THE POSTAGE STAMP

Evening Star, Issue 17964, 10 May 1922, Page 6

THE POSTAGE STAMP

AGENT OF COMMERCE. JAPAN’S NEW ISSUE. A view of the snowclad peak of Fujiyama. adorns the latest. Japunceo postage j stamps (says the 1-ondon. 'limes ). Be- | side it, in an upright panel extending the i full length- of the .stamp, are the figures of I sacred deer from the Kasuga. Shrine, near I Osaka. At the top above the vignette appears the Imperial crest, the. famous sixI teen pedalled- chrysanthemum. The inI script ions throughout .are in Japanese, except. the denomimition, which is given in. European lettering also. Th-i'eo values only have so far been seen in the new type — fl sen green, 8 sen rose, 20 sou blue. When completed, however, the aeries will contain all values Iruin 1, sen to 1 yen, embracing three different designs. j The practical, possibilities of the postage- j stamp as an advance, agent of commerce are coming more and more- to be appreciated. Ho far our own Post Ollicc has confined its experiments in. this direction to the postmark as adopted for advertising the British Industries Fair. In Germany, however, even the margins of the stamp sheets are Jet, out for advertising purposes, while in connection with the forthcoming Industrial Fair at Munich- in May special postage stamps are to be sold, in order to give the widest, possible publicity to the event, Tlie Bust Ollicc of India has consistently get its face, against the exploitation of its postage stamps for philatelic purposes* hi response to the wishes of numerous philatelists, however, who desire to possess some souvenir of the J.'nnco of Wales's tour, arrangements have been made to supply them with complete sets of contemporary Indian postage stamps, up to and including 1 rupee iVu-o value, cancelled with the distinctive postmark allotted to the Prince of Wales’s cmnp. A like, course was followed on the occasion of the Coronation Durbar ten years ago, when copies of the Indian Postal Guide weie sold containing sett; of current post-age stumps impressed, with the postmark of the Durbar Post Office. Although the face value of the, first Irish provisional stamps, issued last month, amounted to £250,000, it is understood that supplies are already miming abort, and that pending the advent, of the permanent postage stamps of the Irish Free Slate a, .second provisional overprint, i.s likely to materialise in a more elaborate type than that now in circulation. St. Vincent, chief of the Windward Islands, is the latest colony to change the color of its od l postage stamp front yellow to blue, in accordance with the requirements of the Universal Postal Union. St. Lucia and Trinidad will shortly follow suit. Emulating the example set, by her neighbor. Azerbaijan, Armenia has introduced a,• complete new series of postage stamps under Soviet -rule ranging in value from 1 to 2,000 roubles, and incorporating a variety of picturesque local views, etc. Two stamps of extremely c.rado design and execution have been issued in Azerbaijan on behalf of the relief fund for the victims of the Russian famine. The one, value 500 roubles blue, depicts a- h.orso elcigh iud-cn with supplies arriving at a famine-stricken village, while the other, 1,000 roubles brown, shows a starving woman surrounded by her children. The designs include the significant initials of the Socialist Republic of Hie .Soviets, Azerbaijan, together with the date “ 1921 ” and the insignia of Soviet Russia and Azerbaijan.