The Royal Mail will for the first time have a stamp issue to mark the Lunar New Year. A generic self-adhesive Smilers Sheet with the Fireworks stamps will be released on 20 January 2012.

No first day cover will be available as Royal Mail does not regard this as a new issue.

The Disneyana on Stamps Society (DoSS) has just been certified as a Study Unit of the American Topical Association (ATA). Bruce L. Johnson, Director of Study Units for ATA, made the announcement in early January.

The Disneyana on Stamps Society is the 90th study unit affiliated with the society during its 62-year history.

The Disneyana on Stamps Society is an organization of topical philatelists collecting stamps, first day covers, meters, cancels, and other philatelic items relating to Walt Disney and his legacy.

Membership is free! Members have access to the newsletter Disnemation, which will be published online six times a year.  For more information, check out the website:

http://www.disnemation.8m.com/home.htm

The AmericanTopical Association’s 162nd handbook entitles Handbook of Disney on Stamps by William Silvester is scheduled for publication by March 1.

To be released in a pane of 12 self adhesives on 23 January 2012. This will be the first day of the Dragon Year.

The first day ceremony will be held in San Francisco, CA.

New Zealand Post will issue a set of 4 stamps and a miniature sheet on 5 January 2012 to celebrate the Chinese Lunar Year of the Dragon which begins on 23 January 2012.

Taiwan Post will issue a set of 2 stamps and a souvenir sheet to commemorate the Year of Dragon which starts 23 January 2012.

The two stamps have denominations of NT$3.50 and NT$13.00, and the souvenir sheet has a denomination of NT$12.00. They will be released on 1 December 2011.

The 27th Asian International Stamp Exhibition will be held in Wuxi, China for 5 days from 11 November 2011.

There will be 1300 frames of exhibits and 100 dealer stands all in the spacious Wuxi Taihu International Expo Centre.

New Zealand Post will be issuing a miniature sheet containing 3 circular kiwi stamps with a picture of a panda.

The United Nations Postal Administration will be issuing the 2011 Endangered Species stamps on 7 September 2011.

The issue consist of 12 stamps, 3 maximum cards and a special silk cover.

New Zealand Post will be issuing a $15 3D stamp on 7 September 2011 to commemorate the Rugby World Cup. The stamp will depict the Tournament’s prize, the Webb Ellis Cup.

The 3D stamp will be protected forever inside a sealed plastic case, which is mounted within an attractive display card.

The first post office in Hong Kong was opened on 25 August 1841. Hong Kong Post will be issuing a souvenir sheet this August 25 to celebrate the 170th anniversary.

The $10 stamp depicts a red Victorian pillar box and a modern posting box. The background of the sheet show images of the old and current general post office.

The hummingbird on the right of the sheet “symbolises innovation and improvement in our service delivery to the world”.

The Royal Mail will issue a set of 8 stamps to mark the 350th Anniversary of the coronation of King Charles II.

As most of the crown jewels had been broken up during the time of the Cromwell’s Commonwealth a new set had to be created for the occasion. The only piece shown here that pre-dates Charles’s coronation is the anointing spoon.

1st Class – The Sovereign’s Sceptre with Cross
From 1661 and so called because it is surmounted by a cross. In 1905, it was redesigned to incorporate the Great Star of Africa, the second largest cut diamond in the world. During the coronation, the monarch bears the sceptre with the cross in the right hand.

1st Class – St Edward’s Crown
68p – Rod & Sceptre with Doves
68p – Queen Mary’s Crown
76p – The Sovereign’s Orb
76p – The Jeweled Sword of Offering
£1.10 – Imperial State Crown
£1.10 – Coronation Spoon

Royal Mail unveiled last Friday a set of stamps marking the one year countdown to the 2012 London Olympics.

The 10 first-class stamps, entitled “Get ready for 2012″, will go on sale on July 27, exactly 12 months before the Olympics start. This is the third and final set in the series of Olympic stamps.

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Greenland Post have stopped sales of two new definitives issued on 9 May 2011. According to a press release, the stamps are withdrawn because “the printed stamps did not live up to the high quality, which POST Greenland normally delivers.”

The original printings were already delivered to standing order customers. We are waiting to hear what are the differences in the two printings.

The above images are of the new printings.

A 1948 Indian 10rp stamp of Mahatma Gandhi overprinted Service was sold on 19 May 2011 at David Feldman for €120,000 versus a pre-sale estimate of  €20,000 to €30,000.

This is believed to be a world record price for any modern stamp.

Only 18 of this stamp is known to exist today and this copy is described as one of the finest copy.

It was issued by the Government of India as a set of 4 commemorative stamps on August 15th, 1948 as a tribute to the father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi, who was assassinated in January of the same year.

Just days after the historic Royal Wedding of Prince William and Miss Kate Middleton, Australia Post issued a stamp featuring a scene from the wedding.

According to Australia Post, the sheetlet is able to be released within days of the wedding due to special technology that allows the image to be uploaded into a Royal Wedding stamp template, pre-approved by Buckingham Palace.

The next stamp issue will be the low value definitives titled “A Pond Life” to be released on 13 April 2011. Details in a previous post here.

Hawker Centres of Singapore will be featured in a four value stamps set to be issued 18 May 2011. This has got to be one of the worst Singapore stamp designs ever!

June 3, 2011 will see the release of an Endangered Animal issue featuring the Oriental Small-Clawed Otter.

This is a beautiful set and is sure to sure to be a winner as the designer happens to be popular local TV artiste Edmund Chen. Singapore Post seems to be cashing in on this fact and the recent hype about biodiversity.

A special serialised collector’s sheet will be sold at S$88 and those with “golden numbers” will be sold at S$168!

Thumbs up for the stamps but thumbs down for the price of the collector’s sheet.

Singapore Post’s participation in PhilaNippon 2011 in July will be commemorated with a special miniature sheet. The Japan World Stamp Exhibition, held once every 10 years, will run from 28 July 2011 to 2 August 2011.

The New Zealand Post Office is recalling the Prince William Royal Wedding stamps presentation packs which was issued 23 March 2011.

It was discovered that the text in the packs which says Prince William’s birthday is 21 May is wrong. It is actually 21 June.

This was reported by TV New Zealand and you can watch the whole news report here.

Russia issued a souvenir sheet, the first of a series of stamps, for the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

The set include 4 stamps and there will be as many as 45 different postmarks available.

More and more self-adhesive stamps are being issued and collectors are in a dilemma over how they should keep them. The paper on which the majority of these stamps have been used on cannot be safely removed without damaging the stamp.

Some resort to keeping the stamps without removing the paper. This is fine if all the stamps on the page are on similar kind of paper with the same colour. Sometimes you would get a hard to find stamp used on a blue or beige coloured enevlope. That cut to piece will stand out on the page!

Over the years Peter Butler, FRPSC, have been experimenting with various techniques in the safe removal of self-adhesive stamps from the envelope paper. He wrote many articles in local newspaper and the philatelic press about his techniques and here are some of them including two videos.

Using Bestine

Using Aerosol

• The Saga of Soaking Self Ads (HTML | Word doc)
• Unpredictable World (HTML | Word doc)
• Freshen up self adhesives (HTML | Word doc)
• Chemical removal of stamps (HTML | Word doc)

Peter Butler’s October 2010 American Philatelist article:

• It’s Like Magic / Removing Self-Adhesive Stamps from Paper (PDF / 541k)

All the above videos and files are hosted by The Royal Philatelic Society of Canada.

Spink sold the The Mizhuhara Collection of Mongolian Stamps on 23 January 2011 in Hong Kong. The top grossing item in this collection, a Mongolian 1911 cover to Tibet sold for a whopping HK$3.6 million or £252,340. This is the only recorded example of a cover from Mongolia to Tibet of this period.

Another cover, from the Russian Consulate in Urga, Mongolia  to Peking dated 1878 sold for HK$2 million (£162,800).

