This page is the archived News Page from the April to June 2016 period. All contents have been dispatched in the respective stamp description pages. However there may still be open questions. Any complementary information remains welcome. As soon as an information is archived, the text will not be changed anymore. So if additional information are linked to the below, this will be displayed as a new heading in the currently open News page.

June 27, 2016
Just after the initial call, we got additional information from Eric Chan (Hong Kong) who was able to purchase the Timor stamps from an Australian dealer and the confirmation of the date of issue of the stamps (November 28, 2015).

June 25, 2016
Both Eric Chan (Hong Kong) and Grzegorz Omelanczuk (Poland) provided simultaneously information about the existence of stamps issued by Timor Leste on November 28, 2015 and that are similar to the Portugal stamps issued on October 28, 2015. These stamps are celebrating 500 years of relations and discovery of Timor by Portuguese. We had noticed last year the Portuguese stamps but in absence of any information related to a link to Timor or from the Timor postal authorities, these stamps were not taken into consideration in the 2016 catalogue supplement. Surprisingly Portuguese postal administration (PTT) claims it is not a joint issue. In fact Portugal Post provided the design to Timor Postal authorities explaining the difference in dates of issue. No mixed covers are available, but the situation is similar to the Spain Bolivia [C19621012], Spain Panama [C19631012] or Spain Chile [C19691012] issues. Therefore this is definitely a discovery of a joint issue that has to be integrated in the list of the 2015 issued joint stamps and which will be filed as a concerted [C2] pair. A better image of the stamps is also missing.
Portugal issued two stamps 2x[2x10] at respectively 115,000 and 165,000 samples and one souvenir sheet at 40,000 samples. So far we have only seen two Timor Leste stamps on an FDC cover.

Adam Paish (UK) provided also some information about stamps released respectively by Mozambique (October 15, 2015), Niger (December 28, 2015), Solomon Islands (November 30, 2015) and Togo (December 18, 2015) which have a very similar design. We have to report these stamps in the catalogue but they will be filed as part of an omnibus series [O] as the link between countries is not claimed. This eries may not be complete at this stage.

June 25, 2016
During the New York exhibition, I had a chat with Charles Feingersh about his collections. Charles collects first day covers from all the joint issues and has a high number of duplicates. He asked me if it would be possible to create a page on our website for advertising to collectors who would like to exchange their material with him. This is a good idea but the site is not developed for that purpose and it is not that easy to implementit unless we just create a link with lists of product to sell. I will think about this proposal this summer, but in the meantime I have appended to this message the list of material Charles has to sell (as a pdf document) and for the time being I will ask you to contact directly Charles if you want to purchase one of his items. Charley's e-mail is charlfein23@gmail.com. Other lists are welcome and of course it is free. However, lists must only contain material related to joint issues.

June 25, 2016
A lot of thinks happened with joint stamp issues since New York' world exhibition. Let us summarize the different news here under one single heading:

France and South Korea have issued their common stamps as planned on June 3, 2016. Both countries have issued identical stamps which are also available in a pochette printed at 20,000 samples, an item that always confirms that the French postal authorities consider these stamps as true joint.

June 22, 2016 is the release date of the Czech-Hungarian-Polish-Slovakian joint issue at the occasion of the 450th birthday of Jan Jessenius. Finally all four countries are participating to this issue on the same day with identical stamps each attached to a label. Poland, printed 140,000 [4(1+l)x5], Hungary, printed 240,000, Czech Republic [5(1+l)x5], Slovakia, printed 1,000,000 [5(1+l)x5]. All this information was provided by Grzegorz Omelanczuk (Poland).

Michael Aldridge (UK) could provide the first images of the Belarus stamps from the Belarus - Moldova series to be issued in September 2016. Topic for these stamps will be crafts.

The image of the first stamp participating to this year's EuroMed joint issue on July 9, 2016 (France) was provided by Enzo Cafaro and Fabio Bonacina (Italy). A dozen of countries are supposed to be part of this joint issue.

Following the New York Stamp exhibition, Wayne Chen (USA) published an article on Linn's Stamp News about the EUROPA 2016 "Think Green" Stamps. During the show he was able to prepare a cover with stamps he could acquire on site. The result depited in the article (and below) shows an oversize cover franked with 2016 Europa stamps, most with the “Think Green” common design, each canceled at the appropriate postal administration booth at World Stamp Show-NY 2016. With the exception of the stamp from Croatia, which was ordered in advance, all of the stamps also were purchased at the show. This item is unique and will not be reported in the catalogue, but it shows how it can be funny and rewarding to create such special items. Thanks Wayne for the article, but also for the idea, that will for sure be explored by other collectors during the shows to come.

We (via Wayne Chen USA) were recently informed that UNPA is planning another joint issue in September 2016 with Czech Post in the frame of the UN World Heritage series.  Czech Republic will issue two stamps and UN will have six stamps. The "official" mixed cover will have all 8 stamps canceled on the same FDC. Unfortunately the first images and information provided by the Czech postal administration confirm that these stamps will not be similar. Here are these first pictures (Thanks also to Adam Paish, UK).

Grzegorz found also the first illustration of the stamps to be released on August 1, 2016 by Japan jointly with Belgium.

May 31, 2016
Since the JSIS was created as a virtual society, there were only very rare occasions to bring several collectors together giving them a chance to discuss and exchange around their collection. Actually I remember only one meeting that brought 6 attendees from Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and France together. This meeting took place in Paris about 15 years ago. There was again an opportunity this year during the New York Stamp Show and on May 30, 2016 we were five of us who met. For most of us it was the very the first time that we met physically. Original exchanges per mail were supposed to bring four collectors at the expected time around a table, but just ten minutes before the meeting was supposed to start I met per pure chance Charlie, an older friend from Florida, who had not been in the loop. The most difficult was just to recognize and identify a collector of joint issues in a crowd of thousand of other philatelists.
Wayne was reactive enough to think about taking a picture that would be for the first time a proof that JSIS is not so virtual.

From left to right you will recognize Charlie Feingersh, USA, Adam Paish, UK, Richard Z, France, Chen Wayne and Niket Bubna, both from the US. A true international meeting with a picture taken in front of a "non-inverted" and also "non-virtual" Jenny plane.

We spent about two hours together (not more of course, as all of us were in New York for the show, not for this meeting), but enough time to start knowing each other, reinventing the world of joint issues, exchanging about the stamps issued or discovered during the show and taking some important decisions concerning the opportunity to classify or not some stamps as joint. One of us, Adam, brought even some interesting insights about stamps that have not been reported so far. Details will be provided later, when all these new information will have been digested.

In any case, a very interesting meeting, with the hope that we will not have to wait another 15 years before this happens again. Thanks to all the participants who were available on that day.

May 31, 2016
We have to report about the stamps discovered during the New York show and in particular about the special New York skyline series. In fact the stamps presented in New York revealed two major surprises (not in favor of joint issues)

The Gambia - Ghana - Tuvalu stamps and souvenir sheets released at the occasion of the World Stamp Show 2016 in New York became available on May 29, 2016. These so-called miniature sheets represent the Skyline of New York by night and can be assembled in a full landscape if one follows the order Tuvalu - Gambia - Ghana. However, as we had the opportunity to buy a set, we discovered some unexpected features:
- Firstly, the three souvenir sheets were sold only in folders containing the three items. The price was $US15 per folder.
- The point is that each souvenir sheet has a size of 254x178mm, so bringing the landscape together results in an item that is more than 75cm long.
- Cancellation, and therefore first day cancellations were not available, so we could not even think creating a mixed cover. Anyway, this could have been done only on a cover that would we almost a meter long
- Additionally each of these three countries issued also another souvenir sheet with three to five different stamps.
- The most surprising part came from an additional product, same size, same type of folder, that represents the New York skyline at daylight and that includes souvenir sheets from Grenada, Palau and Nevis, also sold at a price of US$15.
- And finally, by continuing asking for products, we discovered that a mini-skyline (only 128x100mm) had also been produced involving (only) two entities: Grenada Carriacou & Petite Martinique and Young Island Grenadines of Saint Vincent

Similar products had been sold during the 1996 New York exhibition, also with souvenir sheets that could be adapted to each other like a linear puzzle. In the catalogue these stamps were reported as [SO] meaning siamese (they are integrated in each other) and omnibus (large number of uncontrolled countries). At that time there was also a big question mark about such stamps, as some of the issuing entities are either not recognized by the UPU or have lost the control of production of their own stamps. In this particular 2016 case, it is clear that there is a private company behind the production of these stamps and they have been created just for philatelists, and will probably never be used on mail.

