Stamps

Three Pacific Island countries have announced details of their stamp-printing programmes for the year. They are Western Samoa, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. Particular interest in the issues is likely to be at tracted by the Solomon butterflies series and by a Samoan design on the art of tattooing.

Butterflies have always been popular subjects for Pacific Island issues, and Tuvalu has already started the year with a set of four butterfly stamps, in addition to the series Vanuatu will issue.

The three programmes an nounced are: Western Samoa, March, six stamps marking the inter national year for disabled per sons; June, tourism; August, the art of tattooing; October, four stamps and a souvenir sheet for Christmas.

Solomon Islands, March 4, four stamps and a souvenir sheet on explorers; May 12, four butterflies; July 7, six stamps showing athletes and their par ticipation in Island games; September 8, a four-stamp Christmas issue; November 11, four stamps in honour of the Duke of Edinburgh’s award scheme.

Vanuatu, June 10, four stamps for the Duke of Edinburgh’s 60th birthday; July 30, four stamps celebrating the first anniversary of Vanuatu independence; November 11, a four-stamp Christmas issue.

Some collectors expressed dis appointment at the design of last year’s Vanuatu indepen dence stamps (the overlying pattern was a geometric de sign) and for that reason considerable interest is likely to be shown in what the country chooses for its independence anniversary issue in July.

Late Moscow Games

Penrhyn, in the northern Cook Islands, has belatedly issued a

stamp issue marking last year’s Olympic Games in Moscow.

The issue was made under the controversial arrangement in which separate islands in the Cooks issue their own stamps.

The delay in issuing the Olympic stamps is the result of another controversy the in ternational attitude towards USSR’s presence in Afghanistan.

The Penrhyn stamps honour eight medal-winners in four events at the Moscow Games.

Two different stamps were issued in each of the denomi nations of 10 cents, 20 cents, 30 cents and 50 cents. Slightly amended designs of the stamps were issued in a souvenir sheet Three multi-coloured stamps depicting paintings of The Vir gin and Child were issued by Penrhyn on December 5 for use on Christmas mails. Denomi nations of the stamps were 20 cents, 35 cents and 50 cents, and the three stamps were united in a souvenir sheet.

Artists whose works were de picted were Louis Dalmau, the Serra Brothers and the Master of Porciuncula, all of the Spanish school. Special sou venir sheets with surtaxes for the benefit of Island charities were also issued, reproducing the paintings in miniature.

These sheets sold at SNZ 2.40 per set of three.

Manuscripts

Thirteenth-century illuminated religious manuscripts feature on a set of four special souvenir sheets issued by the Cook Islands on January 9 to expand the regular Christmas issue.

The sheets, with a face value of

75 cents and a surtax of 5 cents each for the benefit of schoolchildren, depict the Visi tation, the Annunciation, the Nativity, and the Epiphany.

Vanuatu Booklet

For the convenience of letter writers, the Vanuatu Post Office has issued a stamp booklet. This booklet contains two stamps each of the English and French language versions of the 5, 10, 15 and 20 FNH definitive stamps. Selling at 200 FNH, the booklet has an attractive cover, depicting the flag of the Republic of Vanuatu.

The New Hebrides aerogramme has been overprinted Vanuatu as a stop gap before new aerogrammes are printed. Cost of the overprinted aerogramme is

15 Fnh.

New Hebrides definitive stamps were withdrawn from sale in Vanuatu on December 31.

Pacific Corals

On November 21 the Cook Islands issued the first six de nominations in a new definitive stamp series, featuring Pacific Island corals in full colour. For the stamp issue, the Cook Islands stamp agents instructed their artists to portray the corals in their living form, as seen by underwater divers.

Coral is a small, marine animal, with a hard external skeleton and many thousands of species are known to exist.

Some corals are solitary, but the majority live in colonies.

Corals are abundant in the Cook Islands, as elsewhere throughout the Pacific, and

Jacques Cousteau, the auth ority on marine life, has esti mated that these small animals exist over as large an area of the earth as 200 million square kilometres or more than ten times the combined areas of the United States and Europe.

In the November issue there were 24 different stamps with four basic designs. Each of the basic designs appeared as stamps of one cent, three cents, four cents, five cents, six cents and eight cents. Another 24 stamps were issued in December, once again using four basic designs. The denomi nations for the December issue were 10 cents, 12 cents, 15 cents, 20 cents, 25 cents and 30 cents. Higher denominations have still to come in the coral series.

In Brief

In preparation for issue by New Caledonia are stamps featuring sea fish (23 and 25Fr), Flora (29 and 45Fr) and the Belep Islands (26Fr).

On December 20 Wallis and Futuna issued a 150 Fr Christmas stamp. The stamp features Virgin and Child with St. Catherine, by Lorenzo Lotto.

Two of the late Games stamps from Penrhyn and (below) Tuvalu’s attractive butterflies cover.