This page is the archived News Page from the July to September 2017 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.

September 10, 2017
The joint issue between Indonesia and Singapore was released as planned on September 7, 2017 and features corals. Both countries have issued stamps in panes and souvenir sheets (information and images obtained simultaneously from Niket Bubna, USA, Enzo Cafaro, Italy and Don Birschel, USA).

Several collectors (Niket Bubna, USA, Grzegorz Omelanczuk, Poland) did care about the decision to include or not the Belarus - Uruguay stamps in the catalogue and to define them as joint. They provided the first images of the Belarus stamps to be released on November 15, 2017 and showed that they depict the same buildings as the Uruguay stamps (Solis Theatre in Montevideo and Opera and Ballet Theatre in Minsk). Nevertheless these stamps do not have the same design (see below). The Uruguay stamps were released on September 9, 2017.
When stamps with the same design are issued at different dates, they are called Concerted joint issues [C]. If the design is different but they are issued on the same day they are called Parallel [P]. Of course Twin issues [T] are those stamps for which both date and design do match. But they cannot be considered as joint if the design and the date are both different, unless there is a usually technical or historical reason to delay issue in one country. In this case, the only reason that can "save" this issue will be to find a statement from the post offices claiming it is joint and/or to see official mixed FDC covers. This situation existed in the past in very rare cases such as the France - Switzerland Leman Lake issue [P19850615] and we created a special category called Delayed (Retarded) joint issues [R] for this type of stamps. For the time being we still have to consider this Belarus - Uruguay issue as questionable and are waiting for more information.

September 3, 2017
The stamps from Russia and France issued on September 1, 2017 at the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Normandy-Niemen squadron formation have been issued. Unfortunately and very disappointing, stamps are different and this issue will have to be considered as a parallel issue and not twin. Russia actually integrated this stamp in their existing series of "Way to Victory" all of the same design and in which we already saw previously other joint issues (with Belarus and Kazakhstan). Russian stamps have been printed in miniature sheets of 9 stamps with a label [2x5] (Information provided by Grzegorz Omelanczuk, Poland).

Also discovered by Grzegorz, Malaysia and Singapore have issued stamps at the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the release of the first Straits Settlements stamps. Stamps are different (5 stamps for Singapore, 3 for Malaysia) but represent stamps from that period and are proposed for sale in a common pack. These stamps were issued on September 1, 2017. The first Straits Settlements stamps were Indian stamps with an overprint depicting a crown and with surcharges applied according to various postal rates. They were put on sale on September 1, 1867. At that time Strait Settlements included Singapore, Penang, Malacca and the Province of Wellesley and Dindings. We have not yet had access to high quality pictures of stamps from Malaysia.

Fabio Bonacina (Italy) discovered that the Canada - India stamps dedicated to the Indian festival Diwali will be issued on September 21, 2017. We are still missing a higher quality image.

The design of the Uruguay stamps to be issued jointly with Belarus have been disclosed (found by Enzo Cafaro, Italy). These stamps will be for sale on September 9, 2017. Unfortunately the Belarus stamps have been announced to be released only on November 15, 2017 and we have not been provided the design. The stamps will probably not be similar. If only taking in account the difference of dates of issue we cannot consider them as joint. So we will have to wait. Note that the Belarus official program does not use the term "joint" in the description, on the contrary to other already issued "joint" Belarus series. Here is the Uruguay miniature sheet.

August 28, 2017
Enzo Cafaro (Italy) was the first who found the information about the Austria Hungary joint issue from August 25, 2017. Indeed this is a twin issue with each country releasing a souvenir sheet. Here are now both pictures:

Grzegorz Omelanczuk (Poland) could provide the first illustration of the Croatian stamp from the joint issue between Croatia and Israel to be released on September 4, 2017. In the meantime, the design of the Israel stamp became also available.

Nicket Bubna (USA) provided the following information: The future Canada-India joint issue will be on the Diwali festival (same theme as Israel-India 2012 joint issue). The festival is typically celebrated in October/November, and it may be safe to assume that it will be released in the next couple months. Pictures of Indian stamps became available but are of very bad quality. We will wait until we have more readable pictures.

Jaap Sarelse (The Netherlands) made also an amazing discovery. He found a souvenir sheet from Togo belonging to the May 29, 1999 Conseil de l'Entente series so far reported under [C19990529]. By checking closer, several other stamps from Benin and Burkina Faso were discovered among which overprinted ones and non-perforated stamps. The following updated description still seems not to be complete.

In the catalogue the entry for this issue looks now as follow:

1999 (May 29)
Benin (May) - Burkina Faso (May 5) - Ivory Coast (May 29) - Niger (April 9) - Togo (1999)
40th Anniversary of the Conseil de l'Entente, Solidarity and Countryside Development. Concerted issue [C1].
Identical stamps. Farmer with his hoe and two men greeting each other. Multicolored.

[C19990529]
           01a Benin                  3 stamps - 135F, 150F, 200F - (1999); 3x[6x5]
           01b                            3 stamps - 135F, 150F, 200F - (2000); 3x[6x5]
           01c                             3 stamps - 135F, 150F, 200F - (2001); normal paper; 3x[6x5]
           01d                            3 stamps - 135F, 150F, 200F - (2001); phosphorescent paper; 3x[6x5]
           01e                            3 stamps - 135F, 150F, 200F - (2002); 3x[6x5]
           01f                              150F stamp overprinted 135F (2001), black, [6x5]
           01g                             150F stamp overprinted 300F (2001), black, [6x5]
           01h                             150F stamp double overprinted 300F+300F (2001), black, [6x5]
           01i                              150F stamp overprinted Type 1 500F (2001), black, [6x5] - positions 1-24 
           01j                              150F stamp overprinted Type 2 500F (2001), black, [6x5] - positions 25-30
           01k                              150F stamp overprinted Type 1 1000F (2001), black, [6x5] - positions 1-11 and 13-18
           01l                               150F stamp overprinted Type 2 1000F (2001), black, [6x5] - positions 12 and 19-29
           01m                             150F stamp overprinted Type 3 1000F (2001), black, [6x5] - position 30
           02a     Burkina Faso     2 stamps (1999); 2x[5x5]
           02b                              2 stamps (1999) non perforated; 2x[5x5]
           03a     Ivory Coast       1 stamp - 180F+20F - (1999); [5x5]
           04a     Niger                 2 stamps - 150F, 175F - (1999); 2x[5x5]
           05a     Togo                 3 stamps - xxxF - 240F, 390F -(1999), 380F; 3x[5x5] 
           05b                              miniature sheet with 1 stamp (1999), 1000F

Both Ivory Coast and Niger pane margins show at the left bottom the date "Le 31 Mars 1999."
Earliest Togolese cancellation seen so far, September 13, 1999; earliest Benin cancellation seen so far: July 9, 1999. The 29th May is the real anniversary date of the cooperation agreement. Benin issued these stamps during three consecutive years. The year is printed on the stamp, so it is easy to differentiate them. In addition, the printer mistakenly used phosphorescent paper for part of the 2001 issue. All those stamps are very rare.

Any additional information to complete the above will be welcome.

August 13, 2017
Several products came out together with the Germany - Brazil Reform stamps issued on April 13, 2017. The latest product is a booklet made of four German Martin Luther stamps linked alternatively to German Europa castle stamps representing the Wartburg castle and issued on May 11, 2017. This booklet was issued on August 10, 2017.

Germany issued also a so-called 'Numisfolder", a folder containing the first day cover of the German stamp as well as a special €20 silver coin related to the event. The "Numisblatt" is a cardbord folder containing a full sheetlet of first day cancelled stamps and the special €20 silver coin. The official German mixed FDC shows 4 stamps on the cover (two from each country) and contains a cardboard with explanations as wellas two older German stamps representing Martin Luther, mint.

The 50th ASEAN anniversary led again to the production of a joint issue between the members of this association on August 8, 2017. Surprisingly and despite the even number of this anniversary, on the contrary to previous years, no common design was chosen. The countries just agreed to have each administration representing its national flower. Even worse, it seems that two countries, namely Brunei and Myanmar, will not participate. So far we have seen the stamps from Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Each country issued a single stamp with the ASEAN logo. Singapore and Malaysia produced also a souvenir sheet.

August 12, 2017
There is a series of information that came in my mail box during this long silence period. Here is the update, without priority order. All this information thanks to Rindert Paalman (The Netherlands), Grzegorz Omelanczuk (Poland), Luis Fé Santos (Spain), Enzo Cafaro (Italy), Don Birschel (USA).

