Goodbye 2009

Year 2009 has finally come to its last day - December 31, 2009. Many happenings had taken place in philately of Malaysia for year 2009. The most significant one is the error stamp of Unique Bird miniature sheet with missing "Malaysia" on the stamp. Second important thing is the use of special flourescent mark (new security) on commemorative stamps for the very first time in philately of Malaysia. Three stamp issues (Palm Trees, Conservation of Nature and Tuber Plants) were printed in this way. Thirdly, fancy stamp shapes appeared in miniature sheets - Palm Tree miniature sheet has a stamp with L shape and Archnid miniature sheet has a stamp with hexagon shape. Forthly, braille embrossed stamp appeared for the first time in the issue of Child's Rights. Fiftly, Pos Malaysia introduced postal automated machine (PAM) label in November 2009. This really surprised many ATM collectors of local and overseas.

Apart from stamps, interesting happening also occurred on postmarks. Slogan postmark One-Malaysia was introduced in August 2009 at Kuala Lumpur and Bandar Baru Bangi Mail Centres. Later on, the use of One-Malaysia slogan postmark has spread to many other mail centres throughout the country. Collecting One-Malaysia slogan postmark from all these mail centres is exciting indeed.

To the serious philatelists, collecting the definitive stamps for year 2009 is full of excitement. Change of gum type (greenish to brownish), watermark (SPM watermark to no watermark and back to SPM watermark), new Pos Malaysia logo (appears as imprint in stamp sheet) are just a few things that keep the philatelists runing up and down hunting for them.

By the way, I am doing a survey on the favourite stamp issues for year 2009 (see the right side of the blog). The survey is still on, please kindly cast your vote if you have not yet done so.

Finally, I heartily say goodbye to year 2009. A goodbye without showing postmark on December 31, 2009 is not complete. Hence, I am winding up this entry with two postmarks dated December 31, 2009 from two Pos Mini - Pos Mini Taman Sepakat Indah dan Pos Mini Sg Chua Kajang.


PM Tmn Sepakat Indah, Selangor; date: December 31, 2009
PM Sg Chua Kajang, Selangor; date: December 31, 2009