WSC 2004, Hans C. Andersen & NUS Stamps Sheets

Personally I prefer to collect used stamps instead of unused stamps, for the simple reason that the postmarks and cancellations on the used stamps add to the fun of stamp collecting.

There are times when I do collect unused stamps, and that includes presentation packs as well as stamp sheets. Presentation packs, like used stamps, also add to the fun of stamp collecting because there are more information presented in the package. For the same reason, miniature sheets are also interesting. For large stamp sheets, the interesting information is the details of the printer..etc etc.

To illustrate the point, here's three pictures of NUS stamp sheet, World Stamp Competition 2004 sheet, and the Hans C Andersen miniature. For the NUS sheet, the details of the printer, the 5 colour proof dots..etc could be found by the side of the sheet.

For the WSC 2004 sheet, the background of the sheet featured the stamps from the mid-60s, superimposed with a merlion picture at the upper right.

For Hans C Andersen, the background has the same theme as the 4 stamps, with wordings that describe the occasion (i.e. 200th Anniversary Celebration), and that adds to the fun when one looks at these stamps.

All in all, stamps collecting is fun, not just because we are hoarding little piles of tiny papers, but because of the history and culture embedded in these papers that describe the world we lived in, often times stretching our imagination to times before our birth. Isn't that fun enough?

Some Singapore Frama Stamps

Not sure if any of you still remember that SingPost used to issue dinosaurs theme frama stamps? I was sorting through some stamps and found two of them. I am sure there are more than just these 2 in the set of frama. Afternote: I replaced the original 2 pictures with a clearer one.

SingPost has issued a number of frama stamps over the years. We used to have frama stamps with tree designs that we can 'buy' from POSB ATM machines. Pity I didn't keep any of these sheets. There were also frama stamps with just 3 Merlion heads or the word 'Singapore' repeatedly printed on them.

The more common ones recently are the rectangular frama stamps with Singapore skyline or the Merlion designs.

The two framas below have the codes of S258 and S275. I've never figured out what exactly do these codes represent. Quite frankly, there is not much philately literature on Singapore frama stamps (or at least I couldn't find them). I used to dislike frama stamps simply because you cannot wash them off the envelopes. Keeping them together with the envelope seems to be the only option.