Just a quick note to say thank you to the pals who have shared some of my older posts around the internet this week, and a warm hello to any new eyeballs. I’m a bit quiet right now due to day job commitments, but I’m taking the opportunity to tweak a few things in the back end to make this a bigger and better site.
We’ve re-established in the last few days that I’m not everyone’s cup of tea, but please, poke around, have your say, swear at me, pass things on to collectors who you think might enjoy something a bit different, or non-collectors under whose noses you think you could sneak some philately without them noticing…
PP x
A big hello to any US (or visiting) readers attending this weekend’s 
I read in a news report that organizers (jointly the 
And dragon mascots it is at Stampshow 2018. The USPS has released a set of colourful stamps celebrating the mythology of dragons. I’m not aware of the USA ever having had actual dragons, but nor is the USA the first country to put dragons on its stamps. My homeland, Australia, released a whole set of Mythical Creatures in 2011, none of which actually exist. Normally I get a bit shitty when stamp issues aren’t relevant to a nation, but Mythical Creatures was that year’s annual release designed specifically to appeal to kids, so on that basis, I’ll allow it. (The UK recently put a 
I was overjoyed to read that Stampshow’s mascot is the superbly named Perf, the Magic Dragon. I’m gunna go ahead and assume that’s a pun on the song Puff, the Magic Dragon, and I’d like to say: excellent work, whoever came up with that. Does everybody here realise that Puff’s best friend was Little Jackie Paper? How very appropriate for a stamp show attempting to appeal to the young while also catering to the old, who are really into things like perfs and papers.
What’s your favourite? For mine, it’d a close-run thing between the Melray and the Peacock’s. I’d probably have to go with the Peacock’s, partly because I love apricot jam, but mainly because “Peacock’s”. For more details on the specifics of each label, you can hit up the 
Politics and human rights abuses aside, I love propaganda stamps. When I was very young, almost everything I knew of life behind the Iron Curtain came from my kiddie stamp collection. Countries like Poland, Romania and Hungary must have earned some sweet forex coin getting their stamps into the Western collector market. Eastern Europeans, I knew, were mad for Lenin, space, the Winter Olympics and military hardware.
The issue also featured a plane, a ship, and a missile, all of which are also coming for YOU.
Jersey is one of those funny little islands in the English Channel that are closer to France, and part of the UK, but get to put out their own stamps.
Interestingly, this practice began during the Nazi occupation of those islands, when they were cut off from the mother country. This is just one of the reasons why nerds who are into postal history find them so delectable. (If you think you might be one of those nerds, you should check out the 
Recently Jersey jumped on the retro stamp bandwagon with a 
Happy New Year, readers! Hoping your year is as bloody awesome as the pun in my headline.
