XANTHE'S
STAMP MAGAZINE

Jersey's latest issue celebrates the 150th anniversary of the Band of the Island of Jersey. It is a set of six stamps with photography by the Jersey Evening Post. There is also a miniature sheet, which shows an old photograph of the band. The Jersey Stamps website doesn't tell us a lot about these - for example, I'd like to know when the black and white photograph of the band was taken but no information is given. Design Quality – I am quite disappointed by the design of thes

The Isle of Man's latest issue is another one dedicated to motor sport. I have no interest in motor sport at all, although I understand it is important to the Isle of Man. The Isle of Man Stamps and Coins website tells us more about these stamps: "From the McLaren 675LT and Lamborghini Huracán STO to the Ferrari 488 Pista Spider and McLaren 720S, each stamp reflects a distinct expression of modern performance. The Nissan GT-R R35 represents tuning culture at its most extreme

I have a lot of new stamps to review and I'm going to start with this one from the Faroe Islands about their native horse. I had never heard of a Faroese Horse before. It is basically a small pony that was critically endangered in the 1960s but since then things have improved thanks to a breeding programme. Faroese people are clearly very proud of their horse and it's not the first time that it has appeared on a Faroe Islands stamp. Here's a set of two stamps from 1993. The P

Royal Mail's latest stamps show waterfalls. This is a completely new theme for Royal Mail! Never before has there been a set dedicated to waterfalls, although waterfalls have occasionally appeared on stamps like this one in the 2019 forests issue. There are ten stamps in the set and they show: Second Class - Rogie Falls, Scottish Highlands Second Class - Pollnagollum Cave, County Fermanagh Second Class - Aysgarth Falls, North Yorkshire Second Class - Pistyll Rhaeadr, Powys

France have issued a fantastic new stamp to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince). This is a massively popular children's book in France, probably the most well-known work of children's fiction ever. Like all good children's books, it is also one that adults can enjoy and it has been translated into 600 languages. I even have a copy of one in English. It's a great adventure story but also one that is quite philosophical and poetic. The author,

Today Hungary released a new set of stamps celebrating dachshunds. This set has been designed by Imre Benedek with photography by Andrea Jülingné Tóth, Ádám Szalai and Zsófia Koppány. Dachshunds are very popular dogs in Hungary. They are not native dogs but they have become a huge part of Hungarian culture. The famous Hungarian filmmaker Homoki-Nagy István often showed dachshunds in his films and every year in Budapest dachshund owners from across Hungary gather for a huge si

Here is a reasonably new issue from Liechtenstein, showing Bergwelt Liechtenstein (Liechtenstein's Mountain World). I meant to review it a couple of weeks ago but there's been a lot happening at school. There are four stamps in the set and they show some of Liechtenstein's mountains. Liechtenstein is quite a small country but is is a very mountainous one! The stamps show very simple coloured silhouettes of the mountains but the miniature sheet shows a more realistic map and

A few months ago the Netherlands issued a new set of stamps about the butterflies of Saba. I reviewed them here. They are part of a four-part series looking at Saba wildlife. The Caribbean Netherlands have now also issued a set of ten stamps showing Saba's butterflies. However they are very different. There are also ten stamps, like the Netherlands issue, but they show different butterflies and the background is a coloured design based around circles instead of natural habit