This page is the archived News Page from the July to September 2019 period. All contents have been dispatched in the respective stamp description pages. However there may still remain open questions. Any complementary information is 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 23, 2019
Immediately after the publication of the previous information, I got from Jaap Sarelse, the Netherlands, some additional data that correct and complement the previous.

On the contrary to what was said below, Austria released on August 24, 2019, a cover identical to the one issued by the Vienna office of the United Nations. Therefore, these two items have to be reported as a joint issue:

Also Jaap could add to the list of stamps issued on September 10, 2019 at the occasion of the anniversary of the EMS, the country Trinidad and Tobago. We expect additional countries to be discovered before end of the year.

September 22, 2019
Information provided by Richard Li, China PR: The State Post Bureau of China announced that the design of 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Russia will represent two bridges. The stamps will show the Chaotianmen Yangtze River Bridge in Chongqing, China and the Saratov Volga River Bridge in Russia. The issue date is October 2, 2019. Designs are not yet available.

From Enzo Cafaro, Italy: Portugal and Spain issued a joint stamp on September 12, 2019 in form of a souvenir sheet at the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the Magellan-Elcano expedition. The stamps are issued as an identical souvenir sheet with a different stamp cut for each country corresponding to the sub-class of Twin issues [T4].

From Grzegorz Omelanczuk, Poland: There will be stamps issued by both Austria and Japan at the occasion of the 150th anniversary of their relationship (October 18, 1869). However stamps issued by both countries will not be similar. Austria will issue a souvenir sheet with a single stamp representing the ship SMS Erzherzog Friedrich, while Japan will issue a miniature sheet with ten different stamps showing items specific to Austria (buiddings, art, cooking, mountains, Mozart, ...). Date of issue will be October 15, 2019 for Austria and October 16, 2019 for Japan.

While looking for the above issue, the design of the Japanese stamps from the Hungary - Japan joint issue was also discovered. Japan will issue a miniature sheet of 10 stamps on October 15, 2019 while Hungary will issue a single stamp on October 18, 2019. Design of the Hungarian stamp is not yet available. Note that in 1869 Hungary and Austria were part of the same Empire (Austro-Hungarian Empire existing between 1867 and 1918) and these two issues could have resulted in a tri-way joint issue. It is not the case.

From Wayne Chen, USA: China PR and Slovakia will have a Joint Issue on "70th anniversary of diplomatic relations" depicting ancient artifacts on October 7, 2019. This is the second China - Slovakia Joint Issue since 2002 (pavilion and castles). Slovakian stamps issue quantity: 250,000 sets, issued in sheets of 25 and all designs became available.

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Besides this issue, there is anticipated a joint issue between China PR and Russia (on city and gardens) the day before (October 6, 2019, initially September 25, 2019), but no images have been announced to date. There is also a territorial Siamese booklet between China PR, Hong kong, and Macau for the 70th anniversary founding of the PRC that is scheduled to be released by end of the year. No images have been released yet either.

From Don Birschel, USA which continued exploring the EuroMed issue, confirming the issue of the Tunisia stamps on September 5, 2019 (most of the other stamps had been issued on July 8, 2019). Palestine will also participate.

Also from Don Birschel, reference to an older series of stamps issued all on May 20, 2004 by Tuvalu and Republic of China (Taiwan) for the inauguration of President Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan ROC. Stamps are different and we have not seen any official claim from the Taiwan side for a joint character, meaning that the issue of stamps by Tuvalu must be considered as an unilateral initiative just celebrating this event at the same date.

Don discovered also souvenir sheets from Singapore, North Korea and the United Nations for the Philatelic exhibition Singpex, July 31 through August 4, 2019.  All have July 31, 2019 First day of issue cancellation and they all bear the exhibition logo (Lions head). Unfortunately these stamps reproduced hereunder are items celebrating an event beginning at that date, but there is no common philatelic character for this. Actually for each big international philatelic event there are always a few countries issuing special stamps at this occasion and they have never been considered as joint.

The postal stationery issued by the Vienna Office of the United Nations at the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the opening of this office in Vienna is an item without any joint character with Austria. This country did not issue stamps or other philatelic items at this occasion, on the contrary to what we understood earlier.

20190923: This information is wrong : Austria issued a postal stationery similar to the UN item. See above under 20190923.

Both Croatian and South Korean stamp pairs have been issued on August 29, 2019, ahead of initially announced schedule.

The first EMS 20th anniversary stamps scheduled to be issued on September 10, 2019 were released. These identical stamps are supposed to involve the following countries: Chile - China PR - Comoros - Cyprus - Egypt - Ethiopia - Guinea - Ivory Coast - Jordan - Lebanon - Libya - Madagascar - Maldives - Malta - Mexico - Mongolia - Nicaragua - Nigeria - Paraguay - Philippines - Saudi Arabia - Serbia - Sri Lanka - Syria - Tunisia - Turkey - United Arab Emirates - Wallis and Futuna. So far only stamps from the following countries have been seen: Chile - Cyprus - Ivory Coast - Jordan - Lebanon - Libya - Maldives - Malta - Mexico - Mongolia - Paraguay (September 20) - Philippines - Saudi Arabia (April 21) - Sri Lanka - Syria (May) - Tunisia - Turkey - United Arab Emirates.

On September 10, 2019, Vatican State and Israel issued also an identical souvenir sheet at the occasion of their 25th anniversary of relationship.

August 25, 2019
Following the update of August 13, after a long period of silence, several collectors came with complementary information:

The first surprise came from Jaap Sarelese, the Netherlands. Jaap is in charge of providing the new stamps to our members. He tries whenever possible to create mixed covers. Most of the time this works well. Sometimes he has to wait for a very long time and some times those covers are even lost. On August 13, 2019, he received the mixed covers with the Deendayal Upadhyaya / Oliver Tambo issue from June 6/7, 2018 back from South Africa. These stamps generated a lot of trouble and at a certain time the issue of the South African stamps was close to be cancelled. Surprisingly those original covers were canceled with the official first day postmark from both countries. Here are the reproductions:

The stamps of India are cancelled June 7, 2018, the ones from South Africa from June 6, 2018. Congratulation Jaap and thanks a lot. Actually Jaap did also send a few weeks ago the package of new stamps and FDCs he is trying to bring together for each of us. In my package I noticed the following original mixed FDC covers that have not been reported so far in these pages. Of course those items will be described in the catalogue:

[C20170724] Armenia - Iran: mixed FDC with all 4 stamps taken from both souvenir sheets
[C20171206] Kazakhstan - Poland: mixed FDC with both stamps
[C20180424] Ecuador - Paraguay:  mixed FDC with both souvenir sheets
[C20180531] Bosnia Herzegovina - Turkey: mixed FDC with both stamps
[T20180829] Armenia - India: mixed FDC with all four stamps
[T20181005] Kyrgyzstan - Latvia: mixed FDC with both triplets excerpts of souvenir sheets
[T20181119] Azerbaijan - Belarus: mixed FDC with both stamps
[T20181127a] France - Romania: mixed FDC with all 4 stamps and the French additional souvenir sheet
[T20181127a] France - Romania: pair of mixed maxi-cards

Regarding the ASEAN issue released on August 8, 2019, it was possible to confirm the participation of Myanmar, Brunei and the Philippines which released their stamps on the same day (information provided by Martin Lund, Denmark). Myanmar issued 16 different stamps representing each 8 different local groups, in one miniature sheet standing pairs, and in the other one the same pairs dancing.

The Commonwealth Stamps Opinion Blog http://commonwealthstampsopinion.blogspot.com/2019/07/1465-belize-taiwan-joint-issue.html reports about a joint issue between Taiwan and Belize (blog number 1465) that was so far unknown to us. The issue commemorates the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. It appears to be made up of 3 stamps, one of which depicts the flags of Belize and Taiwan, and one of the others depicts two birds, one of which is a toucan. It may be that there is also an accompanying miniature sheet containing two of the stamps. The stamps were launched at a reception on June 20, 2019, but this is not necessarily the date of issue which so far remains unknown. Unfortunately the stamps shown during this event are only Belize stamps and it may highly be possible that this will remain an unilateral issue. The Taiwan philatelic program does not mention any stamp in relation with Belize. Additional information is expected.

Enzo Cafaro (Italy) provided additional information and comments about the Italy, SMOM and Vatican joint issue from April 29, 2019 (Carabinieri Art Squad). There were and still are some problems getting access to some of these stamps. All three postal authorities issued a souvenir sheet with 6 stamps each. The first difference is that the Vatican sheet has exactly the same design, but only one single stamp has a value, the other five being labels. As a consequence, mixed FDCs between Italy and Vatican were possible but only one cancellation on this single stamp appears on the Vatican FDC. Italy issued 400,000 souvenir sheets, Vatican 80,000 and SMOM 23,000. Italy and SMOM produced FDCs (souvenir sheet or 6 individual covers with one stamp each). Vatican is not used to create FDC but first day cancellation can be obtained upon individual request to Vatican Post (not UFN).
Poste Italiane issued also a folder with all three souvenir sheets and one sheetlet which is simply a cinderella with no official postal value. The total run print of these folders is 7.000 pieces which was sold for €30,00 by all the three postal administrations. This is the only way to get the SMOM souvenir sheet as SMOM sold all their souvenir sheets to dealers and private collectors that have subscribed a yearly standing order (about 3.000). It is estimated that another 2,000 were provided to the post office in Rome, to create the additional CTOs and the FDCs for their direct subscribers. From these figures we come to the conclusion that about 11,000 (23.000 - 3.000 - 7.000 - 2.000) are now in the hand of dealers which will sell them in a few years at very high prices. The SMOM souvenir sheet with denomination of € 6.60 is presently available on Delcampe between €30.00 and 50.00. This is another reason to consider SMOM issues as not relevant beside this postal office still not being officially recognized by UPU.

Enzo provided also the first images of the Croatian stamps from the Croatia - Korea (South) joint issue to be released on August 29, 2019 (and not October 2, 2019 as initially announced). Korea has not confirmed yet.

Mongolia will also issue a 1300 Tugrik stamp for the 20th Anniversary of EMS. The date of issue could be September 10, 2019. The EMS joint issue will include at least 27 countries, including Paraguay, Turkey and Wallis and Futuna and newcomers.
There might also be a joint issue between China PR and  Mongolia commemorating 70 years of diplomatic relations issued during this year (information provided by Robert Schrijvers, Mongolia).

The 150th anniversary of the inauguration of the Suez canal will be celebrated with a joint stamp involving Egypt and France. The French stamp will be available October 7, 2019 at French post counters but the official first day will take place on October 3, 2019. Both dates are accepted as first day cancellation. Initially this stamp was expected to be released in 2020. So far no information from Egypt is available.

Jaap Sarelse (The Netherlands) informed us that Russia produced also a stationery (postal card) dedicated to the 5th anniversary of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) celebration in the frame of the joint issue released on August 9, 2019. The special cachet is printed on the standard cover, so the ‘stamp’  is not the stamp from the joint issue, but the item must be considered as part of this joint issue.

September 22, 2019: It was however confirmed that August 9, 2019 is not the date of issue of this item which was already available before this date.

Bosnia Herzegovina (May 17, 2019), Bosnia Herzegovina Mostar Croatian Post (May 12, 2019) and Bosnia Herzegovina Srpska (May 16, 2019) issued all three a similar stamp at the occasion of the World IDB (Inflammatory Bowel Disease - Morbus Crohn and Ulcerative Colitis) day (May 19, 2019). These stamps will be considered as joint and even as twin stamps. The information was discovered by Cesar Ittmann (The Netherlands).

Mansoor Moazzeni (Iran) found an older issue related to the centenary of the FIFA (May 21, 1904 - 2004) which included in 2014 a large number of countries (17 have been identified) issuing similar design stamps: Antigua and Barbuda (November 8) - Dominica (November 8) - Gambia (October 27) - Ghana (March 14, 2005) - Grenada (November 1) - Grenada and Grenadines (November 1) - Guyana (September 27) - Liberia (December 13) - Micronesia (November 1) - Nevis (November 29) - Palau (October 27) - Papua New Guinea (September 8) - Saint Kitts and Nevis (November 8) - Saint Vincent (October 27) - Sierra Leone (December 13) - Tanzania (May 2, 2005) - Tuvalu (November 29). Each country issued a souvenir sheet with one stamp and a souvenir sheet with 4 different stamps in a block of four. The design is the same for all countries, but the portraits are all different. This issue is definitely an omnibus series and will be reported without further description in the omnibus section of the catalogue.

August 13, 2019
Hereunder you will find the updated list of stamps issued during the months of June and July 2019:

Issue from June 11, 2019: Spain confirmed the joint character of the issue released together with China (which issued its stamps on June 15, 2019) and the identical unconventional character and shape (parallelogram) of the stamps. The stamps displaying trains were issued by the Spanish postal authorities as a pane containg 6 pairs of stamps (information provided by Enzo cafaro, Italy). These stamps representing locomotives are entitled "The new Silk road".

On June 14, 2019, the Philippines and Thailand issued two se-tenant stamps each, to commemorate the 70th anniversary of their relationship. Stamps represent an elephant and a buffalo, but not exactly the same pictures were used.

On June 14, 2019, Turkey issued a stamp celebrating the 50th anniversary of relationship with Mongolia. It is quite difficult to get in time information from this country, but we learned recently from Robert Schrijvers living in Mongolia that finally this country issued their miniature sheet on July 29, 2019 with an identical design.

On June 21, 2019, Thailand issued a miniature sheet jointly with the Maldives (Information provided by Don Birschel, USA). The Maldives souvenir sheet was provided by Xu Kai (China).

On July 3, 2019, Belarus and Russia issued stamps entitled Way to Victory as a Twin issue [T1] featuring a bas-relief with a group of Soviet soldiers fighting in the Operation Bagration during the Great Patriotic War.

Algeria participated for the first time to the EuroMed issue. Actually this country joined the EuroMed group only on November 26, 2018. The complete (we hope) list of countries participating to the 2019 EuroMed issue dedicated to Mediterranean Folk costumes includes: Algeria - Croatia - Cyprus (July 9) - Egypt - France (July 5) - Greece (July 15) - Jordan - Lebanon - Malta (July 9) - Morocco - Portugal - Slovenia - Spain - Tunisia (not issued yet) - Turkey. All of them issued their stamps on July 8, 2019 (with the exceptions given between brackets - Most of the information provided by Don Birschel, USA and Jeff Courtright, USA). If we compare to previous years we should also expect participation of Libya and Palestine In fact EuroMed gathers 21 countries and includes also Albania, Italy, Mauritania and Syria. Additional details can also be found under https://euromed-postal.org/Philately?country=&year=2019 (Link provided by Roland Montagne, France)

The Bulgaria - Russia joint issue was annonced a long time ago, supposed to be issued in May, then June and finally came out on July 15, 2019. Information was provided by Grzegorz Omelanczuk, Poland. Bulgaria issued stamps in two types of paper (normal and with UV fibers) as well as labels with denomination "0.00". Stamps from both countries were issued in miniature sheets of 4 pairs.

Gary Goodman, UK, reported the following souvenir sheet issued by Uruguay on July 15, 2019 which celebrates 70 years of relationship (2018) with Israel and bears two stamps illustrated with local animals and flags from both countries with texts in Spanish and Hebrew. There is no mention of a joint issue, but it shows the typical form of a joint issue. No information from Israel is available so far. Note that the 65th anniversary of relationship between both countries was celebrated in 2013 with a true joint issue. It looks like this souvenir sheet was initially scheduled as to become a joint issue, but some problem led to the retrieval of Israel from this project. Uruguay then probably decided to issue the stamps unilaterally

Niket Bubna (USA) provided the first images from South Korea Post for the joint issue with India. The joint issue shows legendary Princess Suriratna who traveled from Ayodhya in India to Gaya Kingdom in Korea and became Queen Heo Hwang-ok after getting married to a Korean King. These stamps were issued on July 30, 2019. India issued a souvenir sheet on top of the two stamps issued in panes.

The ASEAN issue was released on August 8, 2019. So far we could identify and confirm the participation from Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. We are still expecting participation of Myanmar and the Philippines. The participation of the 10th country, Brunei is less probable as it did not participated to the latest issues. All these countries released their stamp on the same date with the exception of Singapore which made its stamp available already by August 1, 2019. The topic for this year is national costume and each country produced only one single stamp. Laos and Malaysia issued also a souvenir sheet. Here are the first images gathered so far:

On August 9, 2019 the five members of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) namely Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia celebrated the 5th anniversary of the creation of this Union with twin stamps. In fact four contries issued stamps with a similar design (logo, flags and a buiding), while Armenia used a completely different one (a puzzle with flags) (information discovered by Jaap Sarelse, the Netherlands). All these stamps were issued in miniature sheets of 6 stamps with Belarus and Kyrgyzstan substituting one stamp by a logo.

August 13, 2019
Some information about new issues to be released during the next months:

United Nations Postal Administration and Austria Post will issue a joint postal stationary item (according to UN information). The United Nations will issue a pre-stamped envelope of 0.90 Euros on August 24, 2019 on the 40th Anniversary of UN's Vienna International Center (Information provided by Niket Bubna, USA). For the time being no information from the Austrian side is available.