As a consequence, and to avoid supporting the creation of such items in the future, we will from now on, consider that the [O] (omnibus) character will be given priority over the [S] (siamese) character. These stamps will be filed as [OS] instead of [SO] and will be retrieved from the [S] section to be transfered to the [O] section. Most of the joint issues collectors (the purists) are not collecting omnibus and territorial [D] joint issues. We will just have to explore the whole catalogue to extract the wrongly attributed classification. This will be done in the course of the next weeks, but in the meantime we will just recommend to the collectors of 'true' joint issues, i.e. those collecting only [S] (siamese), [U] (unique), [T] (twin), [P] (parallel) and [C] (concerted) issues not to buy these products.

May 30, 2016
Two amazing discoveries have to be reported here. The first one, found by Dominique Josse, France, is related to the July 9, 2014, Euromed joint issue. Dominique discovered the item from where is actually issued the French stamp reported so far as being part of this first Euromed series and that had never been seen other than as copies. It could therefore not be integrated in the joint series with the other stamps having the same design. In fact a so-called Collector had been produced on the basis of a private initiative and distributed to selected VIPs (apparently UPU members). Of course this item was not available for sale, but for the first time a copy of the two sides of such a collector became available. Here are the two pictures:

Of course, none of these items have been offered for sale so far. This item will be reported in the catalogue but not as a collectable item, just for information.

Similarly, Eric Chan from Hong Kong, reported about a special souvenir sheet issued at the occasion of the Philatelic Show in Canberra Australia, that took place March 18-20, 2016, and that reproduces one of the stamps issued by Australia on August 14, 2015 jointly with Singapore and New Zealand. Even if this item is not part of the original joint issue, this souvenir sheet needs to be added in the list of by-products from the 2015 joint issue. In New York, representatives of the Australian Post told us that this souvenir sheet had been sold out in Canberra. Printing run is unknown.

May 30, 2016
Roland Montagne (France) provided some additional information about the next France - South Korea joint issue which will release two identical stamps each. The date of issue is now fixed on June 3, 2016. Note that Roland is running a blog on joint issues in French language that can be consulted under http://emissionsconjointes.blogspot.fr/

The Indonesia - Thailand stamps were issued on May 5, 2016. Indonesia produced also a miniature sheet with four se tenant pairs of stamps (details provided by Jaap Sarelse, The Netherlands):

Thailand released se-tenant pairs in miniature sheets of 5 pairs:

Grzegorz Omelanczuk (Poland) added a series of information linked to the most recently issued stamps:

The Slovenian stamp from the May 27, 2016 Slovenia - Russia joint issue has been released and confirms that this issue is twin.

The stamps from Belarus shown so far and supposed to be the design of the joint issue with Russia to be released by June 22, 2016 will in fact be released on the same day in parallel to the joint stamp. This reported souvenir sheet containing three stamps will actually commemorate the beginning of the Great Patriotic War and the defense of Brest Fortress, but will be issued by Belarus alone. The common stamp with Russia commemorating the same event will be limited to a single stamp. Grzegorz found also the design of the Russian stamp:

The design of the joint issue between Germany and Poland on June 2, 2016 has also been released.

May 8, 2016
The second part of the review about the 2015 joint issues has been published in the May issue of "Timbres Magazine" n°178, pages 68-72 and is entitled "2015: une année très riche en émissions conjointes (2015: a very wealthy year in terms of joint issues)". A pdf copy of the six additional pages is available here.

May 4, 2016
Some information and images related to new stamps issued in the past month (all the following information were provided by Grzegorz Omelanczuk, Poland) :

The earlier announced joint issue between the Vatican State and Poland will finally be released on May 10, 2016 and will be devoted to the World Youth Day 2016 in Krakow. Poland will release a stamp in panes, also in miniature sheets of 4 stamps, and as a souvenir sheet. Vatican stamps have not been seen so far.

Russia post released also the pictures of the joint issues to be produced with Malta on May 24, 2016

and with Slovenia on May 27, 2016.

And finally an announcement related to the New York philatelic event (World Stamp Exhibition 2016) taking place by end of May: for the first time, three of the countries represented by IGPC Tuvalu, Gambia and Ghana, will be issuing individual sheets in a set, that depicts a panoramic view of New York City nighttime skyline. These items will be issued on May 29, 2016 and an exclusive limited edition souvenir card will be produced during the event. No image is available so far.
On the contrary, the picture of the Austrian stamp to be released on May 28, 2016, jointly with the UN, became available on the WSSNY web site :

May 4, 2016
Plenty of astonishing new information were collected by our friends.

First we learned from Benjamin Busch (France) that the Ecowas has issued a sheetlet containing the 15 stamps from all 15 involved countries. These stamps were officially released on December 17, 2015 but up to now we have found isolated stamps from 6 countries only. The only copy of this new document seen so far is a first day miniature sheet which is cancelled from May 28, 2015, actually the date at which these stamps were originally supposed to be released. Apparently these cancelled documents have been distributed to officials during the December 17, 2015 opening ceremony and must be scarce (probably a hundred or even less). We already knew that individual stamps have been released at no more than 5,000 samples each and that some countries (may be all) have issued additionally non-perforated souvenir sheets with a single central stamp. It will be very difficult to get a complete set of all these stamps.
Nevertheless, with this new document it seems that we will have to change the category from twin [T] to siamese [S].

Jaap Sarelse (The Netherlands) made another surprising discovery. While we considered that the 25 years of AICEP series issued on April 27, 2015 was complete with the identical stamps from Brazil, Cape Verde, Macao and Portugal, he just discovered an identical stamp issued by Guinea Bissau. Exact date of issue is unknown, but this opens the door to new discoveries in this series as we are still missing stamps from Angola, Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe and Timor Leste. The hunting season is open.

The Lubrapex stamps from Brazil and Portugal were issued as planned on April 26, 2016 (first images provided by Don Birschel, USA). Not expected is a stamp with a very similar design that was issued at the same time by Guinea-Bissau (information discovered by Grzegorz Omelanczuk, Poland). In fact the most interesting information is that the Guinea Bissau stamp is reproduced as one of the stamps from the Portuguese miniature sheet. We should now look, like in the case of the aforementioned AICEP stamps, for stamps issued by the other Portuguese speaking countries such as Angola, Cape Verde, Macao, Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe and Timor Leste, which have probably all their counterpart represented in this miniature sheet. Actually we suspet that this joint issue is a true twin issue between Portugal and Brazil and that Portugal issued this miniature sheet giving the opportunity for the other 7 countries to adhere to the principle of joining. Probably not all of them will follow. We already saw that Macao issued a cover at the occasion of Lubrapex, but with stamp not linked to these Portuguese designs. Let us see who discovers what.

April 18, 2016
Mansoor Moazzeni (Iran) found two identical stamps based on fabrics produced by Gambia and Grenada in 2013 at the occasion of the celebration of the Diamond Coronation of QEII. Unfortunately we do not know if only these two countries were involved in this series with this type of product. Exact date of issue for Gambia is November 18, 2013 and for Grenada October 10, 2013. Those stamps are definitely to be considered as concerted issues. We however need some help here to be sure that we are not missing some other countries.

April 14, 2016
Roland Montagne (France) provided information about an older pair of stamps supposed to be a joint issue. These stamps were known to us and have been issued at the occasion of the 100th anniversary of relationship between Japan and Argentina. Unfortunately they have been issued at different dates (October 3, 1998 for Argentina and December 2, 1998 for Japan) and have totally different designs. This is another example of a non-approved joint issue [N] that will be reported just to avoid further requests as [NC] for non-concerted issue. Here are the pictures:

Roland discovered also an official booklet produced by the Portuguese postal administration that contains all seven mint stamps issued on May 25, 1972 by all Portuguese colonies, namely Angola, Cape Verde, Portuguese Guinea, Macao, Mozambique, Sao Tome and Timor to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Lusiades poem from the Portuguese Poet Luis Vaz de Camoens. This territorial issue was reported and described in the 2006 Joint issue catalogue under [D19720525] on page 586. Here are the pictures of the two sides of the booklet. Nice discovery indeed.

Wayne Chen (USA) provided information about the next issue between the UNPA and Austria. Similarly to the recent UNPA and India joint issue (HeForShe) there will be a release of a series of stamps (two per UN office and one from Austria) during the New York World Stamp Show on May 28, 2016. Design is similar but the pictures will be different so this issue will be filed as Parallel [P]. UN stamps are shown below. The Austria stamp will feature two soldiers mounting the UN flag. During the NY show there will be production of mixed FDC covers as well. Topic will be the International Day of Peacemakers which is officially taking place on May 29 of each year since 2002. It is just not clear why Austria participates to this joint issue. Any other UN country could have been the partner in this issue...