Spink just concluded sale saw a much coveted Hong Kong 1863 96c Olive-bistre block of 4 sold for a world record price of £447,700 or the equivalent of US$821,000.

Other rarities sold can be found at http://www.jodarl.com/rarities/

The recent Spink Winter Collector’s Series auction held on 12 January 20111 saw some spectacular items sold at spectacular prices.

An India 1854 cover bearing a complete set of the first issue sold for £117,090 against the pre-sale estimate of £60,000 to £70,000.

An India 1854 Four Anna inverted sold for £93,690 and a Canada 1851 Twelve Pence Black on Laid Paper sold for £72,630.

Paul Calle, a commercial artist whose most famous work was no bigger than a postage stamp, died Thursday in Stamford, Conn. Calle, one of the most highly regarded stamp designers in the nation, was 82.

Read complete article here.

Hong Kong Post will be offering special collectors sheets apart from the normal special stamps for the Lunar New Year/Zodiac issue. The stamps and sheets will be released on 22 January.

Special stamps set of 4v

Souvenir sheet (perforated and imperforate)

Gold foil and silver foil sheetlet

The four lunar animals from the current series in one sheetet.

Special sheetlet with all twelve zodiac animals.

Since 1986, Pixar films have stretched the boundaries of our imagination with stories about unlikely heroes who explore the bonds of friendship and family. Now some of those heroes are the subjects of colorful new Send a Hello stamps that encourage people to connect with loved ones through the mail.

The Send a Hello stamps, which go on sale Aug. 19,2011, are a natural outgrowth of the Art of Disney stamp series issued between 2004 and 2008. Originally intended as a series of three annual issuances depicting friendship, celebration, and romance, the Art of Disney stamps proved so popular that the Postal Service expanded the series to include issuances in 2007 and 2008 to celebrate imagination and magic.

This pane of 20 stamps includes five different designs featuring Pixar characters: Lightning McQueen and Mater from Cars (2006); Remy the rat and Linguini from Ratatouille (2007); Buzz Lightyear and two of the green, three-eyed aliens from Toy Story (1995); Carl Fredricksen and Dug from Up (2009); and the robot WALL*E from WALL*E (2008).

The market for Chinese stamps is still red hot. On 15 December 2010, in an auction held in London, Chinese stamps were keenly contested by room and phone bidders.

The top lot, the 1968 The Whole Country is Red 8f was sold for £31,050 (15% buyers commission added).

This is a hefty jump over its pre-sale estimate of £10,000-12,000 and despite it being described “a few tones, apparently repaired in places and offered on this basis, unused but regummed”.

A 1962 Mei Lan Fang miniature sheet with “a couple of tiny wrinkles and surface marks” sold for £12,650.

A general collection in three volumes from 1949 to mid 1980s was also sold for £20,700.

New Zealand Post will be issuing the Year of Rabbit stamps on 12 January 2011. Four stamps and a miniature sheet will be available.

Noble Investments which own Apex Philatelics has bought the stamp inventory, reference library and client database of Leo Baresch Ltd for an undisclosed amount.

Leo Baresch is probably the foremost British dealer in Swiss, Austrian and Liechtenstein stamps.

Postcomm, the British postal regulatory body has given Royal Mail “greater commercial freedom” by allowing it to increase stamp prices in April next year.

The price of a 1st Class stamp is expected to increase 5p taking the price to 46p. The 2nd Class stamp is expected to increase by 4p.

Costs for posting packages are also expected to go up but it is believed to affect only those that weigh above 500 gms.

The Netherlands Antilles which originally consist of five islands, Bonaire, Curacao, St. Maarten, St. Eustatius and Saba, ceased to exist on 10 October 2010.

Curacao and St. Maarten will have the Dutch monarch as the head of state and will enjoy greater autonomy than before. The other three islands will remain as overseas territories of The Netherlands and will be known as the Dutch Carribean Islands.

All three territories will be issuing their own stamps.