XANTHE'S
STAMP MAGAZINE

A couple of weeks ago I was in Metz Cathedral in France and there were posters advertising Pope Leo XIV's visit to the town later this year. A lot of people were quite excited about it. Clearly the Pope is doing a tour of Europe at the moment because San Marino has issued this stamp celebrating his visit there last Saturday (22nd August). It's obviously an important event for people in San Marino. The write-up on the WOPA website tells us a little bit more about this visit

Instead of reviewing different countries' Christmas stamps individually, I thought it would be better to look at them together. I'm not going to give any lengthy reviews - I'll just make a few short comments and give a mark. Here are a few of my thoughts about the different new Christmas stamps from around the world. I've tried to cover as many of them as possible, but no doubt there will be a few countries I have missed. Great Britain I will start with our own Christmas stam

There was an interesting new issue this week, when a particular European country decided to celebrate the success of its national football team. Who could it be? Could it have been one of the teams who this week qualified for the World Cup? No. Was it a former winner of the World Cup or the European Championship? No. Maybe it was one of the women's teams? Wrong again. No, it is San Marino, Yes, the team that currently is ranked 210 out of 210 FIFA international teams! Often