S17 - United Nations New York City Domestic Rate

The next United Nations personalized stamp sheet was issued on 14 May 2007 and remains on sale on the UNPA website, probably until the United States domestic first class mail rate changes (possibly in June 2008). This sheet was designed by Rorie Katz. The stamps themselves, are a rehash of S01, other than the change in value from 37 cents to 41 cents. Therefore, as you would expect, the stamps are still 30 mm x 30 mm with 13.2 perforations. The Scott numbers are 934-928 and the Michel numbers are 1059-1063. This would be a good sheet to personalize on your next visit to the United Nations as a souvenir.

S16 - Internationalen Briefmarken-Messe (R!) Update

Thanks to our European correspondent, we now believe that 20,000 sheets were printed - not 2,000. This means that each design would be available in a quantity of 40,000 - but remember, many of these sheets will never be broken up. We also know that an initial shipment of 5,000 sheets was sent to UNPA Vienna for the Essen 2007 stamp show.

While we now believe that there are ten times as many stamps as originally thought, this is still a very small printing for all United Nations philatelists. I urge all collectors that might still need this sheet to purchase one as soon as possible.

S16 - Internationalen Briefmarken-Messe (RR!)

The next United Nations personalized stamp sheet is the first Euro-denominated sheet issued, issued for the Essen 2007 stamp show. The sheet was made available on 3 May 2007 and quickly went off sale on 23 May 2007. Only 2,000 sheets were reported to have been issued. Once again, the five 0.55 Euro stamps of each design (x2), must be considered very scarce. Only 4,000 of each of the stamps are available to United Nations philately. To form a complete collection of United Nations stamps, many of these sheets will be broken into two stamp sets, and the price will continue to rise as United Nations collectors realize how scarce these sets are. The stamps have been given their own Scott numbers (Vienna 393-397) and their own Michel numbers (Vienna 497-501).

In general the stamps conform to the standard 30mm x 30mm format with 13.2 perforations. Currently, we do not know the designer of the sheet or printer. Once again, that information is needed from other collectors, since UNPA has not been helpful.

S15 - 50th Anniversay of Japan's Accession to the UN (R!)

The next United Nations personalized stamp sheet is considered very controversial. The sheet was issued on 21 September 2006. It is estimated that 2,500 of the sheets were printed (one report says 2,000), so at most, only 25,000 of these unique stamps exist. The stamps have been given their own Scott number, 929; and their own Michel number - 1040.

What is so controversial, is that the personalized sheets were at first only given out to the Japanese delegation during the 50th anniversary ceremony. Most United Nations philatelists were not even aware the stamps existed until later in the year when an editorial about them appeared in Linn's Stamp News. This caused quite a problem for UNPA, since they'd given out some very rare United Nations stamps and had never made them available to the public. Finally, on 5 February 2007, the remaining sheets were sent to UNPA's standing order customers and put on sale to the public from their website. They quickly sold out.

The stamps themselves were printed with offset lithography by Sprintpak Security Print (Australia). The perforations are different; 14.4 x 14. and the stamp size is different; 30 mm x 30.55 mm, from the standard 30 mm x 30 mm that all the other stamps exhibit. I do not have any information on the off sale date or the designer. If someone has that information, we'd be grateful if you could share it with the rest of the United Nations philatelists.

S6.1 - Cherrystone January 2008 Auction, Lot 1347

Lot 1347 closed yesterday:

UNITED NATIONS 2005 80c Greetings from the United Nations souvenir sheet of ten, showing error of two 37c stamps se-tenant with 80c, n.h., v.f. It is believed only 50 of such sheets exist (and were sold during the March 2005 New York Mega Show, as supported by the copy of the accompanying article in Linn's), listed but unpriced in Scott's.

The lot opened at $3,500 and closed at $3,500. Unfortunately, this does not give us very much information. We can't tell if there was exactly one bid at $3,500, or no bids, and the lot did not sell. If I was to enter a bid, it had to be at $3,750. The Cherrystone website just says the lot is closed. If anyone knows a little more, please let us know.

UPDATE: Thanks to a reader, we know the lot did not sell.

S13 - More on Elvis

If you look in the lower right corner of the Elvis sheets, some additional information is printed during the personalization process. The first Washington 2006 Elvis-personalized United Nations sheet begin with 20060531NPRT followed by some additional identifying numbers. Obviously, this is the date these sheets were personalized 2006 05 31 or 31 May 2006. I don't know what the NPRT or rest of the numbers stand for; we're going to have to ask UNPA.

The second Elvis sheet has the following detail:


The first part reads 20060608NPRT. Therefore these sheets were printed on 8 June 2006. According to Marlen Coins and Stamps, the blue and red Elvis sheet was printed in a quantity of 600. The second Elvis sheet was printed in a quantity of 400. This clears up the discrepancy of the print totals, since we now know that 600 Elvis Type 1 were printed, and 400 Elvis Type 2 were printed, for a total between both sheets of 1,000. This only leaves 3,500 non-Elvis sheets for collectors. Given Marlen's detailed knowledge of the print quantities, I would surmise that they were the dealer that originally ordered these sheets, and all other dealers are selling the sheets on a secondary basis.

S14 - Berlin 2006 (R!)

The next United Nations personalized stamp sheet was issued for the Internationalen Briefmarken-Börse (International Stamp Show) on 21 September 2006, and went off sale on 21 May 2007. This was quite a long period of availability considering only 4,500 sheets were produced. What's more, the stamps in the sheet are actually different than those in S11 and S13, and have been given their own Scott and Michel numbers. The reason for this difference is the perforations are very different. On S11 and S13, the perforations are 13.2 x 13.2. For S14 the perforations are 14.4 x 14. Considering there are only two stamps of each design on each sheet, the 9,000 stamps for each Scott #903a-907b and Michel 1010B-1014B rank as some of the rarest in all of United Nations philately. Whenever someone asks me, I tell them to buy this sheet immediately, no United Nations collection can be complete without the five rare stamps. Compare this with the 250,000 Scott #38 sheets and you can see how rare these stamps are, and that demand will dictate continued price increases.

For the sheet itself, we know the design is based on an Edward Hardam photograph. Mr. Hardam has a photography business in the Netherlands called HeR design. Here is the original photograph taken by Mr. Hardam:


The colors of the German flag have been overlaid on this photograph, along with the stamps and other printing for the 2006 Internationalen Briefmarken-Börse.