Album pages common designs - 2b. 1978 25th anniversary of the Coronation

Some remarks on the printings of the 'House of Questa'...

One 'commom' item on all sheetlets, is the name of the printing company : 'The House of Questa'.
This 'house of Questa', printed stamps from 1966 till 2002, mainly for countries that resort under the British Commenwealth.

In case of the 25th anniversary of the Coronation, the full name 'The House of Questa' is mentioned on all sheetles, in exactly the same spot.
All issues were clearly printed in the same company, located near London. 

The House of Questa

Many other issues were printed by that company, some bare the name and a logo of a Q-shaped balloon, some mention only 'Questa'.

In the printing below, we find the printer colour marks Cyan Yellow Magenta Black and Grey in the same 'balloon' style. In the margin above we also see "QCSPL" : Questa Colour Security Printing Limited.

As it is a private company that printed many stamps (also some doubtful issues and cinderellas), many questions rise on the validity of some printings. 
Not only may the stamps have been printed in quantities that exceed the actual ordered amounts, also questionable print errors, test printings, or suspicious overprints are circulating.

The history of the House of Questa, and the Format International Security Printers, is a topic worth reading. Hereby I like to refer to the following site : House of Questa - Format International 

Some caution in buying expensive proofs, errors, ... from Questa's printings is therefore recommended.
This also counts for the numerous emissions of the 'Leaders of the World' - trains and cars.
All 'issued' by small entities as Tuvalu, Nevis, Grenada, .... and their islands.
The 'Bernera / Davaar' issues are purely private emissions, issued by this company

Bernera Islands

Davaar Island

to be continued...

Album pages common designs - 2a. 1978 25th anniversary of the Coronation

In the series of my self made albums, a new entry on the common design stamps.
In 1978, the world, and the British Commenwealth in particular, celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Coronation of Queen Elisabeth II.

20 (21) countries participated with a strip of 3 stamps, issued in sheetlets of 6.

Common Design 326

Christmas Island and Cayman Islands

Many more countries issued stamps in regards to this anniversary, but some had a totally different design, (Great Britain for example) and many others used another 'common design'.

25th anniversary Great Britain

other 'common designs' for the 25th anniversary

The other stamps with a common design, will be topic of another post.

For this issue, the following countries each issued a strip of 3 stamps, always with Queen Elisabeth II in the middle, and two royal symbols left and right.

1. Ascension Island : Lion - QE II - Green turtle 
2. Barbados : Griffin of Eduard III - QE II - Pelican
3. Belize : White lion of Mortimer - QE II - Maya jaguar
4. British Antartic Territory : Black bull of Clarence - QE II - Emperor penguin
5. Cayman Islands : Yale of Beaufort - EQ II - Screech owl
6. Christmas Island : White swan of Bohun - QE II - Abbott's booby
7. Falkland Islands : Red dragon of Wales - QE II - Hornless ram

Fiji and Falkland Islands

8. Fiji : White hart of Richard II - QE II -  Banded Iguana
9. (The) Gambia : White greyhound of Richmond - QE II -  Lion
10. Gilbert Islands : Unicorn of Scotland - QE II - Great frigate bird
11. Mauritius: Antelope of Bohun - QE II - Dodo
12a. New Hebrides Condominium (BR) : White horse of Hanover - QE II - Gallic cock
12b. Condominium des Nouvelles-Hebrides (FR) : Le Cheval blanc d'Hanover - QE II - Le coq gaulois
13. St Helena : Black dragon of Ulster - QE II -  Sea lion

British and French New Hebrides

14. St Christopher/Nevis/Anguila : Falcon of Eduard III - QE II - Pelican
15. Samoa :  King's lion - QE II - Pacific pigeon
16. Solomon Islands : King's dragon - QE II - Sandford eagle
17. South Georgia : Panther of Henry VI - QE II - Fur seal
18. Swaziland : Queen's lion - QE II - African elephant
19. Tristan da Cunha : King's bull - QE II - Tristan crawfish
20. British Virgin Islands : Falcon of the Plantagents - QE II - Iguana

British Virgin Islands

Download the album here : Common Design 326

to be continued ...

Album pages common designs - 1. 1935 Silver Jubilee

The 1935 Silver Jubilee set is the first set with a common design for not less then 44 countries and territories, that are or were part of the British Commonwealth of Nations.
The group of 44 can even be extended with 18 more countries/territories, that issued stamps for the same anniversary, but who did not choose the same design.
Although strickly seen they are not 'common designs', I have added the stamps to the album, as they are often collected as part of the full set.

1935 Silver Jubilee CD 301

The set depicts the 25th anniversary of the reign of King George V, in 1935.
Besides the face of the king, we see Windsor castle.
The first group with exactly the common design, consists of 44 countries, each issuing 4 stamps.
In the extended group of 18 countries, we find issues with 2 stamps only, and issues with up to 7 stamps.
Both parts together, result in 245 stamps for this collection.

Below is a clickable link, to a PDF-file, with the full set on album pages.
(a free PDF-reader is needed to open the file)

CD 301 : Silver Jubilee 1935

The pages were made by me, with the AlbumEasy program.

screenshot PDF

A full, step-by-step course can be found on my blog, starting here https://rainbowstampsandcoins.blogspot.com/2021/04/making-your-own-album-00.html

This link leads to the introduction page, all further lessons can be found in the blog archive (lesson 1 to 40).

Please let me know in the comment section, if there are mistakes (size, information, ...), I will gladly update the file if necessary.
For those who work with AlbumEasy, and who want to alter fonts, page sizes (US) themselves, drop me a message too, and I will send the .txt-file for this album.

Please note that catalog numbers are omitted in the album, as they are depending on the used catalog.

to be continued ...

