Newsletter February 2016

New Year, New Us

Dear Member,

It has been a while since you last heard from us. Since then we have made a few changes, and the most obvious one is, that we updated the layout of our newsletter.

In celebration of the new layout, we have combined a range of great content for this newsletter. We will cover the round-up of our Penny Black Prize Draw, we have gathered information on some of the prominent recent and upcoming stamp issues worldwide, we have a small history lesson, and finally we have a great offer for you from a magnificent company - Qensio.

We hope you are ready for some serious content.

Penny Black Round-up

Recent and upcoming issues of interest

New Zealand Post: RSA - 100 years of service

The RSA was established by wounded soldiers returning to New Zealand from the First World War. The recognized a need to provide support and comfort for service men, women and their families and to honor and remember those, who would never come home. The RSA was responsible for the introduction of the iconic poppy as a symbol of remebrance. They also successfully lobbied for Anzac Day to become a public holiday. If you want to know more about the RSA and this recent issue, you can see it at New Zealand Post.

Royal Mail 500: Celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Royal Mail

In 2016, Royal Mail celebrates 500 years of operating a regular, organized postal service. This historic landmark is marked for the business by telling the story of how a formal postal network was established and expanded, to ensure efficient movement of communications. A range of motives will be included in the issue, and key persons and incidents will be depicted. You can see more at Royal Mail

History Lessons: Yellow Treskilling

All collectors know that stamps have different values, depending on rarity. And the Swedish Yellow Treskilling surely is rare!

The Treskilling stamps were supposed to be printed in bluish green, but as a result of a printing error, an unknown number of Treskilling stamps were printed in yellow, which was the color of the 8 shilling stamp.

To this date, only one original Treskilling stamp has been recovered, and the last time it was sold, the price reached more than $3 million.

Unfortunately we do not have this stamp for sale at Stampworld, but a lot of other very interesting stamps are. To stay in the spirit, check out the Swedish catalogue, where several rare, highly valued stamps are for sale at the moment.

You can find it right here.

Stamps, stamps, stamps - from all over the world!

"Oh yes, wait a minute Mister Postman,

Wait Mister postman. Please Mister Postman, look and see if there's a letter in your bag for me. Why's it takin' such a long time fro me to hear from that boy of mine..."

Do you knwo this famous song performed by the Beatles? If you are tired of waiting that long for any mail to arrive, we have a very special hint for you!

While surfing the internet for the latest stamp releases, we came across this very interesting internet site qensio.com, and let me say - it is perfect to extend your collection of worldwide stamps.

QENSIO is a market research company based in Munich, Germany. They conduct various postal surveys and quality measurements in order to find out for example how long it takes to send a letter from Buenos Aires to Japan, or a package from Iceland to South Africa.

In this context QENSIO is always looking for new participants, who are willing to receive and send letters or small packages, and to record the dates of dispatch and receipt reliably on the panel website.

For your participation you will be granted bonus points, which can be exchanged for gifts or vouchers. Participation is voluntary and free of charge, and it can be terminated unilaterally at any time.

And last but not least - you will receive letters and stamps from all over the world. For free!

If you want to join QENSIO, you can join here, and in case of any questions you can always contact them at recruiting@qensio.com.

If you are active on Facebook, you can have a look at QENSIO's fan page.

You can also join their photo competition called "My Favorite Stamp" until February 15th, and win a 20 voucher for Amazon. Check it out here