XANTHE'S
STAMP MAGAZINE

To mark World Post Day (9th October), South Africa has issued a set of two stamps called "Love the Postbox". What is not to love about postboxes? I have never been to South Africa but they clearly have red postboxes too. And, if you look at the First Day Cover, you will see that they have a mixture of traditional as well as modern postboxes just like in the UK. Some of these are from the time when parts of South Africa were colonies of the British Empire, so perhaps it is not

I received this card today from Royal Mail. This new issue will be released on 17th September (next Thursday) and will celebrate Duran Duran. This is the latest in a series dedicated to Music Giants. In recent years we have had stamps for AC/DC, The Who, Iron Maiden, The Rolling Stones, Queen and Pink Floyd. This design was first used for a special set celebrating The Beatles back in 2007. The card says that "few bands have shaped sound, style and visual culture quite like Du

Like the Falklands Islands' Summer issue, this is another issue I discovered when looking for something to buy. I am not sure exactly when they were issued, but the Free Stamp Catalogue has only listed them this week so they are quite recent. Stamps showing birds are always very popular but there are also an awful lot of them and they can sometimes feel quite "samey". These are a bit different and it is helpful that in this photograph we don't just see the stamps but the full