The Luxembourg - Netherland joint issue will be released as scheduled on August 25, 2017 at the occasion of the three-day stamp fair Multilaterale Hertogpost in ‘s-Hertogenbosch that will take place on August 25, 26 and 27 2017. The fair is an initiative of the Netherlands and six German-speaking countries: Germany, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, Austria, Slovenia and Switzerland. The stamps will be released in form of two souvenir sheets (one from the Netherlands and the other from Luxembourg) plus one additional souvenir sheet bearing one stamp from each country as a siamese souvenir sheet. This mixed item will be provided as a gift to all subscribers of Luxembourg stamps. At the same time Luxembourg Post tells us that they will not sell it as an individual item. Therefore this souvenir sheet can apparently only be bought from the Dutch Post and there is a doubt if mixed cancellations will be possible on this item (production size 100,000).

We are still lacking information about the joint character of the souvenir sheet that will be issued by Austria on August 25, 2017 and on which is written 'Joint issue Austria - Hungary 2017'. The problem here is that the stamps issued in June by Hungary and that are similar to the stamps that will be produced by Austria, do not refer at all to a joint issue with Austria. However as Hungary has announced that they will release several items about this same topic over the whole 2017 year, we suspect that Hungary may release another item probably identical to the Austrian souvenir sheet on August 25. But we do not have access to the Hungarian philatelic program and we have to wait until end of August to confirm this hypothesis. In the meantime here is the reproduction of the Austrian stamp and first day cancellation.

Belarus confirmed that the joint issue with Kazakhstan will in fact correspond to two joint issues. On September 16, 2017, Belarus will celebrate jointly with Kazakhstan the 25th anniversary of their relationship. The 25th anniversary of the Interstate Television and Radio company "Mir" will be celebrated on October 9, 2017 and will involve Russia as well. Pictures of the Belarus stamps became already available.

Roland Montagne (France) provided the information that the Greek Post (Helena Post) issued in parallel to the February 9, 2016 [T20160219] joint issue with Israel a folder containing one mint stamp from each country. This item had not been described so far.

The following is a question that has been raised often in the past and needed again some clarification. It is related to stamps issued by Japan and Brazil in 1995 and does not appear in the 2006 printed catalogue. The following is the description as it could appear in the catalogue (if reprinted one day ;-) ). Actually and as a conclusion, this is not a joint issue.

1995 (March 3) - [N19950303]
Brazil (May 29) - Japan (March 3)
100 years of relationship. No common design (except logo), no common date of issue, no documentation claiming that the stamps were prepared together by both administrations.
The Michel catalogue claims this stamp being a parallel issue, which cannot be true based on the above described criteria.

In the blog of White Knight - Commonwealth Stamps Opinion - (http://commonwealthstampsopinion.blogspot.fr/2017/06/1020-igpc-now-reusing-old-zambia.html) Grzegorz Omelanczuk (Poland) found a reference to identical stamps used for two different countries. It is interesting to note the use of this series of stamps by two different countries (actually printer's choice) at more than 16 years apart. The printer IGPC announced that on June 14, 2017 Ghana will issue 9 stamps of birds in a miniature sheet. Actually, the pictures of these 9 birds have already been used by Zambia in a similar miniature sheet issued on September 8, 2000. As there is absolutely no link between these stamps, of course this cannot be considered as joint.

Finally the French design of the France - Russia joint issue to be released on September 1, 2017 (Normandie - Niemen squadron) was published (Facebook blog from Eric Contesse: https://www.facebook.com/groups/jointstamps)

July 3, 2017
I was one month far away from my stamps and from my computer and plenty of information to be reported accumulated in my mailbox. Sorry for the delay. The following information became available thanks to Grzegoz Omelanczuk, Poland; Jaap Sarelse, the Netherlands, Don Birschel, USA, Enzo Cafaro, Italy, Dominique Josse, France, Eric Chan, Hong Kong. In this first part let us summarize issues released since mid of May:

May 22, 2017, Black Sea fauna and flora joint issue involving Bulgaria and Ukraine. each country released a souvenir sheet with two stamps one representing the Black Sea Dolphin (Delphinus delphis ponticus), the other a marine bivalve mollusc, Angel's Wings (Barnea candida).

May 24, 2017: the sauna contest photos in Finland and Aland led to a series of stamps among which two common designs which were released as planned.

June 26, 2017: France and the Philippines celebrated their 70 years of relationship with the release of two stamps related to paintings. France issued also a souvenir sheet with both French stamps. The Philippines stamps were issued in miniature sheets of 4 pairs of se-tenant stamps and only at 55,000 samples.

June 30, 2017: Belarus and Kyrgyzstan issued two stamps in miniature sheets of three pairs representing local horses.

