Thursday, January 30, 2014

Year of the Horse: First ever gold foiled 3D stamp in the Philippines

A post on Facebook shattered my plans for this day. I was just supposed to stay at home or go out. The post is from a fellow blogger and collector:

Attention: I got a call from Philippine Philatelic Federation - President Mr. Robert Tan - someone from Philatelic section of the Philippine Postal Corporation called him and inviting the local philatelists to join the stamp launching of the " Year of the Horse " GOLD FOIL edition tomorrow at 10:30 am , Philippine Postal Corporation main lobby. BLOGGERS and Freelance media writers are most "welcome".

I immediately coordinated with my friend and we agreed to meet at the Post Office for the launch and to also cover the event.

At the the Manila Central Post Office the event was moved to the third floor for some weird reason. I saw a fellow collector who was ranting about the unpreparedness of the people for the event.

The event poster.
At around 10 am people are still preparing the launch of this so called special stamps. We have no idea what it looks like but we fathered that the price is Php 200.00

The program was short and simple with no special guests except for the Dragon and Lion Dancers.

The set-up was quite and simple and was just made in a hurry. The same goes with the program.












I think ths place was chosen by some weird reasons like the people invited were so few but at least ABS-CBN, GMA and TV5 were there. The only problem is that I think a very few seconds of news will be devoted to this stamp launch.

The program started with the Lion dance and a few words from the hosts.





There was food for the guest, some Chinese finger foods. Now how the hell do we eat with such little plates? But don't worry most of the guests are employees and have plates to bring later.


Dr. Nho Tiong Tak who owns a site that is more updated than the Philpost site.
Its nice to see that tentative stamps for 2014 were shown in here for the first time. I do wonder when will Philpost post them or even make stamp bulletins. I will just visit Dr. Ngo's updated website. LOL

BTW during the event I saw Dr. Ngo with his own copy of the stamps while the rest of other collectors have to wait until the opening of work on February. Such is the sad state of philately in the Philippines at times.

There will be stamps featuring Megan Young, Pope Francis and John Paul II, a UP fraternity, and much more as presented during the event.
















Now we see what the stamp look for the first time.





Postmaster General has wonderful plans for the collecting community but some people under and around her is making her job harder.



Here the media asks questions to Miss Josie dela Cruz and she talks enthusiastically about stamps. Somehow she knows more about stamps or even cares about more stamps than some people under her.






Accordingly there were only 100 stamps available for collectors and we were told that we can avail them today at the event. I went home empty handed. Don't ask me questions? It's still a mystery to me.

You need to be aware that sometimes collectors are left in the dark about new stamps.





The Philpost and the organizers were so unprepared that Ms. Josie dela Cruz had to sign the actual stamps and even with a blue gel pen. What a wrong way to treat the first delivery of stamps.

The media especially the TV people as well as camera men were given stamps, which we know will just go to waste. Poor collectors like us again.

But you know what I was quite lucky compared to the rest of philatelist in the country who may not even see this stamp at all.


Like in any gatherings, the food were gone and nothing was left.

Now I think I need to pray and sacrifice people in order for the Philpost to sell stamps on February and I am not even sure if the stamps will be delivered by that time.

I just facepalmed and laughed with my friend.

No comments: