[News] 2021 in Review, Outlook of 2022 and the News of December

2021 is over soon and I am not sad about it. The year went by so quick, but had many annoying aspects. Strange to realize that this is already the second time that I write a post like this here on the blog. It seems so long ago that I started this blog back in March 2020. Nonetheless let's look back at the last year and forward to the next.

On the page above I still try to list all new issues about childhood heroes. According to my list 26 postal administrations issued 244 of these stamps in 44 issues in 2021. Last year 27 postal administrations issued 199 stamps in 41 issues. Once again I already got nearly all of the stamps I was hoping to get. Only Mafalda from Italy and the Little Prince from Serbia I am still missing. Among the featured childhood heroes were many that had already appeared on other stamps before this year, but the year also saw some first philatelic appearances. The Secret Garden, Goldorak, Bibi & Tina and many Star Wars Droids, DC characters and Pokemon were among these. 

Also I have once again created my list of favourite stamps of the year and these thematic stamps were able to take places among them:

1. Pokemon (Japan)

2. Star Wars Droids (USA)

4. Mother Hulda (Germany)

9. 400th Birth Anniversary of Jean de La Fontaine (France)

17. Goldorak (France)

19. Sendung mit der Maus (Germany)

You can see the complete list here.

For 2022 eleven countries already announced 15 issues about Childhood Heroes on Stamps, which is roughly the same amount as last year at this time, so I am sure that many more will follow in the course of the year. In the next year the theme of the EUROPA stamps will be Stories and Myths. Some of them might include children's characters, but the ones I have seen so far do not. Of the already announced issues I am especially looking forward to Rumpelstilskin and Benjamin Blümchen from Germany. The complete list you can find above. If you know of any other issue please post a comment.

The New Stamps of December were a Comic Book souvenir sheet from Bosnia and Herzegovina - Republic of Srpska, Bibi & Tina and Die drei ??? from the German series Helden der Kindheit and Demon Slayer and Peter Rabbit from Japan.

During this last month of 2021 I added some more stamps to my collection. These were the new set from Germany, a Demon Slayer stamp, the US Simpsons on covers and two postal cards about Classic Comic Strips.

Wishing all readers here A Happy New Year!

Japan: Demon Slayer (2021)

Nothing else needed.

Used on Card with Special Postmark:

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: