S13 - Washington 2006 & the King

As we end 2007, it might be appropriate to take a look at two United Nations personalized sheets that might cause some confusion. When I first starting collecting these sheets, I kept seeing ads for Elvis Presley-Washington 2006 sheets from many different dealers. I did not know if they were an official UNPA release, or some other creation.

As it turns out, during Washington 2006, a stamp dealer ordered two different versions of personalized Elvis sheets. One report says 600 sheets were ordered, and another report says 1,000 sheets were ordered. These sheets are not official UNPA releases and are akin to you or I personalizing one or more sheets. While these might appeal to Elvis collectors, and everyone is free to collect whatever they want, they are not necessary to complete a United Nations personalized sheet collection.

Happy New Year to everyone!

S13 - Washington 2006

After a respite for the holidays, we resume our look at United Nations personalized stamp sheets with S13, which was released on 28 May 2006 during the World Philatelic Exposition in Washington, D.C This was an International FIP-sanctioned Stamp show, which is held in the United States only once approximately every ten years. It quickly sold out, with the last date of sale being 7 June 2006. About 4,500 sheets were produced, with the stamps based on the S11 84 cent generic sheet. The other characteristics of the stamps are consistent between the two sheets, with 13.2 perforations and a 30 mm x 30 mm stamp size The U.S. Capitol dome is the most often repeated design in the tabs, along with other Washington, D.C. sites: Jefferson Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument and the White House. Information on the designer(s) is still being sought.

S21 - World Space Week First Day and S6.1 Auction

Jim received confirmation from UNPA New York (who checked with UNPA Vienna!) that the first day of issue of S21 is 4 October 2007. UNPA has offered to replace his personalized sheets when they return from the holidays. I'm not quite sure how they intend to do this, since we heard all the sheets have been sold and sent out.

A new January 9-10, 2008, Cherrystone Auction features one of the rarest personalized United Nations stamp sheets, S6.1, which has the two 37¢ stamp errors and Vereinte Nationene error in the selvage. The estimate for lot #1347 is $3,500. This seems high to me, but I don't know how many collectors there are of United Nations stamp errors. The sheet is listed, but unpriced, in Scott as 884b. There are certainly plenty of UN stamp errors to choose from, but perhaps because of its unique status, the sheet may attain a high realization. I will report on that after the auction. The auction link can be found here: http://www.stampcircuit.com/Search/. Search on "United Nations" or the lot number. If you search on United Nations, be sure to also select "All the Words."

The Scott numbering for the United Nations personalized stamps is inconsistent at best. Normally, they list the stamps individually. For example: 880-884. A strip of the five different stamps is listed as the last stamp, but with a letter suffix. In this example, the strip of five is 884a for the stamps in the normal sheet. There are no listings for the sheets currently. However, for this sheet only, the sheet is listed as 884b, not for the strip of five. We already know that at least one sheet was broken up into two strips of 5, so this strip with the four normal stamps 880-883 plus the 37 cent 884 should be 884b, not the sheet. This is the only sheet that actually has a Scott number. And, this is one of the reasons we decided to renumber the sheets the way we have; inconsistency within the Scott numbering system.

S21 - World Space Week First Day - The Big Mistake

Thanks to our European correspondent, we now know that UNPA New York made a big mistake. The first day of the S21 United Nations personalized sheet is 4 October 2007. The sheets sent to Jim Matyasovich by UNPA New York have a 25 October 2007 (see my 13 December 2007) post. Unfortunately, while this may be the first day of the "Space for Humanity - 50th Anniversary of the Space Age" stamps, it is not the first day for the World Space Week personalized stamps.

So to summarize; October 1st was originally projected in a press release about one month earlier, as the first day of release. October 4th was the opening date of the Space Week Conference and official first day of release in Vienna. Our correspondent picked up his sheets at the Vienna UNPA counter in the afternoon of October 5th and the cancelled sheets had the date 4.10.2007. October 25th was the first day of issue of the "Space for Humanity - 5oth Anniversay of the Space Age" stamps and souvenir sheets.

