S6 - Greetings from the United Nations (60th Anniversay of UN)

The 60th Anniversary of UN Generic sheet was the first United Nations personalized stamp sheet issued to pay the 80¢ international air mail rate in effect at the time. The sheet was issued on 3 March 2005 (the same date the Student sheet was issued). The 30mm x 30mm stamps are listed as Scott 880-884 and pin perforated 13.2. It is possible that these sheets were also printed by the Banknote Corporation of America using offset lithography, but that has not yet been confirmed by UNPA.

During the release of these sheets at the ASDA show in New York City, it was discovered that some contained a rather startling error - one stamp (884 "Sphere within a Sphere") in the sheet was actually denominated 37¢. This occurs twice with in each sheet and is the bottom stamp in the first row, and the 4th stamp in the second row:

Once this error was discovered, the sheets were quickly withdrawn from sale for inspection. UNPA estimated that about 50 sheets with the error had been sold, before resuming sales of the normal sheet. These sheets are designated S6.1. They also contain another rather remarkable error. There are six official languages for the United Nations, and German is not one of them. Shown on the sheet are the words "United Nations" in seven different languages, including the German "Vereinte Nationen." Note that this has been removed in the top personalized sheet.

Some confusion over a possible third variety of this sheet was raised when the following sheet pre-release scan was issued by UNPA and published in Vol. 29, issue #2 of the UNP Journal:

Apparently, this sheet also contained the Vereinte Nationen error, but has normal 80¢ Scott 884 stamps. It also has another error; instead of the word "Greetings", is the word "Greeting". After a lot of research, this sheet does not seem to exist in collector's hands and was withdrawn from sale at Napex 2005 (where it was first discovered) before any were actually sold. About 10 sheets were destroyed.

S5 - My Visit to the United Nations (Student Sheet)

The next United Nations personalized stamp sheet was placed on sale on 3 March 2005. Its purpose was to provide an inexpensive souvenir for the thousands of school children that visit the United Nations every year. The sheet could be purchased for $4.95 at the time. Only 1,600 sheets were produced. There is one caveat for the low price, it was only available in canceled condition. The sheet sold out on 31 May 2007, after being added to the UNPA Bulletin and web site.

This sheet is not Scott listed, even though the stamps are different from the Scott 853-857 stamps. Each has the year 2005 below the 37c, as opposed to the year 2003 on Scott 853-857. As can be seen in the detail below, the UN Security Council image shows the ceiling in the photograph, the UN Emblem is a different blue, UN General Assembly is completely reversed, the UN Nations Flags and UN NY Headquarters also have significant color differences. Other printing characteristics, such as print method, perforations, stamps size, and printer are the same as Scott 853-857.

The reason these stamps are not Scott listed is that they do not conform to all of the listing criteria established by Scott. Among other things, the stamps must be available in uncanceled condition to be postally used on outgoing mail. Since the Student sheet was only available with a printed cancel, they could never be used to send cards, letters or packages from the United Nations headquarters in New York City.


On 11 June 2007 Linn's reported approximately 1 or 2 of these sheets were sold imperforated. For the United Nations personalized stamp sheet listings, these sheets are designated S5.1.

S4 - The Great Hanshin-Awaji (Kobe) Earthquake Sheet

Whereas at least a few of the S3 - Essen 2004 United Nations personalized sheets were made available by UNPA to collectors, and most of the S2- Hong Kong Stamp Expo were purchased directly by collectors, the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake sheet was primarily given out to dignitaries attending the 10th anniversary event. Thus, the only way to obtain a sheet was to purchase it on the secondary market from a non-collector. Needless to say, this has been difficult due to the dispersion of the sheets, and since only 1,000 sheets were printed.

All of the same print characteristics, other than the labels and selvage, are identical to the previous three sheets and the basic stamps are still Scott 853-857. The sheet was initially released on 17 January 2005. Photo credit is stated on the sheet itself: Luminarie photo credit: Valerio Festi/I & F, Inc./Kobe Luminarie O.C. The beautifully lit Kobe Luminarie has been held every year to symbolize the ongoing restoration and reconstruction of Kobe following the devastation of 1995's Great Hanshin Earthquake. It is a cultural event encompassing art, music, etc.

S3 - Internationalen Briefmarken-Messe Essen (2004) Stamp Show

As we continue our tour of Scott 853-857, the next UNO personalized sheet appeared at the Essen 2004 stamp show. This surprise sheet was issued on 3 June 2004, and only 2,500 sheets were printed. It completely sold out, but I do not know the date of sell out. If anyone has that information, I'm hoping they'll share it with everyone else.