From our friend Ali Ahmed Med Achour (Algeria) regarding the Joint issue "Jerusalem, Capital of Palestine" (using also the word Al-Quds, the other name of Jerusalem) which was decided by the Permanent Postal Arab Commission (see previous comments about this issue) and in which a mistake of maps in the Palestine design delayed the introduction on the market (corrected design, see copy below on the right, original design with mistake on the left). On February 7, 2019, a technical commission in charge of chosing a design among the ones presented by different countries (Algeria, Egypt, Irak, Morocco, Palestine, Qatar and Saudi Arabia) did meet at the headquarters of the Arab League Secretary in Cairo, Egypt. By the end of the meeting a rumor went out saying that the selected design was the one submitted by Algeria (author Tayeb Laidi). Unfortunately this remained a rumor and nothing official was published in between. On June 16, 2019, Jordan issued unilateraly a miniature sheet showing different views of Jerusalem. There is still a doubt remaining about this issue, but in the meantime Mansoor Moazzeni (Iran) discovered already the Iraq stamp which shows the Algerian design. Ali found its issue date which was July 2, 2019 (see picture below). The latest information says that the Algerian stamp will be issued on October 9, 2019. With already two stamps showing the same design, we will consider these stamps as joint, but we need to collect more information about all participating entities.

Palestine design proposal (corrected version on the right)

Algeria design proposal

Irak stamp

Jordan issue from June 16, 2019

Enzo Cafaro (Italy) could provide the first picture of the 2019 Israel souvenir sheet that will be issued jointly with the Vatican State. The exact date of issue seems to be September 10, 2019.

August 13, 2019
Some additional information about already issued stamps:

Jaap Sarelse (The Netherlands) collected some additional information about the Italy - SMOM - Vatican souvenir sheet issue from April 29, 2019. The mixed FDC has only one of the stamps from Vatican cancelled. In fact the 5 other stamps are labels and are never cancelled. This sheet has been at the center of many critics by philatelic experts. Vatican has a policy to issue a fix number of sheets in the year and Carabinieri sheet was exceeding the 2019 amount. The authorities decided to keep a single stamp while the five others were transformed in labels to be in line with Italy and SMOM.
There was also some issue with the SMOM stamps. Nearly the complete issues were bought up by some dealers for speculation. SMOM underestimated the needed quantity of their sheet: SMOM was forced to give 14,000 sheets to Vatican and Italy for the planned joint folder.

On May 11, 2019, the Donetsk Republic and Lugansk Republic in the Ukraine have issued stamps claiming 5 years as republics (information provided by Don Birschel, USA). As these countries are not recognized (yet) by the UPU, these stamps will not recognized as joint issues, but will be reported in the catalogue under the heading [N].

On May 16, 2019 Philippines and Singapore jointly issued stamps to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between both countries. Jaap Sarelse (The Netherlands) discovered a Philippines souvenir sheet with an overprint related to Singpex 2019. The issue date is July 31, 2019.

On May 24th, 2019, several countries celebrated the 200th birthday of Queen Victoria. Great Britain and Jersey issued several stamps among which one with an identical portrait (Cesar Ittman, The Netherlands). There is absolutely no link between these two issues other than the anniversary itself, not claim from any postage authority about a joint character, and these stamps cannot be considered as joint. It is just a coincidence that the same painting was used to commemorate this anniversary. Actually Guernsy used also the sam portrait in their commemorative stamps, but in black and white.

Wayne Chen (USA) found an Australia and Norfolk Siamese Imperforate sheet (2 stamp issues combined including the 2017 Norfolk Island Convict Heritage and 2018 Australia Convict Past issues). This sheet is only available in the "Convicted Past Collection" Limited edition of 200 and sold at a price of AU$ 65. https://shop.auspost.com.au/product/convict-past-collection-0316545. The minisheets include :

• Imperforate – 2 stamp issues combined – 2017 Norfolk Island Convict Heritage and 2018 Australia Convict Past issues
• Perforated – $1 NSW Colony - 2018 Australia Convict Past stamp issues - Release date 14 Jan 2018
• Perforated – $1 Van Diemen’s Land - 2018 Australia Convict Past stamp issue - Release date 14 Jan 2018
• Perforated – $3 Swan River Colony - 2018 Australia Convict Past stamp issue - Release date 14 Jan 2018
• Perforated – $2 Prisoners Barracks – 2017 Norfolk Island Convict Heritage stamp issue - Release date 19 Sep 2017
• Perforated - $1 The New Gaol – 2017 Norfolk Island Convict Heritage stamp issue - Release date 19 Sep 2017

Only the first item, imperforate is a joint item, but combining stamps respectively issued on January 14, 2018 and September 19, 2018 which were not considered as joint. This item could be considered as a joint item, and will be reported in the catalogue, but taking in account the very small printed numbers, it is also an item to abuse collectors and will be tagged as such. We do not recommend to buy this item (which is probably sold out anyway).

July 1, 2019
The News from the period April to June 2019 have been archived.

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