XANTHE'S
STAMP MAGAZINE

In the last few days there have been three new sets of religious stamps released, which I am going to take a look at. MALTA - Festa The first of them is from Malta. This is a place I have been to and while I was quite young I just about remember it. Malta has strong Roman Catholic traditions, and is supposed to be a place visited by St Paul. So it isn't too surprising that they often create stamps on a religious theme. The theme for this set is Festa. What is a festa? That'

Serbia's latest new stamp was for World Postcard Day on 1st October. World Postcard Day was launched by Postcrossing in 2020. The idea is to encourage people to send postcards, celebrate the history of postcards and promote the joy of handwritten communication. I am surprised more countries haven't issued stamps supporting World Postcard Day (are you reading this, Royal Mail?) but at least Serbia has got in on the act and created this fantastic stamp. I think the designers h

This new stamp from Austria not only looks like a coffee bean, it smells like one too! Post AG is very proud of this stamp and tells us that it is "once again setting new standards in the particularly innovative design of stamps". I agree it is a bit different but it reminds me a bit of these fruit-shaped stamps from Tonga and of course there have been scented stamps before. In the past year I have reviewed to stamps from France, one of which was scented and the other smelle