July 1, 2017: The commemorative issue between China Post and Hong Kong Post was issued as scheduled. However the topic that is common and based on two identical stamps celebrates the 20th anniversary of the return of Hong Kong to China and not as told previously the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Hong Kong special administrative region. Actually this later is directly linked to the previous one, and was issued the same day, but the four stamps released at this occasion are not related to the joint issue. Actually on June 20, 2017, Hong Kong even issued four stamps to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the stationing of the Chinese People's Liberation army in Hong Kong which is somehow also related to the same event.
Therefore the joint issue consist only in one identical stamp issued by each postal administration as miniature sheets, but also in a siamese souvenir sheet containing both common stamps and two additional different stamps issued by China PR. The Hong Kong stamps have been produced in miniature sheets of 10 stamps [2x5] and a joint souvenir pack was also available. It contains the siamese souvenir sheet. The three Chinese stamps were produced in miniature sheets of 12 stamps 3x[3x4]. Mixed joint first day covers became also available.

July 3, 2017: The Russia Thailand joint issued was released as planned with identical stamps, finally at the same date of July 3, 2017:

Additional material released in parallel to already issued stamps was also discovered:

At the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Fatima, Poland released also a postal card with a heart shaped stamp. This item was issued at 12,000 samples. Exact date of issue is not known but probably at the same time as the souvenir sheets, i.e. on March 13, 2017. This postcard together with one mint Polish souvenir sheet are part of a special folder (6 pages, 210x210mm) sold at 10.00Zl.

Azerbaijan and Russia issued stationeries at the occasion of the 25th anniversary of their relationship (reported and depicted earlier - see May 7, 2017). However, both items are different and Russia issues its item on April 10, 2017 while Azerbaijan already on March 1, 2017. None of the countries report that these items have been issued jointly (mail exchanges between Jaap Sarelse and the head of Azemarka). Unfortunately this leads to the decision to remove these postal stationeries from the list of joint issues.

We learned also that the India - Papua New Guinea stamps have been printed, but both countries are waiting to get their samples of the partner country before releasing them officially. The new date of issue is not known yet. Don Birschel found the first representation of the Indian stamp confirming the identical design:

The two self-proclaimed states of Eastern Ukraine, Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic offer postal services for their territories. On June 1, 2017 both postal administrations issued a common stamp devoted to Elizaveta Glinka (20 February 1962 - 25 December 2016), aka Dr Liza a Russian humanitarian worker and charity activist. Both stamps are identical and were released in miniature sheets of five stamps. As these two postal entities are not recognized by the UPU, we cannot consider these stamps as official issues. However they will be reported in the catalogue in the non-accepted category [N]. Information discovered by Grzegorz Omelanczuk (Poland)

The August 3, 2016 Arab Post day joint series has to be completed with Saudi Arabia which released identical stamps on May 21, 2017. Sudan also released three stamps with the same design at an unknown date but probably during 2017.

The first illustration of the Thailand ASEAN stamp to be released on August 8, 2017 appeared on the web. Simultaneously the Philippines released also their stamp design. We can deduce from these two first samples that all stamps will have a different design.

Belarus will issue in November 2017 a souvenir sheet with two stamps at the occasion of the 25th anniversary of relationship with Romania, but so far we have not seen information from the Romanian side. Here is the reproduction of the Belarus stamp:

Belarus published also the first illustration of the joint issue with India to be released either in September or October 2017. This issue will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between both countries.

Belarus also officialised the issue celebrating the 25th anniversary of relationship with Kazakhstan and announced it would be a true joint issue with one stamp released on September 16, 2017. The design of the Belarus stamp was released as well:

At the occasion of the 2016 Bangkok stamp exhibition the United Nations issued a souvenir sheet bearing three stamps, one from each office, each one in its own currency. At that time, we had to conclude that this item could not be considered as a joint issue because UNPA keeping the control of the production of all their stamps, i.e. the three offices, must be considered as a single entity issuing stamps in three currencies. This item was reported in the non-accepted joint stamp chapter [N].
Again this year, the UN issued another mixed souvenir sheet at the occasion of the Melbourne 2017 International Stamp Exhibition. Date of issue is March 30, 2017. For the same reason we will not include this item in the list of 2017 joint issues but report it as a non-accepted item. This again is a nice item to collect for those who are not so strict with the joint issues definition.

July 1, 2017
The News from the period April to June 2017 have been archived.

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