Israel Stamp Reviews

2020 was, in one word, a frustrating year. Plans unraveled, goals weren't reached, and it was often the case that preparations made one day were rendered irrelevant the next. It was a year whose engine never really got started but in some ways still hasn't cooled off. Along with the setbacks, however, there were moments of triumph; and along with the disappointments, rewards. Last year this second paragraph was devoted to an overview of my collection, but that too fell apart as I abandoned Colnect for personal reasons and haven't found a viable alternative since. Moreover, despite my best efforts to regulate my philatelic intake, which included avoiding ordering 2020 stamps from Iceland, Armenia and Azerbaijan, among other countries, stamps still penetrated my defenses at a rate faster than they could be properly accommodated. Philatelic world news 2020 was a year of record news consumption. 1 The main stories trending and making headlines had to do with the gl...

It is tradition around this time of year to take a constructively self-critical look back at the year that passed and formulate goals to work toward in the year ahead. Since in the context of stamp collecting I had no goals entering 2019, an uncritical recap of the past year's highlights will suffice for this installment. However, I do have goals for 2020, and these will be recorded below so that reference can be made back to them when it comes time to write 2020's Year in Review. First some numbers: My collection comprises 181 stamps from 37 countries, as calculated by Colnect. Colnect counts multistamp minisheets as a single stamp and as a country any stamp issuing entity, e.g. United Nations, Northern Cyprus, etc. Using this system, the top five countries in my collection are Israel (50), United States (34), U.S.S.R. (12), Poland (11), and Romania (8). My wish list has 303 stamps, with the top five countries being Greece (36), Portugal (26), Malta (24), Austria (18), ...