[News] News of October

Here are the News of October:

• Hungary will issue its "Cartoon and fairy-tale characters" souvenir sheet on 4th November. The theme will be Frakk, the Cats' Nightmare, but although it will be issued next week no pictures are yet available. Another sheet in this series is already planned for 2021.
• Following San Marino Italy also issued a stamp for the Birth Centenary of Gianni Rodari. The image became available on the issue date and shows a child with a balloon. I saw that this is the logo of a children's literature prize, but I am not sure whether it is from one of Rodari's books or not. For my own collection I am anyway not interested.
• I really hate when stamp images are published last minute, so it was a welcome surprise that the pictures of the Star Trek issue from the United Kingdom became already available recently. There are opinions about this set vary and range from love to hate. Personally I like the stamps, but I will not get them for my own collection, as I was never a big fan of Star Trek. Also I do not understand why these stamps are issued this year.
• This is the wonderful time of the year when many countries publish their stamp programmes for the next year. The most interesting issue I have seen so far (apart from the German issues) comes from Belgium. Planned for the 25th January 2021 is an issue called Straffe Stripdames, which most probably translates to Strong Women in Comics. It will be interesting to see which characters will be featured in this set. Most likely images will be available in December.
• These are so far all issues about childhood heroes that I am aware of for 2021: Straffe Stripdames (Belgium January), Goldorak (France), Jean de La Fontaine (France), Die Sendung mit der Maus (Germany, one stamp), "Helden der Kindheit" (Germany, two stamps), "Sagenhaftes Deutschland": Heinzelmännchen and Waldfrau (Germany, two stamps), Welfare - Mother Hulda (Germany, three stamps), Jean de La Fontaine (Hungary, March, one stamp), Cartoon and Fairy-tale characters (Hungary, September, one souvenir sheet), Pasaules pasakas ("World Tales", Latvia, one stamp)

The New Issues of October were the Loreley from Germany, the Storm Riders from Hong Kong, Charles Dickens from the Isle of Man, Gianni Rodari from Italy and Miffy from the Netherlands.

This has been a busy month for my own collection. As mint stamps I got the Loreley, Rupert Bear from Guernsey, the wonderful Muppets sheet from the USA and the Soaper 5 from Singapore. The Loreley as well as two of the new Bugs Bunny stamps and the German Till Eulenspiegel stamp of 2011 I also got on matching postcards. Also I got the last missing Marvel stamps from the USA on a cover plus ten of the twenty DC stamps from 2006 and a Disney set from 2008 on covers as well. Use either the labels or the archive to see them.

If I missed any news or new issues please post a comment!

Netherlands: 65 years Miffy (2020)

[News] News of September

As I am very busy this month, I did not managed to post about the news of September in September, but here they finally are. Actually this month at first looked like there would not be many news, but in the last two weeks some interesting things came to be known. Earlier this month I worked a bit on this blog and all posts were now "published" on the day the stamps were issued, so now you can use the blog archive as well to browse my collection. Unfortunately however it is not possible to use a date before 1970 and 1970 itself is not shown in the archive. For these stamps you will have to use the labels. I made this change, because when I uploaded everything in March, I did this quite quick and it became difficult then to squeeze new additions between the old posts without changing the order. 

These are the News: 

• At first there were some problems with the online catalogs of the Deutsche Post, but after these problems were fixed, the new Philatelie aktuell was released on time. In there are the first images for the December stamps, so the Pied Piper of Hamelin and the Heroes of the Childhood issue, which this year shows Maya the Bee and Wickie. Especially the later two are wonderful stamps and I can not wait to add them to my collection. After Heidi and Pippi this is the second edition of this new series of stamps. Next year another two stamps will be issued, but the characters are not yet known. The Pied Piper is as well part of a series called Sagenhaftes Deutschland, which also includes this month's stamp about Loreley and next year's issues about the Heinzelmännchen and the Waldfrau. 
• Compared to other years Japan issued very few childhood hero stamps this year. So far there have only been the twenty stamps about Doraemon in May. In November however there will be another issue about Leo Lionni's friends labeled The World of Children's Picture Book Series No. 4. This is also a very nice issue. The last two issues in this series were the Little Prince in 2019 and the Very Hungry Caterpillar in 2018. Unfortunately I am not sure anymore about the first issue of this series. This new souvenir sheet will include ten stamps about Swimmy, Frederick and Alexander and the Wind-up Mouse. Frederick was earlier shown already on one of the US stamps about Animals in Children's Books issued as joint issue with the United Kingdom in January 2006, for the other two books I suppose it is the first philatelic appearance. 
• The Isle of Man will follow Bosnia and Herzegovina and Jersey with an issue about the 150th death anniversary of Charles Dickens. Of these three issues this one is my favourite, as it is completely dedicated to A Christmas Carol, the only work of Dickens I consider for my collection, but I am still not sure if I will buy it, as there definitely have been cheaper issues for this theme. Issue date will be the 14th October. 
• After San Marino also Italy will issue a stamp about Gianni Rodari in October. 
• Hong Kong Post will issue a set of six stamps plus two souvenir sheets about the fantasy comic Storm Riders on 29th October. I think the issue looks very nice, but I do not know these comics, so I will not add it to my collection. Also the issue is a bit excessive. 
• In the October issue of Philinfo the French stamp programme for 2021 is "completed" (well, they always add some stamps during the course of the year). Of particular interesting is the issue called Goldorak. I suppose this means the Japanese animated series, which aired in France for the first time in 1976, so 45 years ago next year. Only time will tell if this is right and also if yes if this will be the Jeunesse issue or a seperate one. 

While news were mostly published in late September, the new issues were all issued within the first two weeks of the month. Tatu and Patu from Finland came out on the 2nd September, Globi from Switzerland and Rupert Bear from the United Kingdom were issued on 3rd September, the Soaper 5 from Singapore followed one day later and the Raving Rabbids single stamp from France came in last on 7th September. 

For my own collection this has been a good month. From the USA I got the three souvenir sheets about Tweety and Sylvester, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig, so I now have all five of these Looney Tunes sheets. Also I got so far 17 of the 20 US Marvel stamps of 2007 used on covers and one of the wonderful Sesame Street stamps of the last year on a cover from the American Philatelic Society. Of the new issues of September I so far got Globi in mint condition, as FDC and as a Faltblatt and the Raving Rabbids used on two postcards. As I am now two days already into October, I also already bought the German Loreley stamp issued yesterday.

Germany: Loreley (2020)

On matching Cards with Special Postmarks: