MyStamp - To Fu Set & Competition @ STGCC 09!

I was at the Singapore Toys Games and Comics Convention 2009 when I spotted the SingPost booth. Wondering what could SingPost be doing at the toys / comics convention, I popped by for a look, and surprise surprise - there is a MyStamps To-Fu Competition!

For info: To-Fu Oyako are toys modeled after soy beancurd and thus have cubic heads shaped after the squarish beancurd. They are toys designed by the Japanese designers Devilrobots. Details of the competition can be found here. So the competition is over and we have the different winners' products being displayed at the STGCC 09.

Other than displaying the winners' designs, SingPost has also launched the MyStamps series for To-Fu, complete with the To-Fu toys and also a game board set. The MyStamps is going for $29.90 while the game board set s going for $39.90.

I think this is a good move by SingPost to target the younger generation and promote stamps collecting. It is always good to link stamp collecting with the other hobbies / interests, of the target audience e.g. toys and comics. This is not the first time SingPost tried to link stamps with other toys and comics, and examples of previous attempts include the Hello Kitty collection as well as the DC Superheros MyStamps (2008). Actually SingPost had even launched a MyStamps set for the popular Taiwanese girl band S.H.E. earlier this year.

Guess we will have more of such interesting stamps sets in future from SingPost. :)

Singapore World Stamp Exhibition 1995

Other than the World Stamp Championship 2004, Singapore had also hosted the World Stamp Exhibition 1995. It was a grand event, with the then President of Singapore (Mr Ong Teng Cheong) as the Patron, and supported by Federation of International Philately and Federation of Inter-Asian Philately. International judges (aka jury) were invited, and many outstanding exhibitions (over 3,300 frames) were displayed. Exhibitions included the recorded 'by accident' use of Penny Black prior to 6 May 1840 (David Feldman) and also 'Straits Settlements" Judicial and Revenue stamps (Koh Seow Chuan).

The event was held in Suntec City from 1 to 10 Sep 1995. Other than the exhibitions, there were other interesting events for the visitors, like "Traditional Trade" demonstrations showing works of Chinese Calligrapher, Indian garland maker, and Malay Batik painter. Another interesting event was the stamp perforating demonstrations that were performed hourly. Of course, we had the usual seminars on postal history, youth philately...etc. It was a free event, and well attended by many visitors.

The stamp theme for the event was Orchids and there was a different cancellation for each day of the event. Would cover more of the Orchids theme and other event news later.

Here's the list of the datestamp cancellations, and slogan die cancellations:

• 1 Sep 05 - Singapore '95 Day
• 2 Sep 95 - Thematic Philately Day
• 3 Sep 05 - Stamp Collecting Day
• 4 Sep 05 - Singapore Post Day
• 5 Sep 05 - Philatelic Museum Day
• 6 Sep 05 - Olympic Day - Youth
• 7 Sep 05 - Letter Writing Day
• 8 Sep 05 - Awards Day
• 9 Sep 05 - F.I.A.P. Day
• 10 Sep 05 - F.I.P. Day

Postbox Public Art Competition 2007

This sounded a bit late, but nonetheless the event was an interesting postal related development in Singapore. There was a "Nation-wide Postbox Public Art Competition" held in 2007, organised by an online web and design group, FARM and jointly presented by the Urban Redevelopment Authority, Singapore Post, Singapore Totalisator Board and Singapore Turf Club. About 40 postboxes around the city area got a new layer of artistic paint, which added some local flavour according to the locations of the postboxes.

I was around Bugis area when I saw this group of people painting these postbox and thought it as a cool thing. Took the picture of the Bugis cat postbox. There used to be a big fat black cat at the Bugis Village, wonder if the artists were inspired by that particular cat. <I lost that picture of the Bugis postbox. Sigh sometimes blogspot just loses picture and I can never figure out why. Below is the new picture I've taken of the final product recently>

Subsequently I took pictures of other postboxes, and here's some of them. Two of the pics are pixelated because my phone camera doesn't work that well at night. Here's the one at Fortune Centre. The design sort of accurately portrayed the 'fortune' aspects, i.e. see the 3 green 'Fa' in the centre of the jackpot design?

This is the one at Millenia Walk, which sort of looks normal, i.e. nothing special about it.

The one at Shaw Tower (Beach Road) looks like a cereal box, heh, and has the recipe for a Great Nation.

The one at Tekka Market features bamboo (of course). Tekka means 'bamboo feet' in hokkien.

Now, in case you wonder how does the normal postbox looks like, here's a picture of it. There are also metallic postboxes around, but I don't have a picture of them.

Two winners emerged from the competition, one of them is a professional illustrator while the other is a primary 4 kid. You could look at their postbox design at the FARM website. Quite cool right? Wonder if there will be another Postbox Competition this year or 2009. Maybe they can extend the competition to other postboxes around the island.

Afternote: here's two more postboxes.

Penisular Plaza Postbox:

SMU Postbox: