Hello everyone,  Saturday here and I have been organizing my life for the next few months. Why?

Let’s talk stamps first. The other day I showed the new Royal Mail issue – Royalty and Heritage – which is being issued to celebrate the Monarchy through the ages.  Do scroll down a few posting to see the start of the thread and the pictures of the stamps.

Today I look at the Henry V issue. Now I guess this is going to come as no surprise to you is it J

Here is the GB Royal Mail stamp and here is the Barbuda stamp, issued as part of the Kings and Queens of England set I mentioned the other day.  Sorry for poor picture but best I can find.

Of course Barbuda is not the only country to have issued Kings and Queens stamps.  If you have a catalogue have a look at the Cayman Islands.  In  February 2000 they issued a M/S of 6 to commemorate British Monarchs, as did St Helena,  the British Virgin Islands and the Falklands. Maybe more, I only know of those.

Also,  I have seen Kings and Queens issues from Umm Al Qiwan – more like Cinderellas in my view .   So, the next question I pose is, who can tell me the design of the next 30 stamps from Royal Mail?  Still thinking eh!!!  Well have a look at   http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=170192948151&ssPageName=STRK:MEBI:IT&ih=007 and I think you will see an advance copy J   You will see I have put a bid in.  If you outbid me  I cannot offer these as a prize.  But by all means don’t let me stop you from bidding.  I used to have these stamps but I gave them away or sold them, I forget which, some years ago.

I am not knocking the Royal Mail issue,  although I do think the situation could be used to suggest the Royal Mail are just issuing stamps to raise revenue,  just as the other countries I mentioned above have done. With Royal Mail, they haven’t gone to much trouble to hid the fact they are using the same images.  Certainly not a lot of creative design work went into this first issue.  And, we have 5 more issues to look forward to.  J

Ok, What else is new. Well  I started a new job on Friday and will be traveling a fair bit over the next few  months.  I will be working in Seoul and commuting to Sydney occasionally, in between making side trips to London and San Francisco before the end of March.  Why am I telling you this you may ask?   Well because I will not be writing as often as I would like to be over the coming months.   And if I do write the chances of showing images of stamps will be reduced as I won’t have a scanner  - at least for the first few months while in Seoul.

However, I do hope you keep checking the blog on a regular basis.   I would like to keep  a strong following to the blog  – now over  20,000 page views a month  – so would like to invite anyone who would like to contribute a guest article – or series of pieces – to do so..    just email me the text and any pictures in .gif or .jpeg format to  cddstamps@gmail.com

I’ll try and write later next week, as I am in Perth starting tomorrow.  

Enjoy your stamps,   Best wishes.  Michael