Spices of Singapore & Food Festival 2011

In conjunction with the Singapore Food Festival 2011, SingPost has timed its latest stamp issue - "Spices of Singapore" to be released on 15 July 2011. Of course, the theme is spices, a once upon valuable commodity (still valuable today) that is essential for food flavouring.

Singapore has its history tied closely with spices, when the spice commodities were traded in Singapore's early days as a entre port in the Straits Settlements. We celebrated our historical ties with spices by setting up a special spice garden at the Fort Canning Park, at the location of Raffles' experimental and botanical garden.

For the Spices of Singapore stamp issue, five different spices (and one food / drink containing each spice) are featured:

- Cinnamon (1st Local) used in Masala Teh (spiced tea with milk)
- Coriander (2nd Local) used in Satay
- Star Anise ($0.65) used in Braised Duck
- Tamarind ($0.80) used in Assam Prawn
- Tumeric ($1.10) used in Fish Head Curry

The Spices of Singapore stamps presentation pack is sold at $4.95, while the pre-cancelled First Day Cover is sold at $3.95. Those interested can get these stamps at any SingPost outlets as well as the Singapore Philatelic Museum.

SingPost Registered Article Delivery - Not At Home

What happens when there is a delivery of registered article to your place and there is no one at home? Well, SingPost will still have options for you to receive the article. 

SingPost will leave a note (see the picture below) informing the recipient that there was an unsuccessful delivery.

Within the notice, SingPost will leave three options for the recipient:

a) Go to the stated Post Office and collect the article at the next working day; or

b) Request to collect the article at another Post Office (2 days upon receipt of this request); or

c) Request for another delivery to the original stated address (i.e. to your house) at 1 working day after the request

Give a call to SingPost (1605) if you wish to activate option b or c.

The notice has 'evolved' over the years. It used to be just a tiny slip of paper requesting the recipient to go down to a particular Post Office. Guess postal services have evolved for the better over time.

Philately Books - Major unauthorisd copying of other people's posts

After I posted about the 'Most Beautiful' stamp,  I was shocked  to find the entire post on another site - Philately Books. To my amazement, I found some of my other blog posts on the site as well.

Unlike normal blogs aggregator, Philately Books make absolutely no mention of my blog or that the content came from non Philately Books origin. Yes, it is unauthorised copying in a big way. Disgusting isn't it?

2005 Most Beautiful Stamp - Greta Garbo of Sweden

We have often heard of the world's first stamp (Penny Black), the most expensive stamp (Treskilling Yellow) etc etc. Recently I came across another 'most', and in this case it is the 'Most Beautiful' stamp - Sweden's Greta Garbo (2005).

Apparently there was a vote (not sure by whom, perhaps the UPU?) and this stamp of Greta Garbo was deemed as most beautiful via a combination of a beautiful woman, fantastic portrait photo, well made engraving and a recces print of the highest quality.

Accompanying this 'Most Beautiful' stamp in this little booklet are other stamps and to me, they are just as beautiful. I think stamps are generally 'beautiful' when they tell a story, regardless of whether it is of a beautiful woman or not. Nonetheless, the Most Beautiful stamp - Sweden Greta Garbo (2005) is quite well made.

Hawker Centres of Singapore Stamps

SingPost recently released a commemorative set of stamps about Singapore's hawker centres. Four of the more well know hawker centres are featured: East Coast, Maxwell, Newton, and Lau Pa Sat. Of course Singapore has plenty of other hawkers, e.g. Tekka hawker, Fengshan hawker etc etc but I guess the designers chose these four to be featured.

This issue of stamps caught my attention for two reasons, 1) hawker centres are part of the Singapore lifestyle, and 2) the stamps designers are actually students from the design class in Nanyang Polytechnic. Let me elaborate further.

Hawker centres are a way of life in Singapore. They are often a source of cheap and good food. In fact, many hawker centres have long queues of people waiting as much as an hour just to get their plate / bowl of favourite dishes. Increasingly when food courts and restaurants start to replace hawker centres, and when older hawkers decide not to continue their trade (e.g. after hawker centres are renovated / upgraded), hawker centres may one day disappear into history. So I thought it is appropriate to commemorate their existence somehow. (Added: a picture of Lau Pa Sat - note the somewhat unique architectural design)

I am also glad that design students from poly (Leon Yeo Hai Tian & Jean Ng Ting Fong) have been asked to craft this issue of stamps. Philately has often been thought of a hobby only for the retired or the primary school going kids. Thus it is good to involve those in the teens as much as we can. Of course, publishing the works of design students is also a great way to recognise the budding talents in local design scene.

So for those who are interested in our Singapore hawker centres, do buy a copy of these hawker centres stamps (each stamp selling for only $0.80 while the presentation pack cost $5), and enjoy a meal at these hawker centres!

1990 Tourism Definitive Stamps - High Values

The 1990 definitive series featured a series of tourism related stamps. There are stamps with the zoo, Sentosa, Jurong Bird Park etc for the lower value denomination stamps.

The 4 high value denomination stamps featured the four races instead.

These stamps are:

- $1 Chinese Opera Singer
- $2 Malay Dancer
- $5 Indian Dancer
- $10 Ballet Dancer (Eurasian)

In the background of the stamps there are also four buildings but I recognised only two of them, i.e. the Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple at Little India for Indian Dancer, and the Victoria Concert Hall for the Ballet Dancer. I thought the mosque was the Sultan Mosque, but the drawing does not matched up somehow. I am clueless about the Chinese Arch. Anyone can help?

P.S.: Thanks Yesterday.sg for helping me about the two buildings.

World Population Day Stamp - 1974

Singapore has just experienced a 'watershed' General Election and many voters have commented about the government policies. Thus I think it is timely to show this stamp that reflected one of the much talked about policy of the Singapore government in its yester-years.

The stamp was issued in August 1974 (if I am not wrong the date is 9th August, our national day). There were 3 stamps (10 cents, 35 cents and 75 cents) and two of them bear this message 'Plan Your Family Small' at the top of the stamp). This was a commemorative issue for the World Population Year.

It was the national policy to control the population back then. Families were encouraged to keep their size small, and two children per family was preferred.

This of course is starkly different from the situation today, where the government is giving out major bonus to families in order to maintain or grow the population. The declining birth rate is used as a justification for the much discussed immigration policy.

What a remarkable change in a span of 26 years!

Singapore Stamps: Anniversaries & Milestones

I came across the book "Singapore Stamps: Anniversaries & Milestones" and found it to be a good read. The authors (Tan Wee Kiat, Ivan Chew and Ong Yew Ghee) have taken pain to research and compile the many stories behind the diferent stamps issues.

Some stories had me taking another look at some stamps in my own collection. For example, the authors highlighted that the design of the 1969 issue on Public Housing has a 100,000 homes in the form of a '1' and many '0's stacked like a HDB flat.

There are many other books in this series of Singapore stamps, and the books are available from the library for those who want to take a quick look.

King George VI & Queen Elizabeth II

The stamps of Straits Settlement period have always offered little tidbits of history which I would not have known if not for my interest in the stamps.

One such example would be the year of death for King George VI and the subsequent coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Due to this event, the stamps for Penang & Malacca has to be changed. In the photo below, it could be seen that the King George VI portray had been replaced with Queen Elizabeth II's portray.

Other than Penang and Malacca, Singapore also used the King George VI stamps up to 1952. I wonder why I couldn't find any Queen Elizabeth II stamps for Singapore post 1952. Perhaps my collection is quite lacking in this area.

Stamps 'Error' - Royal Wedding Stamps from NZ

There are stamps errors, which are often overlooked at either the design stage (e.g. wrong facts) or the printing stage (e.g. missing colours). Most recently there is a stamp 'error' that is due to a lack of thought at the design stage, and that is the New Zealand Post's commemorative Royal Wedding stamp.

The 'error' is that the stamp perforation for this se-tenant pair is right in the middle, which split the royal couple into individuals, individual stamps that is. If it is done by the Brits, I'm sure they would have been a lot more careful.

I'm sure the couple is not happy with such a design, but oh well, who cares. I'm sure the stamp collectors will be keeping this issue, especially in light of such an 'error' story behind the design.

Stamps from Tokyo - PhilaNippon 2011 & Hello Kitty

During a recent trip to Japan Tokyo, I dropped by the Shinjuku Post Office or a visit. Of course, there is a philately corner with plenty of interesting stamps that attracted my attention (and some of my Japanese yen as well).

I bought a few sets of Japanese stamps, including a set about the Year of the Rabbit, a Hello Kitty Four Seasons set, and a PhilaNippon 2011 set. For the Japanese, there are a number of significant anime / manga characters such that these characters are featured in the stamps. Hello Kitty, Pokemon, Doraemon and Astro Boy. It is also amazing that the Hello Kitty craze seems to be never ending for the Japanese, judging from the nicely designed Hello Kitty set.

Before the visit, I didn't know that the Japanese are organsing the PhilaNippon 2011 this year. Well, I guess we will see more of these interesting sets when they are released for this major event.

Ziplock Bag as an Envelope

I've seen many different types of envelopes but I was still surprised when I received this corporate gift in an envelope that is actually a ziplock bag!


I guess this choice of an 'envelope paper' is in sync with the corporate gift's message of 'keeping your ideas fresh'. Very innovative.

Wonder how did they manage to persuade SingPost to accept this ziplock bag as an envelope for mail processing. Hmm.

Stamps Dispensing Machine - Unfriendly Quantum

I ran out of postage for local mail and decided to buy some via SingPost's stamps dispensing machine. Unfortunately, I was somewhat disappointed at the lack of payment options when the machine displayed a message that I could only pay via NETS.

The trouble with such a payment is that the minimum payment quantum is $2. Thus I have no choice but to buy 8 stamps ($0.26 each) one shot. Makes me wonder why SingPost couldn't explore working with EZ Link cards, where surely the minimum quantum of payment can be lower. Afterall, we use EZ Link cards for bus fare payment, which has range of fares as low as $0.71.

Oh well, let me try to be positive, and perhaps take the view that now I have some more frama stamps of a new design. :) The 'Destination Singapore' tagline has a certain touristy feel somehow.

Nostalgic Looking Postbox in China

Stamp collectors, by our very nature, are people who are perhaps more attracted to nostalgic looking items.

Thus recently when I was in ShangHai, this nostalgic looking postbox (信筒）caught my attention. I think the Chinese are still using such old-fashion postboxes. This post box is located at a fairly touristy location and not some old forgotten street. The post box denoted 3 collection timing (which is 1 more slot compared to Singapore Post):

1st Collection - 9:46
2nd Collection - 14:16
3rd Collection - 17: 46

Partly inspired by the postbox, I decided to mail to myself some letters from ShangHai. It took quite a while to reach my home, and the postage is actually more expensive compared to posting of international letters by SingPost. For memory sake I guess it is worth it.

Singapore's New Postal Identifier Marks

Ever since Singapore liberalised the postal market, there has been a few new market players in the local scene delivering our letters and magazines.

Thus there will now be other post marks beside SingPost's post marks. that we will see on our mails. Other than SingPost, there are now these other 4 new postal operators:

• DHL Global Mail
• Fuji Xerox Singapore
• SwissPost International
• WMG

I've seen SwissPost's post marks before but not the rest. Here's how the SwissPost's postmarks look like. I'm not sure why the returned mail address is in Switzerland though, i.e. who will return the mail over such a long distance?

Other than these marks that belong solely to a postal operator, there will also be other marks which are a 'combined mark' between two operators. For example, there is this mark for WMG & SingPost 'combined'. So the mark on the left is SingPost and the mark on the right is WMG. I guess the bold 'S' means Singapore. That is interesting because all along the post marks have always belong to just 1 operator rather than 2. Historically if more than 1 operator handles the mail (e.g. international mail), each will stamp their post mark on the envelope with the date stamp. That is why some of the older (and more valuable) letters have multiple postmarks. The fun part is that the collector could trace the route that the mail took by looking at the post marks and date stamps.

Well hopefully there will be more interesting post marks rather than these 'boxy' looking rectangles in future. For the full list of new postal operators, the details are found at this IDA website.

Treskilling Yellow - Again the Most Expensive Stamp

It has been a long while since I last posted anything on this blog. I've done a re-vamp of the blog and decided that the first post shall be a post about the most expensive stamp in the world - the 3 banco Yellow Skilling.

When it was auctioned off at 1996, the price was US$4.5 million! The price now remains unknown, but if we factored in inflation of 5%, it could easily be anything above US$8.9 million now.

The story behind this rare stamp (and most expensive item by weight in this world) is an interesting one. It was found by a young boy who rummaged through his grandmother's items and discovered this odd looking stamp which was different from the rest that he saw at the local dealer. I guess the stamp errors are the ones which fetch interesting prices in world auctions.

I guess that is a good story for any beginners in stamp collecting, i.e. keep an eye lookout for anything odd in the stamps, and there will be rewards.