Israel Stamp Reviews

Monsters | מפלצות There are two kinds of stamp collectors in the world: passion collectors and investment collectors. Passion collectors engage in stamp collecting because it brings them joy; investment collectors do so in the hope it will bring them profit. Where I stand is squarely in the first category. I collect stamps that appeal to me on an esthetic and intellectual level, with virtually zero interest in what demand there might be for them on the market down the road. "Monsters," a six-stamp minisheet issued on November 26th, 2019, is somewhat of an exception to my rule. On the one hand, it's hard to fault it for lacking esthetic appeal -- it is eye-catchingly colorful, it explores a visual realm that is rarely featured on stamps, and its abundance of detail is guaranteed to keep the optic nerves working overtime. On the other hand, "Monsters" fails to move the needle much intellectually, as it is clearly catering to a junior audience. Why, then, ...

1927 U.S.S.R. Esperanto stamp Sooner or later in the growth of every young stamp collector, there comes a time when he feels his collection will forever remain incomplete until he adds to it that storied philatelic ancestor from which all subsequent stamps are descended -- the Penny Black. This, however, is not the tale of how I acquired my first Penny Black -- mainly because I have not acquired a Penny Black yet, but also because the title above would not hold much interest to the reader if its referent were a stamp about which hundreds of articles have already been written. Instead, the oldest stamp in my collection as of now is one that was issued in 1927 by the U.S.S.R. It commemorates forty years since the creation of the Esperanto language and features an oval portrait of Esperanto's inventor, L.L. Zamenhof (1859-1917). Measuring 43.5x24 millimeters, the stamp is printed on thick paper, which has presumably helped it survive with no creases or other damage for almost...

Earlier this week I paid my first visit to the offices of the Israel Philatelic Federation in Tel Aviv. My main reason for visiting was to become a member of the Federation, since doing so unlocks a range of benefits that collectors otherwise don't have full access to, such as a quarterly magazine, a library, and reduced admission fees to events. This won't be an in-depth report on the Federation, its staff or its activities -- that I'll save for a later date -- but a few brief impressions accompanied by photos to convey a sense of what my visit was like. The Israel Philatelic Federation is located in an office building at the corner of Tel Aviv's Allenby and Pinsker Streets, just a couple blocks east of the beach. The building exterior is run-down and makes for a poor first impression -- an AM:PM supermarket occupies most of the ground floor -- but it is typical of the area and belies the more cheerful surroundings that await once inside the building and after clim...

Preview of U.S. Postal Service 2020 stamp program The United States Postal Service recently offered the public a glimpse into its 2020 stamp program . The sample size is small, less than half of what the USPS will ultimately issue next year; but if it is any indication of what else is in store, collectors have got to be feeling let down and and at a loss to understand the program's rationale. If I were an American collector and 2019 happened to be the year I made my first steps into the hobby, 2020 would in all likelihood be the year I retired from it. The creative drought on the part of U.S. stamp designers is so severe that one of the sets headlining the 2020 program is "Fruits and Vegetables," which includes such stamps as lettuce , tomatoes , carrots , and eggplant . Twenty years ago, when the U.S. Postal Service transitioned from moisture-activated stamps to self-adhesives, stamp collectors felt not only that the world around them was crumbling before their eye...

Apples in Honey (Festivals 5780) | פרחי דבש The last thing a new stamp wants to be is forgettable. When it comes off the press and makes its way to post offices around the country, the new stamp wants to stand out and be meaningful. It wants to be in demand, to trend on social media, to have a shelf life that extends beyond the arrival of the next new stamp. What is the formula for achieving this dual goal of popularity and longevity? How can a stamp both capture the public's attention and then retain that attention once it has it? "Apples in Honey," a three-stamp set issued as a souvenir minisheet by Israel Post on September 18th, 2019, struck me early on as a forgettable issue. Designed by Baruch Naeh and Sharon Israel , the set depicts three honey flowers common in Israel -- sage, citrus and eucalyptus -- with each flower enclosed in an apple-shaped outline and surrounded by the colors purple, light blue and peach, respectively. The words " THAT WILL BE R...

The Sehrane Festival | חג הסהרנה The Kurdish-Jewish Sehrane Festival, more commonly known as the Saharana , was the subject of a stamp issued by Israel Post on September 18th, 2019. Designed by Mario Sermoneta and Meir Eshel, it was the second in an Ethnic Festivals in Israel series after a Mimouna Festival stamp issued on May 1st. The Sehrane stamp depicts two men standing in the foreground, each playing a traditional Kurdish musical instrument and dressed in festive clothing, while behind them seven dancers in a field are swinging their legs to the pair's music. Blue, gold and green are the prominent colors of the stamp, and the attached tab features a Kurdish Torah scroll case. In the pamphlet issued as an accompaniment to the stamp, this is the explanation given in English for the Sehrane festival's origin: The Sehrane Festival stems from the Jewish community in Kurdistan, where it was celebrated annually in the springtime, on the day after the last day of Passover....

It's still early to call myself a stamp collector; but if ever that does happen, the catalyst for it will hark back to September 18th, 2019. That was the day I made my first visit to the main branch of the post office in Jerusalem and purchased a 3×5 sheet and first-day cover of the Sehrane Festival stamp (shown below). That post office visit prompted a two-week binge of stamp collecting videos on YouTube, which in turn prompted me to go out and buy a used stamp album and a handful of running- and language-themed stamps from a local dealer. Prior to September 18th, I'd had virtually zero interest in stamps. I was gifted a first-day cover of a Yitzhak Rabin stamp after the prime minister's assassination in 1995, and in 2014 I purchased a special Rabbi Ovadia Yosef album that the postal service issued on the occasion of the rabbi's passing, but those stamps constituted the full extent of my collection -- until the summer of 2019. In July of that summer I was in El Sal...