Album pages common designs - 0.1 Introduction

In my search for customized stamp albums, I found many ready-to-use albums for collecting by country.
Lots of collectors have themed collections, and of course it is not that simple to create albums for such collections. First of all, because thematic collections often requires thematic catalogs - which exist, but only for limited topics (chess, cats, light houses, Disney, ...)
Secondly because most thematic collectors also add personal information, covers, ... to their collection, which makes it nearly impossible to create a tailor-made album.
Even if I would try to add such an album, it would always be too limited, or too elaborated.

There is however a group of collectors/collections, that keep the middle between a country wise collection and a thematic collection.
A good example is a collection of 'common design' stamps.
They combine stamps from different countries, but are not that excessive in the number of stamps that should be in the collection.

In this view, there are two large groups of possible collections.
The first one is the group of the joint issues.
Many countries have common issues with other countries, celebrating XX-years of diplomatic relations, famous people who lived and worked in two or more countries, international treaties between two countries, ...

Example of a joint issue between Kenya and Uganda

Those joint issues, are often collected, but not often described in catalogs.
Some joint issues, do not bare exactly the same image, which makes it also difficult to recognize them.

A second group of stamps that are in these 'country + theme collecting group', are those of the common designs.

More then a simple joint issue between two or 'few' countries, celebrating a mutual anniversary, the stamps in the 'common design' group, have identical stamps or sets of stamps, issued by a large group of countries that share a common history.

A good example here is the 1935 Silver Jubilee emission.
With the country name omitted, it can be an issue by many countries.

Common design 1935

For this group, there are a number of sub groups that I will explore.
1. The group of the CEPT issues - mainly european countries that issue(d) stamps on a common theme.
The first years they also had a common design, nowadays the topic is common, but the designs are different.
2. The group of the Portuguese and former Portuguese territories, that have issued common designs since 1898!
3. The (large) group of French and (former) French territories, who issued stamps with a common design, often with topics of local - mainly African - live and costumes.
4. The also large group of British and (former) Commonwealth of Nations issues. Here the common designs are often British royals and royal anniversaries.

Most European collectors are familiar with this first group, Portuguese, French or British collectors will be familiar with the other groups.
Scott mentions these groups in the catalog too.

In this set of articles, I like to concentrate on this second group of stamps.
And I will try to include pdf pages for collectors of these themed collections too.

to be continued...

Currency Today : Euro Common Design 01 a

There are thousands of blogs already dealing with the topic of Euro coins.

So why this on my blog as well ?
Well in order to make a difference, let's try a different approach ...

1957 was the year that the movie "12 angry men" was issued.
12 angry men, tells the story of a jury made up of 12 men as they deliberate the guilt or acquittal of a defendant on the basis of reasonable doubt. In the United States (both then and now), the verdict in most criminal trials by jury must be unanimous one way or the other.

In the beginning of the movie, 11 member of the jury plead 'guilty' and only one is convinced of the innocence of the suspected murder. As discussions go on, one by one reviews their opion and by the end of the movie, 11 out of the 12 are in favour of voting 'non-guilty' and only one is convinced the accused should be found guilty.
Finally the accused is found not guilty by all of the jury members, and this thanks to the effort of one in particular who can convince everyone else...

Screenshot : 12 Angry Men - 1957

Maybe the link with the 12 angry men is a bit fetched, still I see some point of comparison

Isn't 12 also the number of participating states of the European Union?
Not that the European Union is guilty to anything, but didn't it take a lot of discussions, in confined places? With few member states taking the initiatives... in order to get everyone so far to give up some personal objections in favour of a greater ideal?

On March 25, 1957, some 'angry' men from Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Wester Germany, Luxemburg and Italy, gathered in Rome.
In 1951, the same 6 countries already agreed on a european cooperation for Coal and Steel. This second set of Treaties made the base for all european cooperation in the future.

Signing the Treaty of Rome - Rome 1957

The 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome was celebrated on 25 March 2007. The Treaty of Rome established the European Economic Community and notably paved the way for the introduction of the euro in 1999 and euro banknotes and coins in 2002. The euro-area Member States had decided to issue a common commemorative 2-euro circulation coin on this occasion. It has been agreed that the design presented on the national face should be the same in all countries. The European Mints have organised a competition to select the most attractive design. 

A jury (once more) composed of Ms Berès, representing the European Parliament, Mr Junker as President of the Eurogroup, and Commissioner Almunia, selected on 5 May 2006, the design of this commemorative coin which was issued in 2007. The winning design shows the Treaty signed by the six founding countries on a background evocating the paving (designed by Michelangelo) of the Piazza del Campidoglio in Rome, where the Treaty was signed on 25 March 1957.

The translation of the word 'Europe' appears above the book. The translation of the words 'Treaty of Rome 50 years' is inscribed above the design. The year 2007 and the national name of the issuing country are inscribed under the design. The twelve stars of the European flag are depicted on the outer ring. 

2 euro common design 2007

13 countries have issued this TOR-coin (Treaty of Rome) - Germany issued 5 different letters on the coins : A - D - F - G and J  (so 17 different coins in total).


more about the coins in my next post ...

Europe : CEPT - 02a "1956"

In 1956, the so-called European Community for Carbon and Steel, also coordinated the first emission of common design european stamps.
In order to spread the idea of european integration, a common design stamp was one way to distribute the idea throughout Europe.

For this first series, the 'construction' of Europe was the main theme.
In the design, the word EUROPE is shown as a newly constructed building.
The design was made by Frenchman Daniel Gonzague.
6 countries participated and in total 13 stamps were issued.
Belgium, West Germany (BRD), France, Italy, Luxemburg and the Netherlands.
Luxemburg mint is the most expensive part of this set, and has the key values.