Pacific stamp box

No doubt many of you were able to find the bicycle on the PNG Lutheran centenary stamp. A boy is holding the bike on the verandah of the Lutheran Seminary Church on the 70t stamp. Well done those who spotted it.

Another question: what was the world’s first commemorative stamp?

Many believe it was the set of Queen Victoria stamps issued in 1887, the year of Queen Victoria’a Golden Jubilee.

However, this set was in fact a replace ment definitive issue that remained until the Queen died in 1901.

Britain’s first commemorative stamps did not appear until 1924 to com memorate the Wembley Empire Exhibi tion. No, the title of the first com memorative stamps belongs to the New South Wales Centennial issue of 1888/ 89. Eight stamps were issued for the event. The stamp designs were chosen from 956 designs submitted by 250 competitors in a special competition.

There is now pressure mounting in stamp circles to have the internationally recognised Gibbons stamp catalogue accept the fact this set of stamps was the world’s first commemorative set on NSW’s 1988 Centremail celebrations.

My thanks to the Australian Stamp Monthly for this item.

Many new issues during the last month or so featured the marriage of Prince Andrew to Sarah Ferguson.

However, there were some issues from Pacific countries featuring other sub jects.

Samoa issued, on August 13, an attractive set of five stamps featuring fish of the Samoan waters.

Fiji issued, on August 1, a set of six stamps featuring reptiles and amphib ians. This is a very attractive set highlighting each animal with a white boarding space surrounding each animal.

On August 4 Cook Islands issued two souvenir sheets of stamps com memorating Stampex ’B6 and the birth day of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. Cook Islands are first off the mark with the Queen Mother Birthday issue. On the Stampex ’B6 sheet is in fact an overprint of the Ausipex ’B4 souvenir sheet featuring scenes of Cap tain Cook in Australia.

This makes for quite an interesting item. The Stampex ’B6 logo is printed over the Ausipex logo. The Ausipex logo on each stamp in the sheet has been colored over with a gold circle.

The islands of Penrhyn and Aitutaki in

the Cook Islands have also issued souvenir sheets commemorating the same two events and have also over printed the Ausipex sheet with the Stampex logo. In the case of Fenryhyn the value has also been overprinted.

On July 21 Nauru issued a set of four stamps commemorating the Bank of Nauru’s 10th anniversary. The designs for the stamps are very attractive and were submitted by school children in a competition run by the bank, the bank takes an active role in school education, visiting schools discussing the advan tages of using the national bank.

French Polynesia keeps up cultural education with two more stamps issued on July 17 featuring traditional festivi ties this time weaving. A pity more Pacific countries don’t follow the idea.

I still believe much can be done with

philately in the Pacific. Pacific countries depend so much on the sale of stamps and with franking machines and elec tronic mail taking over the postage stamp is a threatened species. Pacific nations need to look seriously at stamp promotion. The number of stamps issued, quality of printing and designs need to be checked. Combined theme issues, stamp exhibitions and promo tions are a must.

It is good to see Papua New Guinea using September for stamp promotion in conjunction with independence anniversary celebrations.

Papua New Guinea stamps are al ways a favorite with collectors. You can see PNG stamp exhibitions in Sydney at the GPO, 52 Hunter St (Government Information Office) and at 100 Clar ence St.