Garden Flower Definitive 60 sen - 2011/1

Wow, the serial number for garden flower definitive 60 sen has reached 2011/1. Absolutely fabulous!

Thailand Cover

Singapore Stamp - Micro-printing

The below Singapore latest definitive stamp (45c) has micro-printing. The words "Ornate Coraltail" are printed on the wing of the damselfly.



The damselfly species depicted on the 45c-stamp is Ceriagrion cerinorubellum. Below is a photo showing Ceriagrion cerinorubellum in the same action as that of the 45c-stamp - having sexy fun.... hehehehehe

40th Anniversary of ASEAN

In 2007 ASEAN was celebrating its 40th Anniversay of existence. All the ten member countries of ASEAN released a set of stamps to commomerate this event. The design of the stamps is similar for all the issuing countries, 10 different designs with motif of buildings. All the ten member countries issued these stamp in format of block-of-10. The date of issue for these stamps varies from one country to the other. However, most the countries released these stamps on 8 August, 2007.


Brunei

Cambodia

Indonesia

Laos

Malaysia

Myammar

The Philippines

Singapore

Thailand

Vietnam

Two Covers from Thailand

Viewing Watermark

Majority of the recent Malaysia stamps are printed on watermarked paper. The watermark figure normally used on these stamps is of word "SPM". I wrote about SPM watermark some time ago, and you may click here to read about the story. Skilled collectors are able to view the SPM watermark easily by positioning a stamp or stamp sheet to a certain angle. Many collectors may use a watermark detector to view the watermark. However, the watermark detector could be expensive. Alternatively, one may view watermark by using money detector (uv light). SPM watermark can be easily viewed under uv light even the watermark is weak. If one showers uv light on the gum side of a stamp, the watermark will just stand up strikingly (see below photo).


the image of SPM view on the gum side of a stamp sheet under uv light (money detector)

2011 - Artifacts of National Heritage

Pos Malaysia released a set of 10 stamps on April 11, 2011. The title of the stamp issue is Artifacts of National Heritage. The stamps are printed in format of strip-of-5. Four strip-of-5 stamps (altogether 20 stamps) form a stamp sheet. So, there are two different stamp sheets for this issue. The stamp sheet with blue/grey background has SPM inverted watermark while the stamp sheet with brown/yellow background has SPM upright watermark.

Retour Cover - Japan

I also made a few retour covers from Japan. Japanese postal authority processes the retour covers with beautiful marks. These retour covers are beautiful, ain't they?