From Barrie Bertram.
ONE cannot help but reflect upon Jersey Post’s performance in 2008, a year which will surely live in philatelic infamy!
They have striven long into the night to produce 13 separate stamp issues that included six miniature sheets, each comprising one stamp priced at either £2 or £2.50, and collectively totalling £14. How many of these stamps will feel the soft caress of a spittle-flecked tongue on their gum arabic (or whatever health and safety requires these days) in everyday use?
If the average philatelist had not yet felt that he had been mugged, then Jersey Post might have got away safely, but along came the stamp commemorating the 60th birthday anniversary of the Prince of Wales weighing in at a heavyweight £4. The total value of all the 2008 stamps cleared £40. Double that for first-day covers and then add handling charges, and it will not be a surprise if Jersey Post’s long-standing and loyal philatelic customers feel that they are being ripped off with an annual cost now approaching £100.
It’s not as if the themes were particularly novel. Birds, insects, cattle, animals, vehicles, naval ships and orchids all seem to have appeared for the umpteenth time. In themselves, some of the designs were moderately well executed. However, somebody should have their head on the block for that most underwhelming stamp issue of all time, the Europa Letter issue. In a European vein, it was very much a case of nul points!
And what is on the menu for 2009? Birds, fungi, animals, naval ships, flowers and marine life for the seventh time. Oh, and one should not forget to mention a further six miniature sheets, one of which will commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Prince of Wales becoming the Prince of Wales! It doesn’t sound as if there is to be much stamp-licking with that issue.
One recalls those issues that featured Millais, Monamy and Ouless, the Battle of Flowers, Westward, and the serene Christmas Church scenes, for example, and in doing so one can only surmise that Jersey Post also sees that its philatelic customers are there to be milked with an unimaginative, money-grabbing ‘quantity not quality’ policy that devalues long-established stamp collections and Jersey itself.
22 Hornby Road,
Caton,
Lancs.