Interestingly, there are some mock-up scans floating around on the Internet that show different stamps than the "as issued" sheet. The image is shown below for reference purposes:

Note the revered image of the General Assembly stamp. At first, collector's were wondering if this was some type of strange error. However, this is just a pre-production mock-up and no sheets were issued with this configuration (at least until the Student sheet was issued!). There are other differences in the other stamps as well.

S20 - New Climate Change and World Space Week Sheets Released

My friend Dick Powers, the editor of the United Nations Philatelists Journal, recently returned from Sescal 2007 and emailed me that he'd purchased the new Climate Change sheet. This sheet has been designated S20. It has a release date of 24 September 2007, and it's based on the generic sheet, S18, released on 14 May 2007. It has the same 10 x 90c format as the S18 sheet with different selvage and labels.

Another new sheet, tentatively designated S21 was released on 4 October 2007. It contains 10 x 0.65 euro stamps and was released for World Space Week. There are some bad scans available, but we'll wait until we have a good one to post it. The sheet was designed by Donato Giancola and printed by Joh. Enschede (Netherlands).

S2 - Hong Kong Stamp Expo

The second United Nations personalized sheet was something unexpected, and caused quite a sensation among collectors and in the philatelic press. Only 1,000 sheets were prepared for the Hong Kong Stamp Expo which took place from 30 January to 3 February 2004, and they quickly sold out. Charges of creating an artificial rarity were leveled against UNPA by many collectors and writers.

The sheet was not considered a separate entity by UNPA, because the stamps, Scott 853-857, had not changed. Only the selvage and labels changed. Scott does not list the sheets separately when only the selvage (or labels) have changes, because they publish a stamp catalog - not a selvage catalog. UNPA felt it did not create any stamp rarities and the Hong Kong Stamp Expo show souvenirs, these personalizes sheets, were comparable to other show souvenirs, such as the White and Blue cards that were frequently available at European shows.

Many collectors found this not to their liking, and since this was an official UNPA release, they began looking for the sheets. Very quickly the sheets reached a price of $150, before settling into the $125 range. I am not sure of the exact date of sell out, but presumably it was on or just before 3 February 2004.

S1 - Greetings from the United Nations New York City (Generic)

On 26 Nov 2003 the UNPA launched the first sheet of United Nations personalized stamps. The product was developed to provide a special sheet of souvenir stamps for the many thousands of tourists that visit the United Nations in New York.

The product consisted of a gummed stamp sheet 11 1/2" X 8" containing twenty 30mm x 30mm UN 37¢ stamps pin-perforated 13.2 with with blank tabs next to each stamp. The blank tab was to be used to capture your photo image, therefore allowing you to post a letter with your own personal image. Sheets were also available with generic UN images on the tabs. The gum is shiny, white and with medium florescence.

The five images on the stamps include the UN Security Council, UN Emblem, UN General Assembly, UN Nations Flags and UN NY Headquarters. The sheets sold for $14.95 with personalized or generic labels. The Scott numbers are 853-857.

The 100,000 sheets were printed using offset lithography by the Banknote Corporation of America (USA). The designer was Rorie Katz of the United Nations. Currently, I do not know how many of the 100,000 sheets were sold, or the date the sheet went off sale. Once that information becomes available, it will be added to this commentary.

I am indebted to Jim Matyasovich for has invaluable assistance with this post, and working with me to standardize the sheet listing numbers. Dealers were using a variety of designations for various sheets, and this became confusing. There is no copyright for these sheet designations, we want everyone to use them freely.

Naposta 2005

While searching the web today, I ran across an interesting scan of an unissued United Nations personalized sheet from Naposta 2005. If anyone has any additional information, or if one of these has found its way into private hands, we'd love to hear about it.

While this is not the best scan (it's all I have), the two stamps appear to be the 2005 Vienna United Nations Horse and Rider and the Soccer Player from the International Year of Sport issue. The Berne, Switzerland based graphic designer Roland Hirter was chosen to design these stamps. He had won a 2004 competition for his designs. The set of six stamps (two each for New York, Geneva and Vienna) was issued June 3, 2005. The values of the stamps are each 0.55 euros.

First Post

This blog is an attempt to aggregate information on UN Personalized stamp sheets. I have searched the web and could not find anything very much. Therefore, I am asking all faithful readers to please contribute to this blog. The UNPA has been less than forthcoming to share information on this topic. Here is the word for word reply to my inquiry on the names of designers, number of sheets printed/sold and dates of availability:

Mr Wallace,

UNPA is in the process of planning the development and launch of a Personalized Stamp Album which would feature all the UN issued sheets as well as printing specifications. Therefore, UNPA will retain the information to be published in this product until its official release to the collector market which is planned for early 2008.

Regards,

UNPA

So it's all a big secret - until you run out and buy their collector's album. Given their current ties to Davo, this might be who is preparing this album.