The Michel

Stamps

The Michel Rundschau list

By John Hunter

EACH year I have given you selec tions from the Michel Rund schau’s list of stamp issues for the year. The Michel Rundschau magazine has again listed stamp issuing details, this time for the year 1987. It is always in teresting to see whether the issues for the year have indicated a fall or rise.

The good news for the year 1987 is that the number of issues is down on those of 1986. The number of stamps produced in 1987 shows a small reduction from 9509 to 9107. Perhaps the reality of the philatelic market as begun to sink in. Let us hope that the trend of fewer stamps being produced will continue. I have written before on numerous occasions about the stupidity of some postal au thorities over producing in the hope of attracting that elusive dollar.

The country to head the list of stamp

producers is Guyana (certainly not an honour) which issued a staggering 356 stamps for the year 1987.

In a list of those countries that issued 100 or more stamps for the year there were 16 offenders. Unfortunately there were two offending Pacific nations.

These two nations have, sad to say, been in the top list for a number of years.

Tuvalu was the fifth largest producer in the world with 181 stamps and the Cook Islands was the eleventh top producer

with 112 issues. It was good however to see that both these countries had issued fewer stamps than the year before.

A close examination of the above table will show which countries have not been tempted to over produce. It is good to see that a large percentage have kept their numbers in the low twenties or even lower. I have also indicated in the table the value of the new issues in Deutchmark. In the listing of the top 10 countries with the highest value of stamps issued, it is unfortunate to see one Pacific country and that is the Cook Islands.

The Cook Islands holds second place in the world. With such a high value on the stamps issued one can imagine how difficult it would be to maintain loyalty and continue to collect stamps from such countries. Again it is a case of the au thorities chasing the elusive dollar.

When we look at the figures tor 1988 I am afraid that we will see the number of stamps issued by Australia take a dramatic leap as this was the year that the bicentenary stamps appeared in large numbers and caused collectors to aban don Australia in large numbers.

Country

Total

Stamps

Miniature

Value

Units

Sheets

(DM) Australia 61 61 73.40 Cook Is 112 103 9 825.00

Fiji

19 17 2 45.00 French

Polynesia

28 27 1 113.40 Kiribati 16 15 1 31.70 Nauru 12 11 1 19.70 New Caledonia 22 22 77.70 New Zealand 33 31 2 56.35 Niuafo’ou 13 12 1 47.25 Niue 19 15 4 189.50 Norfolk Island 31 31 — 81.20

Papua New

Cuinea 22 22 — 37.75

Penrhyn

12 8 4 156.75 Pitcairn 16 16 — 37.00 Samoa 24 21 3 59.00 Solomon Is 38 37 1 75.25 Tokelau Is 12 12 — 9.50

Tonga

23 21 2 99.60 Tuvalu 181 169 12 512.00