XANTHE'S
STAMP MAGAZINE

Today Royal Mail has released its second new issue of 2026 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Concorde's first commercial flight on 21st January 1976. Before I review this new issue, I will briefly take a look at the history of Concorde. Obviously I am not an expert in engineering and Concorde was before my time. I know that there are a lot of people who admire Concorde especially people who lived through the 1970s and 1980s when Concorde really was the ultimate flying

An issue you may have missed last week is this from Finland, celebrating 100 years of the Yle. What is the Yle? It is basically the Finnish national broadcaster, a bit like the BBC in the UK. WOPA's website tells us this: "Yle will celebrate its 100th anniversary in September this year. The theme of the anniversary year is moments spent together. Posti will celebrate the event with stamps designed by Anna-Mari Tenhunen that showcase different aspects of Yle’s operations – c

Here's another Chinese New Year issue, and this one is from the Isle of Man. I looked at the New Zealand issue a few days ago and I was quite impressed with it. So, what do I think of these? Design Quality  - The horses really dominate the stamp, which is good. They feel very alive, as if the artist wanted to show the horses' personalities. Unlike the New Zealand set they don't look magical and as first glance there isn't anything particularly Chinese about them - if it wa