New Davo United Nations Personalized Stamp Album

I just received the new UNPA Philatelic Bulletin No. 89 (February - March 2009). In the Bulletin is the first advertisement I've seen for the new Dave United Nations Personalized Stamps Album. We've being hearing about this for over a year, so it's nice to see if finally released - well, almost.

I went to the Davo website today, but could not find any information on this album there. The UNPA website also does not list this specific product. You can, however, order it from the catalog. It's order number is 329-3531 and the price is $150.

The price is inline with other Davo products. They are high quality, and since the production quantity is small, you have to expect to pay this type of price for a limited edition of any album. If you'd rather not pay the $150, you could always use a nice mint sheet file album to store the sheets.

I am looking forward to hearing any reports of any new technical information on the UN personalized sheets that may be in this album.

S26 - WIPA 2008

The most expensive United Nations personalized sheet to date was issued on 18 September 2008 by UNPA Europe. The sheet contains ten 1.40 € stamps (five different stamps, each repeated twice) that depicts scenes of the Vienna International Center. The five designs show interior and exterior views, the United Nations flag, and member flags. The sheet is currently on sale on the UNPA website for $30.95. A difference of $16.00 from previous issues.

The border sheet design includes the Prater, the giant Ferris Wheel, St. Stephen’s Cathedral and the Gloriette of the Schönbrunn Castle. No information has been forthcoming from UNPA on the designer of the sheet or the stamps.

Once again, this particular sheet is not personalizable. The pre-printed se-tenant labels show the UN and WIPA labels. The WIPA stamp exhibition was held 18-21 September 2008 in Vienna, Austria. This was the sixth time since 1881, that the city of Vienna hosted an International Stamp Exhibition. The theme of WIPA 2008 was “The Future of Philately”, and the program of events were dedicated to the future prospects of stamp collecting.

I have received a report that two types of gum have been observed on the sheets. One has a blueish color and the other is a cream color. Please check your sheets and let me know if you can confirm this report.

S19 - Peaceful Visions - Sold Out

Today, I returned from a two week vacation and checked the UNPA website. I was expecting to see that the Beijing Olympic United nations personalized sheet would be sold out. To my surprise, the Peaceful Visions sheet was the one shown as sold out. The last day of sale was 31 July 2008.

Sport for Peace - Beijing - 8 August 2008

Since I will be away for the next few weeks, I wanted to publish this scan of the upcoming United Nations personalized sheet. This sheet will be released on 8 August 2008 in coinciding with the XXIX Olympic Games in Beijing, China. The reason I did not want to wait until my return, is that I expect this sheet to sell out quickly. The Chinese are known to be avid collectors of postage stamps, and this issue will be in heavy demand from the Chinese community as well as topical collectors of sports and Olympic stamps.

This personalized sheet can be pre-ordered by using the mail order form in the UNPA publication: Philatelic Bulletin No. 87. As of today, the sheet is not available from the UNPA website. If you do not receive this publication, you can download it from the UNPA website and then order the sheet. Try to get your order in as soon as possible. Most likely this sheet will be assigned the cataloge number S25, but we need to wait until 8 August 2008 to offically assign that number.

S24 - United Nations New York City 94 Cent International Generic

The second United Nations personalized sheet that was released on 12 May 2008, is the 94 cent International airmail rate generic, that can be personalized by visitors to the UNPA in New York City. As with its 42 cent counterpart, this sheet was designed by Rorie Katz, who is on the UNPA staff.

The sheet features ten identical stamps, all showing the UN emblem in light blue on a white background. The generic pre-personalized sheet has five separate designs in the tabs each repeated twice. The tabs show landmark scenes from around New York City, and include the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, an evening scene of Times Square, the Chrysler Building and the Brooklyn Bridge.

Once again, we have not found any information on the printer.

S23 - United Nations New York City 42 Cent Domestic Generic

Now that the summer is heating up, and we are getting close to the Beijing Olympic Games United Nations personalized sheet release, I thought it best to get all the previous issues cataloged, and all the information we know about them published.

The first of the two personalized sheet that were released on 12 May 2008 was the 42 cent generic sheet. The stamps in this sheet pay the current United States first class mail domestic rate. This is the standard sheet available at UNPA New York for personalization by visitors. Many of the sheets that are discussed here are "pre-personalized" as they commemorate a specific event. There is no way for a collector to personalize them differently.

This sheet is in the standard twenty stamp format with five different designs repeated four times. The stamps feature photographs taken at the UN Headquarters Building in New York. The five stamps show the sculpture Single Form by Barbara Hepworth, the UN flag, an interior scene of the UN General Assembly, flags of member states, and an exterior view of the headquarters. In the tabs of the stamps is the United Nations logo with a white background. I have not found any information on the printer of this sheet.

S18.1 - Generic International and Pope Benedict Sheet

After much discussion with all the experts in United Nations personalized sheets, UNPI has come to the conclusion that this sheet should be listed as S18.1. We have studied the stamps on this sheet, and clearly it is the same stamp as shown on the UNPA special cancel covers (see the 7 May 2008 entry). The 90 cent international rate stamp is a much lighter blue color than the one in the S18 personalized sheet, and the the letters in "UN" are much thicker and closer together. This qualifies as a separate printing, thus the designation, S18.1.


As can be seen in this ad from the Philatelic Exporter; 25,000 sets of Pope covers were prepared for the QVC shopping channel. This equates to a least 2,500 sheets. Given that IGC also wanted Pope sheets for their covers, we estimate that about 3,500 sheets were needed. Since the Pope's U.S. visit was approximately one month from the U.S. postal rate changes, and the issuance of two new generic personalized sheets, it is likely that UNPA did not have enough sheets on hand to personalize with the Pope's picture and created a second printing of this sheet. Today, these sheets can only be bought from dealers and are not directly available from UNPA. However, the stamps are perfectly valid and can be mailed from the UN headquarters. It is also possible that some of the sheets were sold by UNPA, provided that a customer order was placed for S18 sheets between the time of the Pope's U.S. visit and before the S18 sheets went off sale. Thus, we need to acknowledge this as a separate printing and give it catalog status, unlike the Elvis sheets, which only had changes in the tabs.

Originally, we were going to number this sheet as 18a. However, several readers pointed out that S5.1 is just a change in the stamps (imperforate) and S6.1 is a variation in two stamps having the wrong denomination. Thus, to be consistent, this sheet has to be changed to S18.1. My apologies for the confusion.

I hope this brings closure to this sheet. It is time to move on to the two sheets issued on 12 May 2008.