Celebrating our 54th Year as a Society. Come and Join Us!

Recent web site updates, for January 1, 2010

This is a minor update to the Society's web site at this time, wanting to make a greeting for the new year, and also introduce the January 2010 issue of the New CartoPhilatelist.

The start of this new decade begins with the 28th issue of the New CartoPhilatelist . The journal will be dispatched to members in early January 2010. This issue starts out the year with a number of fascinating articles. First up, Society member Brian Marshal provides and in-depth historical look at New Zealand's first map stamp, the 1901 Penny Universal. Brian examines the history and design changes to the 1923 One Penny Map of New Zealand issue. Former Journal Editor Dan Nelson introduces more of the research he has been carrying out into the identification of errors on map stamps. Next, President Emeritus, Miklos Pinther provides a book review of "Miniature Messages: The Semiotics and Politics of Latin American Postage Stamps" by Society member Dr. Jack Child. Later Miklos brings readers up-to-date with a very important map stamp auction. Society member Roger Kirby examines a very interesting and famous set of map stamps from Lesotho marking the Lesotho Highlands Water Project. Member Volker Woesner has an overview article about the map stamps of Denmark. Finally Society President David Wolfersberger has some news about some interesting Vatican issues from 2008 and gives us a tour around New Zealand with the help of a wonderful recent issue map sheet.

As always, we want to hear from our members, so please contact us with your comments and suggestions.
-- web admin.

CartoPhilatelic Society Meeting Planned for August 2010

After considering the different responses from our members, and taking into account the various options for holding a meeting, we have tentatively planned to hold the 4th meeting of the CartoPhilatelic Society during the APS Stamp Show 2010 in Richmond VA, August 12 - 15, 2010. An official notice of this meeting will be placed in the October issue of the NCP.

There is close to a year for planning, so we hope that will give many of our members an opportunity to consider joining us for this meeting.

More information will be available on the web site.

Submissions Deadline for TNCP #29

Just a quick, but important reminder that our Editor, Martin Oakes, has chosen March 12, 2009 as the deadline for submissions to The New CartoPhilatelist.

The date for publication will be in early April 2010. Those of you interested in submitting an article should contact our Editor, Martin Oakes prior to submission. Martin has said, "The hardest part about being an editor is having enough good articles of varying length to fill the pages. Please write about your favorite map stamps and tell us why they are important to you." Therefore, start the new year out on the "philatelic right foot" and find some time to write an article for the NCP!

New Zealand Post "Tiki Tour" Sheet New Issue

New Zealand Post released a new sheet of 50c stamps depicting scenic spots around New Zealand. The August 5, 2009 new issue uses the theme of a "Tiki Tour" or round-about journey, "A Tiki tour is all about enjoying the journey as much as the destination, and checking out as many 'choice' national icons as you can along the way."

New Zealand 2009-08-05 Tiki Tour Sheet

The sheet comprises of a large blue background map of New Zealand with the 24 stamps positioned at the various scenic locations around the map. Each stamp features a theme connected to the specific location shown on the map. In the upper left corner of the sheet shows what appears to be image of a "Tiki" a wooden or stone carving of human form or also from Māori mythology where Tiki is the first man. A special poster with information about each stamp is included with the purchase price.

This sheet is sure to be of keen interest to fellow cartophilatelists.

CartoPhilatelic New Issues Blog Opened

Due to the large number of new issues that our members and officers are submitting, it was getting difficult to update the main web site so frequently. In order to make the announcement process easier and more timely for our members and visitors, we have set up a web log (blog) specifically focused on the announcement of new map stamp issues. The new blog has been customized to resemble the rest of the Society's web site. As the blog enables notification of new posts, it is possible for both members and visitors to subscribe to the "feeds" from the blog, using either RSS or email and receive alerts when new issues are posted. The blog also allows for comments to be posted about each entry, forming mini discussions about the posts. Presently, we will run the blog for a while without the comment system enabled. If there are no software issues, the comment system may be activated at that time. The comments will be moderated and only comments of a philatelic nature will be allowed.

The front page of the New Issues Blog is shown below. Navigation is very easy and straight-forward. Currently, posts are arranged by date of issue. There are presently two main categories, Countries, and Year of Issue. Each post is also "tagged" with a series of key words. These "tags" also help in classifying the posts. The previous year's New Issue Archives are still on the regular web site. It will be considered whether or not to move them to the blog structure or not. The New Issues Blog is running on the Society's mirror server at blog.cartophilately.org

As this technology is new, there are bound to be some issues. We look forward to hearing from you with you comments and suggestions.

Canada/US St. Lawrence Seaway Invert Book Published

Members Only New CartoPhilatelist Archive Opened

After some delays, the members only New CartoPhilatelist Journal Archive has been opened. The archive contains links to all of the New CartoPhilatelist Journals which have been published. The PDF files are available behind a password protected web page. The access page (shown on the right) describes how the archive works and how the files can be downloaded. It is also possible to see the contents of each journal and a larger image of the cover, when accessing the archive page. Access information (login & password) for the archive are contained within the October 2009 NCP Journal #27 which will be dispatched to members in the coming weeks. This will be of interest to new members who would like to assemble the full set of of NCP backnumbers. Those members with computer access will now be able to download the NCP backnumbers and save them on their own computer. Members without computer access may still purchase NCP backnumbers for US$ 4 per issue plus postage by contacting our Secretary-Treasurer, Alf Jordan.