Germany: Childhood Heroes (2021)

This is the third set in the series "Helden der Kindheit" (Childhood Heroes). They show Bibi and Tina and Die drei ???.

On matching Cards with Special Postmarks:

Maxicard:

Used on Card (commercial in-period usage):

[News] News of November

November did not give us much news, but information for stamps from three years, 2021, 2022 and 2023. These are the news of the month:

• On 9th November Spain issued a sheet of six-times the same stamp about the popular video game League of Legends. I am rather sure that this is the first time that the game appears on a stamp.
• The Czech Post issued on 10th November a single stamp about Kája Saudek's comic Muriel and Angels. 
• The Slovenian stamp programme for 2022 includes a single stamp about Ela Peroci on 28th January. According to Wikipedia her book Muca Copatarica (Slipper Keeper Kitty) was still among the ten most popular children's books in Slovenia in 2019. It can easily be bought in a German translation and so I guess in English as well.
• China continues its series of cartoon stamps with five stamps about Black Cat Detective. The planned issue date is the 3rd September 2022.
• After the themes became already available last months, now you can also find images of the Belgian stamps of 2022 online. The issue of Marc Sleen and Nero unfortunately has a very strange format. Unlike recent issues there will not be five different stamps twice in a sheet, but two different stamps five times in the sheet. The image on the sheet shows many characters from the comics having a banquet and the two stamps reuse Nero and Marc Sleen from this larger image.
• The German Ministry of Finance published both the programme for 2022 with issue dates and face values (which however are all wrong, as they are not updated to an upcoming increase) as well as the themes for 2023. The Rumpelstiltskin Welfare stamps and Benjamin Blümchen will be issued, as expected, in February and March respectively. Spider Man will follow in July, the "Helden der Kindheit" (Pumuckl and Smurfs) will already be issued in September and Black Panther will be issued in Oktober. The issue of Video Games disappered from the programme. As was already known, the theme of the Welfare stamps in 2023 will be Hans in Luck. There will also be single stamps about the Centenaries of the author Ottfried Preußler and the Walt Disney Company and new additions to the series "Helden der Kindheit" (two), Video Games (one) and Super Heroes (two). More information about these can be expected later, especially whether the Video Games will be issued at all. The series "Sagenhaftes Deutschland" is not continued. Finally the three Youth Stamps will show the Mainzelmännchen.
• More countries recently published their stamp programmes for the next year, but do not include any stamps about Childhood Heroes. These include Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Sweden and the USA. The USA however will, I guess, add an issue later on as they been done in the last years. The programme from the UK is still awaited, but they usually include one, two or three thematic sets. Finland should issue a new Moomin set next year, but no news from there, and Guernsey and Hong Kong might issue thematic set in the second half of 2022. From New Zealand might come a set about the 20th anniversary of The Two Towers, but also here I have seen no programme yet. France included a "Jeunesse" in its programme, but no concrete theme is known. All in all it will for sure be another interesting year.

The New Issues of the month are Kája Saudek's Muriel and Angels from the Czech Republic, Shirokuma-chan no hotto kaki from Japan and League of Legends from Spain.

This has been a good month for my collection. It began with the Nibelungs and the US Simpsons stamps on matching cards, the recent Goldorak and Fairy Tale issues from France followed and also I got two more Star Wars covers. The biggest batch of new stamps however comes from a stamp order from an online stamp dealer. I bought the Japanese Pokemon sheets in mint condition and also some older stamps I had been looking for. The stamps are all included here in the blog, but you can see them better on my stamp blog.

[News] News of October

Another month is over, so here are the News of October:

• The English version of the Korean stamp website I usually use was updated and the names of the four children's books in the Philately Week set are given as The Story of Baekdu Mountain by Ryu Jae-su, Half Past Four by Yun Seok-jung, Manhee's Home by Kwon Yoon-duck and Children of the Dong River by Kim Jae-hong.
• The Dutch stamps about Tom Poes that I first mentioned in August were issued this month. The issue date was the 11th October.
• Compared to earlier years Japan Post issued rather few stamps about childhood characters in 2020 (only two issues) and it seemed at first as 2021 would not be much better, but after I already mentioned the Shirokuma-chan no hotto kaki stamps planned for the 26th November, two more issues were now announced for December. For the 10th December a sheet of ten stamps about Peter Rabbit is planned. The issue is said to celebrate the 120th anniversary of the first publication of the story in 2022. Not sure why they could not wait a month to issue the set in the right year of the jubilee. The other issue was announced later, but will already be issued on 6th December. This one will honour the anime-adapted manga Demon Slayer and will consist of a rather uncommon sheet of 15 stamps.
• Just announced this month, but already issued a few days ago, was the Christmas stamp set of the Isle of Man which shows Thomas the Tank. There are six stamps in the issue, available as single stamps, in a souvenir sheet and as variable value stamps (I think the values are variable, but online you can only get them with fixed value). There had been other better Thomas the Tank stamp issues before, but as I do not have any of those, I might buy this set. The issue date was the 27th October.
• I love this time of the year when all the countries start to publish their stamp programmes for the next year. In the programmes from Belgium, Hungary and Ukraine I found some thematic stamps. Hopefully some announcements will follow soon.
• Belgium plans for the 21st March an issue about the 100th birthday of Marc Sleen and the 75th anniversary of his character Nero. I guess this will again be a sheet of ten with twice five different stamps.
• Again for the 2nd September Hungary announced the fourth issue in the Cartoon and Fairy Tale Character series. Maybe it will this year be something also known outside of Hungary.
• Ukraine announced an issue called "A fairy-tale world in illustrations by Ukrainian artists". No issue date was yet mentioned, but there will be two stamps.

The issues of the month are Goldorak from France, Heinzelmännchen and Nibelungen from Germany, Thomas the Tank from the Isle of Man, World Tales from Latvia, Tom Poes from the Netherlands and the Philately Week issue from South Korea.

This was a good month for my collection. In mint condition I got the Jean de la Fontaine stamp from Monaco, the Strong Women of Comics from Belgium, the DC Comics from the UK and already the new issues from Germany, Latvia and the Netherlands. The new stamps from Germany I already got on matching cards as well and also new special postmarks about Mother Hulda and Die Sendung mit der Maus. From Japan I got yet another Pokemon card with matching stamp.

Netherlands: 80 years Tom Poes (2021)

France: Goldorak (2021)

With Special Postmark:

Used on a Card:

Germany: Heinzelmännchen and Nibelungen (2021)

On matching Cards with Special Postmarks:

Used on Cover with Special Postmark:

Latvia: World Tales - The Rose Ghost of Rundale (2021)

[News] News of September

Another month is over, so it is time to collect the News of September. I was busy this month and thus not sure if I have seen everything, but here is what I found:

• Hungary issued on 2nd September its annual cartoon souvenir sheet and this year they only revealed the name of the cartoon on issue date. It is called Kukori and Kotkoda, but I doubt that anyone outside Hungary knows this one.
• Double News from Latvia: Tomorrow the stamp about World Tales will be issued and yesterday it was finally revealed which tale will be honoured. It will be the Rundale Castle Rose Ghost, a picture book by Andrejs Viksna and illustrated by Anita Paegle, who had earlier already designed some stamps for Latvia Post. I was not able yet to find out whether this is an actual fairy tale or one invented for the book, but although it find it strange to call a Latvian story a World Tale, this is definitely a cute little issue. Earlier this month the issue plan for 2022 was published and it includes another issue about World Tales. It will be interesting to see whether that one will be a truely worldwide story or another Latvian one.
• Like last year South Korea will honour four picture books for Philately Week on 25th October. The translated names of the books do not lead to any Google results, so I will have to wait until next month when hopefully the English website was updated.
• Also Japan will honour another picture book in its annual series The World of Children's Picture Books. This will already be the fifth issue in the series, which earlier honoured such famous characters as The Little Prince or the Very Hungry Caterpillar. This year's character looks oddly familiar, but it seems that the book was not yet translated. The book is Shirokuma-chan no hotto kaki by Ken Wakayama and deals with a bear and pancakes. The issue date is the 26th November.
• Yesterday the Italian Post finally confirmed (by issuing it) that the Mafalda stamp actually shows the comic by Quino. In addition to the single stamp the issue also includes two labels and honestly the images on the labels are better than the one on the stamp, but nontheless this is a very nice issue. 
• Today on the last day of September the Portuguese Post issued the next edition of its series Figuras Mundiais da História e da Cultura (Global Figures of History and Culture). Two stamps were issued showing Jean de La Fontaine and Marcel Proust. 
• Also today the images of the German December stamps were revealed, so those of Bibi and Tina and The Three Question Marks. Unfortunately both will get the awful matrixcode like all stamps will get it next year.
• I was just going to write that the Bulgarian issue about Jean de La Fontaine was most likely cancelled, but checked again and saw that it was indeed issued on 23rd September. Like planned and originally announced for July it is a souvenir sheet with one stamp.

This was a month full of New Issues: the Secret Garden from Alderney, Ginger Meggs from Australia, Jean de La Fontaine from Bulgaria, Fairy Tales from France, Feel 100% from Hong Kong, Kukori and Kotkoda from Hungary, Mafalda from Italy, Lord of the Rings from New Zealand, Jean de La Fontaine from Portugal, the Bratislava Biennial of Illustrations from Slovakia and the DC Comics from the United Kingdom. I think that makes September the month with the highest number of issues this year.

To my own collection I have not added so much. Of the New Issues so far I only have the Secret Garden from Alderney and when ordering from Alderney I also bought the Peter Pan souvenir sheet of 2010. I have also ordered and received the Strong Women of Comics from Belgium and Jean de La Fontaine from Monaco, but have not scanned and uploaded those yet. Also I got another Pokemon stamp from Japan on a matching card. I really need to find those in mint condition soon.

Italy: Mafalda (2021)

United Kingdom: DC Comics (2021)

FDC:

France: Fairy Tales - Booklet (2021)

Alderney: The Secret Garden (2021)

New Zealand: The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring 20th Anniversary (2021)

Royalpex Stamp Exhibition Sheet (issued 10th September 2021):

Maxicards:

Backside of a Maxicard:

[News] News of August

Another month is over, so it is time for the News of August. Here they are in the order in which I got them:

• The images of the new Lord of the Rings stamps from New Zealand are now available. There will be six stamps with scenes from the first movie, which will be issued as single stamps and in souvenir sheets. Issue date is tomorrow.
• In Germany a new special postmark about Die Sendung mit der Maus will be used in Herford in mid-September. Apart from the official First Day Special Postmarks this will be the first postmark for this issue. Usually there is a postmark nearer to the issue date, but probably due to Covid-19 there was none in March.
• A special postmark and a set of official personalised stamps about Game of Thrones were issued in Portugal this month. I do not collect personalised stamps, but such an issue had hinted at a real issue coming soon in similar cases in the past.
• Apart from a deluge of official personalised stamp packs (Animalia, Mr Men and Little Miss, Monsters, Flintstones, Peanuts, Top Gun, Batman), which I usually not even mention, Australia Post announced a set of three stamps plus souvenir sheet about the Centenary of Ginger Meggs on 7th September. Additionally there will also be available a "limited edition book" with a "cover design exclusive to Australia Post, with perforation effect" (the book with normal cover can be bought from usual book sellers) that also includes a "limited-edition cover with stamp and gold-foiled postmark and exclusive block of four stamps". For everyone who likes the character this is not such a bad deal. This special version of the book is not more expensive than the usual one if you subtract the cover and mint stamps. 
• The images of the Legendary Germany stamps planned for October are now online. Also the stamp programme of 2022 was updated. The issue about Pettson and Findus was cancelled and instead there will now be a stamp about Pumuckl. Black Panther and Spiderman were revealed to be the first issues in the new sereies about Superheroes. However there are still no news about the Famous Videogames stamp.
• At first I heard the rumour that there will be DC Comic stamps from Royal Mail next month and yesterday Commonwealth Stamps Opinion showed the images. The issue however is rather a disappointment. There will be a souvenir sheet of six stamps showing Wonder Woman, Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Flash, Cyborg, Aquaman, Supergirl and Shazam and additional twelve stamps showing characters from the Batman comics in particular (Nightwing, Alfred, Batgirl, Batwoman, The Penguin, Catwoman, Harley Quinn, The Joker, Batman again, Robin, The Riddler, Poison Ivy). Not sure who decided to crowd all the good characters on the souvenir sheet, while all those often lesser known characters are featured on the single stamps. Also there seems to be no reason to issue this set now.
• An image of the French Goldorak issue is now online. It will be a souvenir sheet of two stamps and so far it seems like there will not be an additional booklet.
• This year's Kinderpostzegels from the Netherlands will feature characters from the Tom Poes comics. This is a nice issue
• Another month has passed and there are still no news about the La Fontaine issue from Bulgaria. I believe that it was cancelled, but on the other hand no stamps were issued in Bulgaria since early July, so maybe there is a different problem.

As far as I know only the Chinese Nezha stamps and the expensive Japanese Pokemon box were issued this month. September will be a much better month.

Also to my own collection I have not added much in August. I only got the German special postmark about Max and Moritz on two covers and another Pokemon stamp from Japan.

Germany: 150th Anniversary of the First Publication of Max and Moritz in the USA Special Postmark (2021)