Tuesday 31 August 2021

[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.