on June 5, 2014, has been published. It will be a twin issue. (Thanks to Nahum Shereshevsky and Fabio Bonacina)

May 12, 2014
The picture of the Thailand stamp from the joint issue with Israel to be released on June 5, 2014 was also made available (information Grzegorz Omelanczuk).

Also for those who are interested in the Nordic Pack III (2014), we have forgotten to tell that this pack is available since March 17, 2014 and contains 8 miniature sheets featuring Ships at Sea. The miniature sheets include the following countries: Aland - Denmark - Faeroe - Finland - Greenland - Iceland - Norway - Sweden, all issuing their stamp on March 17, 2014, except Iceland (March 27, 2017).

May 11, 2014
In Vaccari News, Fabio Bonacina confirmed the issue of the stamps involving San Marino and Italy relative to the 75th anniversary of the convention linking both countries. Fabio was able to provide the design of the San Marino stamp (that will be similar for both countries) and confirmed the date of issue of June 5, 2014. San Marino will release 70,000 stamps in miniature sheets of 12 stamps.

May 11, 2014
Grzegorz Omelanczuk (Poland) provided the first image of the Thailand stamp to be issued jointly with the Vatican State on August 15, 2014. However, we are still missing information (and confirmation of this issue) from the Vatican State side.

May 11, 2014
The first stamps of the joint issue related to the 800th anniversary of the Portuguese language officially spoken in 9 countries and involving Angola - Brazil - Cape Verde - Guinea-Bissau - Mozambique - Portugal - Sao Tome and Principe - Timor-Leste have been released on May 5, 2014 (apparently Macau will not participate to this joint issue). So far we have seen the design of the following countries: Portugal which also issued a souvenir sheet, Brazil and Cape Verde (bad quality image)

May 11, 2014
Latvia issued on March 28, 2014 a stamp at the occasion of 20 years of diplomatic relations with Georgia, announcing that the stamp was a joint issue with that country. There are still no information from Georgia, but the Latvian administration (direct contact by Jaap Sarelse) and some photos from the official ceremony held in Latvia (detailed analysis of the image by Grzegorz Omelanczuk ;-) showing in the background the Georgian stamp design) confirm that the Georgian stamp was in the plan and that the graphic project is identical  to the Latvian one. The author of the design is the Georgian artist Giorgi Qartvelishvili. The postage stamp depicts the freedom symbols of both countries i.e. the Monument of Freedom standing in Riga, and the statue Kartlis Deda (Mother of Kartli) erected in Tbilisi.

May 11, 2014
In the form of the Russia Belarus joint issue from March 18, 2014, Russia issued a folder containing the first day covers of both souvenir sheets. This folder does not contain a mixed FDC (information Jaap Sarelse)

April 21, 2014
A recent mail from Nahum Shereshevsky (Israel) points on a similar issue that has never been described so far. Nahum has been knowing of this issue for many years, but had just realized that it is not reported in the joint issue catalogue. It refers to stamps of the same design issued by Argentina and the Palestinian Authority in 1999 for the Millennium Christmas. The Argentine stamp (on the left) was issued on August 21, 1999 (Scott 2070; Michel 2499) and the Palestinian Authority stamps were issued on December 8, 1999. There are 8 stamps in the Palestinian series (Scott 100-107). The similarity is no coincidence, but does not justify a joint character. As Christmas or New Millenium entrance (although new millenium started in 2001 not 2000) are usually not a reason for common celebration, weare in a situation of borrowed (copied) design. In fact it seems that the picture is a kind of logo. There is a reference to a common topic called the "Bethlehem 2000" Project but no reference to a celebration involving both postal administrations. In absence of a statement from one of these administrations, we will consider this issue as non-joint [N], sub-class borrowed design [BD]. Details are also to be found under http://www.zobbel.de/. Apparently only Argentina used this logo in one of their stamps. (Note that the Zobbel site provides a lot of information about Palestinian stamps, and in particular full data about the most recent Turkey - Palestina joint issue from December 12, 2013, officially released and available since April 8, 2014)

April 21, 2014
The souvenir sheets issued jointly by Belgium and Portugal on April 21, 2014 at the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the physician Andreas Vesalius are identical (information provided by Steven Vandeweghe, Belgium).

April 21, 2014
Concerning the Belarus, Russia, Ukraine joint issue released on April 18, 2014, the final is as follow (collective answer from Steven Vandeweghe, Fabio Bonacina, Kenneth Sequeira):
- souvenir sheets are the same as initially depicted, but texts have been modified. The initial sentence relative to a joint character does not appear anymore
- Ukraine finally did not participate, but is considering an issue relative to this topic to be released by September 2014 (with the same design ?)
- Russia issued a souvenir sheet still mentionning the original three countries. Explanation from the Russian side: Ukraine has officially decided not to participate, but the name of the country was left as the topic covers all this area including Ukraine
- Belarus issued a souvenir sheet mentionning only the two participating countries
- Moldova which was mentionned in the early press releases is not involved

April 13, 2014
There is something new that may happen on May 9, 2014. It seems that Taiwan (Republic of China) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) (May 10, 2014) will release stamps jointly and for the first time. The joint character still needs to be confirmed, even if Taiwan claims these stamps being joint, as the topic (the swan goose carries a message) may be common by "accident". We are presently looking for official statements from the postal administration of PRC to confirm this status (information provided by Grzegorz Omelanczuk). In the meantime, here are the nice pictures:

April 13, 2014
As a consequence of the confuse situation in Ukraine, the joint issue initially scheduled to be released on April 18, 2014 between Belarus, Russia and Ukraine becomes more than doubtful. Kenneth Sequeira (Dubai) first discovered the major change that will affect the Belarus souvenir sheet. The reference to the joint issue simply disappears:

April 13, 2014
Some news about joint issues released in the past weeks or to come very soon (collected by Grzegorz Omelanczuk, Poland)

The Thailand - Laos joint issue was released on April 5, 2014 (not 8) and shows landmarks of both countries. Details for Thailand stamps are available under the Siamstamp website. Stamps for both countries were produced in miniature sheets of five pairs. Steven Vandeweghe (Belgium) could provide the images of the Laos stamps and confirmed that Laos also issued a souvenir sheet with both stamps available as perforated and imperforated:

Belgium confirms also the joint character of the issue with Portugal on April 22, 2014 (Vesalus and anatomy - souvenir sheet with 5 stamps - stamps for Portugal have not been seen yet, but Belgium claims it will issue a mixed document) and the issue with Slovenia (Crystallography - pair of "transparent" self adhesive stamps identical for both countries) on June 10, 2014.

The picture of the Hong Kong stamps to be jointly issued ith Malaysia on October 9, 2014 (topic: local food) became also available:

And also some images of the Switzerland - Russia joint issue to be released between Switerland and Russia on May 21, 2014:

And among all the "new" new issues that will be released during the next years, Poland announced a surprising joint issue with the Scandinavia countries in July 2015 as at that time the country will take over the presidency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States. No idea what size will be the issue. Poland so far only seems to tell about at least Iceland and Aland.

April 3, 2014
Switzerland confirms the joint issue with Russia, but had to take into account the political situation with Ukraine. The Swiss postal administration made the following comment: "Given the events in Ukraine, we have considered on whether to block the project , but this would have been a political signal and then we would no longer remain a neutral state. In addition, we took into account the fact that Switzerland and Russia are founding members of the Universal Postal Union (UPU). Since 1874 , the two countries have maintained relations in postal and exchange services regardless of the political situation. "
The stamps will be released on May 21, 2014 (pre-sale will begin on the 14th). Each country will issue two stamps representing two famous watches: the Zytglogge in Bern and the Kazanskij in Moscow (information Fabio Bonacina, Italy).

April 1, 2014
The News from the period January to March 2014 have been archived.

All previous information reported in this section is to be found in the News Archives.