Monday 19 July 2010

Garden Flower National Definitives - New Printing

The national series definitive stamps (garden flowers) were released on July 1, 2010. For philately purpose, the stamps were printed in the format of 20-stamp-sheet. These definitive stamps will replace the previous national definitive series (birds). For non-philately purpose, these garden flower definitive stamps are printed in the format of 100-stamp-sheet. Actually, the garden flower definitive stamps in the formats of 20-stamp-sheet and 100-stamp-sheet were released on the same day (July 1, 2010). Nevertheless, most post offices hold back the sale of the stamps from the format of 100-stamp-sheet.

The interesting thing about these definitive stamps is that the stamps from the 20-stamp-sheet (click here to see the image) and the stamps from the 100-stamp-sheet (see below) are different! These stamps are different in two features. Firstly, the stamps from 20-stamp-sheet have "2010" behind the word Malaysia but the stamps from 100-stamp-sheet lack "2010". This feature is good enough to claim that the stamps from the 100-stamp-sheet are "new" againts the stamps from the 20-stamp-sheet. Secondly, the 50s, 70s, 90s and RM2 stamps from the 100-stamp-sheet do not have white borders on right, left and top, but the other denominations 30s, 60s, 80s and RM1 are just the same as the stamps from the 20-stamp-sheet with white borders on right, left and top. I show an example of this border variation on 70s stamp (see image below).

Nevertheless, the micro-printing is still applied on the stamps from the 100-stamp-sheet. The design of sheet margins for the 100-stamp-sheet is similar as those of the bird definitives. So, serial number and Pos Malaysia logo are applied on the top margin of the stamp sheet. Time to hunt for serial numbers..... hehehehehehe


stamps from 100-stamp-sheet without "2010"

comparison of 70s stamps from 20-stamp-sheet (top) and 100-stamp-sheet (bottom)