I have been wanting to talk about Iceland’s decision to pull the plug on stamp issuance. When I spotted this New Zealand stamp, I had found the vehicle. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
It was the best of times it was the worst of times. The printing and use of color on this stamp is magnificent. In the sixties the mostly fake dune stamps from UAE and Finbar Kenny showed how far things could go, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/04/10/sharjah-lets-you-enjoy-modern-art-thanks-to-finbar-kenny/ . Real country postal authorities took up the challenge and pushed even Mr. Kenny’s boundaries. Stamps that smell or change color, you name it. The dune stamps were aimed at child collectors and so it seems are real country stamps like this. Making this time the worst of times. Instead of presenting a countries situation, it’s past, it’s present, it’s hopes in a serious way and from their point of view so a collector can learn and perhaps think of things in a different way. Here we get wacky mailboxes. Makes you wonder if stamps deserve to die?
Todays stamp is issue A422, a 40 cent stamp issued by New Zealand on March 19th, 1997. It was a 10 stamp issue that came as either a booklet or a self adhesive sheet. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 55 cents whether used or unused. An unused booklet of 10 still together is worth $7 while the same 10 stamps as a sheet is $18.
A few weeks ago Iceland announced that they are discontinuing the issuance of new stamps and closing down their website aimed at the worldwide collector. 50 people are losing their jobs from the operation that has been in the red for a while. Post offices in Iceland believe they have adequate stocks of stamps till the last postcard is sent. To me that is the scariest statement of all. I remember when Mozambique got independence in 1974, the new post office offered to sell collectors any stamp issued by Portugal for them in the previous 20 years with an independence overstamp. What if all post offices worldwide have such never ending stocks?
I am hoping that the end of new stamp issuance might finally change the supply/demand balance in favor of the supplier and result in higher stamp values. If collectors can begin to see their collection as an asset instead of just a cost it is easier to justify new acquisitions. Collector dollars also wouldn’t be syphoned off by country collectors that automatically buy all new offerings directly from the post office. We had already had several countries issues dry up or be declared fake as they no longer had a provable post system.
So how will it end? I suspect that the deciding factor of stamps will be the country that started it, Great Britain. If they are also in the hole and pull the plug, the rest of the Commonwealth will follow. Then USA and Germany, and an hour later, everyone else with perhaps total farm out issues trying to hold out a little longer.
I don’t think this is the end of the hobby. The era from 1840 to the mid 80s saw colonialization and then a plethora of new countries with different people expressing themselves with stamps. We saw ideologies rise and fall and monarchies fall or somehow stay around. All expressed as the countries themselves wanted it presented. On the stamps we also saw art, natural beauty, and technological achievement being presented. On tiny slips of gummed paper that seemingly has immense abilities to survive. I think the hobby can survive, and I intend to keep telling the stories that can be learned from stamp collecting.