Needless to say, Jim is returning the the personalized sheets with the 25.10.2007 Vienna working day cancel, and has asked to have them replaced by sheets with a 4.10.2007 Vienna working day cancel. If anyone else has received these sheets with the wrong first day cancel, they should be returned to UNPA for immediate replacement. They are nothing more than used stamps dated three weeks after release.

S21 - World Space Week First Day

Thanks to Jim Matyasovich, who recently received his standing order from UNPA, we now know that the true first day of the World Space Week United Nations personalized stamp sheet is 25 October 2007. On the UNPA website, 4 October 2007 is stated as the "issued on" date and in other published sources, such as Scott's online and Linn's, 1 October 2007, was stated as the release date. Obviously, this has caused considerable confusion. It took a while for Jim to receive his standing order as these had to be sent over to Vienna for the "working day" first day cancel, and then back to New York for processing. Jim has confirmed the first day with UNPA. These sheets sold out in just over two weeks!

The decision to change these sheets from the announced 41¢ stamps to 0.65 stamps was made very late in the production cycle. This may have caused delays in release, since the sheet is commemorating an event that occurred several weeks earlier.

Michel to Scott Conversion

Thanks to Klaus Guhl, who's superb article on United Nations personalized stamps recently appeared in the 4-2007 issue of UNOPost (the informative publication of the German UNOP United Nation study group), we have the information needed to convert Michel catalog numbers to Scott catalog numbers. Given the deadlines for their publication, Mr. Guhl was unaware of the recent discoveries involving S6.2 and S9. However, he still provides a detailed overview of all the other issued sheets. Here is the conversion table, which I will continue to update as the new catalog numbers are released:

UNPI#	Scott #	Michel #
S1	853-857	941-945
S2	853-857	941-945
S3	853-857	941-945
S4	853-857	941-945
S5	unlisted	unlisted
S5.1	unlisted	unlisted
S6	880-884	977-981
S6.1	884b
S6.2	880-884	977-981
S7	853-857	941-945
S7.1	853-857	941-945
S7.2	853-857	941-945
S8	880-884	977-981
S9	853-857	941-945
S10	898-902	1005-1009
S11	903-907	1010A-1014A
S12	912	1019
S13	903-907	1010A-1014A
S14	903a-907b	1010B-1014B
S15	929	1040
S16	V393-397	V497-V501
S17	934-938	1059-1063
S18	939	1064
S19	931	1065
S20	939	1064

S12 - War/Peace

The next United Nations personalized stamp issue sheet, is somewhat of a misnomer. The sheet was never actually made available to be personalized. So, like several other sheets, including S9 and S19, these were non-personalizable personalized sheets.

The 10 basic stamps are all the same and listed as Scott #912. In an upcoming post, I will be publishing a Scott to Michel conversion. They remain the standard 30mm x 30mm, with 13.2 perforations. When this sheet was issued, it paid the 75¢ United States international postcard rate during this rate period.

The sheet was released on 10 April 2006, and was designed by Armando Milani. Beyond that, we don't have any additional information that has been release by UNPA.

S11 - Greetings from the United Nations 84¢ Generic

This United Nations personalized stamp sheet was released on the same day as its counterpart, S10, on 6 March 2006. The stamps could be used to pay the United States international letter rate, which was 84¢ at this time.

The five different designs are repeated each twice and are the same stamp designs as those on sheet S6 (80¢ Generic) and S8 (Riccione), except of course, the value and a tiny year under the value, which is 2005 for S6 and S8, and 2006 for S11. The Scott numbers are 903-907.

The stamps themselves conform to the 30 mm x 30 mm with 13.2 perforation format, but nothing has been released by UNPA regarding the printer, printing quantities, quantities sold, etc. Some this this information is supposed to be available in the first quarter of 2008.