By the way, Wayne just told us that his newest article about Philatelic destinations appeared on Linn's Stamp News (print version was in the WSS-NY preview supplement along with April's Monthly issue). We thought perhaps this might interest all you as it describes New York as a philatelic destination. Online version link is shown here for your reference:
http://www.linns.com/news/us-stamps-postal-history/2016/april/philatelic-destinations-world-stamp-show-ny-2016.html

Grzegorz Omelanczuk (Poland) found the first images of the next South Korea - France joint issue to be released by June 3, 2016 and commemorating 130 years of ties between both countries.

The stamps to be released on April 26, 2016 by Brazil at the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Lubrapex became also available (found also by Grzegorz). These stamps will be released as a souvenir sheet. We are still missing information about the Portuguese stamps and we will probably have to wait until end of April to confirm this could become a joint issue.

April 14, 2016
Enzo Cafaro informed us that the "Catalogue Supplement X 2016" went to the printer and should be available within the next days. If you are interested to buy this new additive to the catalogue, which will be in color as last year, please just order it directly from Enzo's site at www.stampsonline.it. Thanks for Enzo's support in editing this new supplement.

April 3, 2016
Latest informations collected in the past weeks:

Enzo Cafaro (Italy) could provide the first images of the Israel - Spain stamps to be released next April 19, 2016 at the occasion of the 30th anniversary of relationship between both countries and representing the Bridge of Strings in Jerusalem:

The Macedonia and Kosovo stamps have been issued on March 23, 2016 as scheduled. They promote mountain tourism and skiing (information collected by Don Birschel, USA, Enzo Cafaro, Italy and Jaap Sarelse, the Netherlands). Both countries produced a souvenir sheet, containing a stamp and an attached label. The design of both sheets is identical, so are the illustrations, but the stamps from both countries are different. The illustration on the Kosovo stamp is identical to the label in the Macedonian souvenir sheet, whereas the stamp from Macedonia is equal to the label in the souvenir sheet from Kosovo. This is typical from a twin issue but as a variant of type [T4] in which, if separated from the souvenir sheets, individual stamps would appear as a parallel [P1] issue. Backgound is the same and stamps vs. labels have just been inverted for giving priority to the local stamp. Also, as printing houses were apparently different, the stamp sizes are slightly different as well. But this issue remains definitely to be considered a twin issue.

Concerning the Indian stamps issued on March 8, 2016, together with the United Nations, we learned that in India a mixed presentation pack became also available: it contains the set of stamps from each of the UN offices and the two Indian stamps, mint, one India souvenir sheet, mint, and one India FDC.

Among the new issues for 2016 that were not known so far we added to the "Incoming Issues" page the following:
- Mexico will release stamps together with Jamaica (exact date unknown) as well as with Trinidad and Tobago (exact date unknown) (information provided by Grzegorz Omelanczuk, Poland).
- Turkey will produce stamps together with Turkish Cyprus (October 17) and Hungary (September 7) (information provided by Grzegorz as well ).
- France added also to its 2016 program a new issue with Italy and a new one with the Philippines in 2017. Apparently France will also participate to the 2017 EuroMed issue.
- Portugal will issue stamps with India in May 2016 to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the first Indo-Portuguese contacts and the Philippines also announced a joint issue with Portugal in September which existence is not so clear on the Portuguese official program. The already announced France Portugal issue will celebrate 950 years of luso-french contacts (exact date still unknown).
- A new entry appeared in the Japanese philatelic program for August 1, 2016 as an issue featuring 150 years friendship with Belgium. The same celebration with Italy (150 years friendship) should result in stamps issued on August 25, 2016. At this stage we do not know if these stamps will become joint issues, but we hope so. On the other hand, the already announced Japan - Philippines joint issue disappeared from the Philippines program and does not exist in the Japanese program.

April 3, 2016
For those who are fluent in French, I published recently a paper about the 2015 joint issues. This review appeared in the French stamps newspaper "Timbres Magazine" n°177 April 2016, pages 22-25 entitled "Emissions conjointes 2015: La France bat des records (Joint issues 2015: France beats records )". A pdf copy of the four pages is available here. The second part of this paper will be published in the May issue of Timbres Magazine.

April 1, 2016
The News from the period January to March 2016 have been archived.

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