Davo Preserve the Polar Regions and Glaciers Album

I was browsing the “posti” website (Finland’s Postal Services company) a couple of weeks ago and noticed they had the Davo “Preserve the Polar Regions and Glaciers” album for 20 Euro in their online shop. Usually when I come across this it is more like 80 Euro (95 Euro on Davo’s website). So I dropped it in my basket and hit checkout. It was over the minimum amount for free shipping and all I paid extra was a 1 Euro handling fee. I decided to check the price again a few days later and discovered it was back up to 86 Euro. I was having doubts I would actually receive what I had ordered.

The other day I got my package in the mail and there it was. For the price I figured this might have been an album without stamps but I was wrong. It was complete. So for 20 Euro I got an album that retailed for over 80 euro and contains roughly 40 euros worth of stamps. Quite a deal.

I would never have paid full price for this album. There were 25 postal administrations represented in the album with a single, single-sided page for each and their contribution to the stamp series mounted on that page. The mounting was very well done. The album also included 9 double sided pages with information about the polar regions. With end pages, in total there were 36 pages in the album. As for the binder itself, it was not as heavy as I had imagined and I couldn't figure out why it had to be as thick as it was considering how few pages there were in it.








Having all that extra room in the album isn’t necessarily a bad thing though. There were several stamp issues from that series not included in the the album so if I can get my hands on some decent blank pages and some stamp mounts I’ll add extra pages and include the rest of the issues which I already have.

I also acquired a copy of the 2007 International Polar Year folder produced by Greenland Post recently. It contains the IPY stamp sheets issued in 2007 from eight countries: Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Greenland, Canada and the US. This folder was very well done and although it too was perhaps a bit pricey for what it is (again, I got mine at a considerably reduced price), I think it was overall a better package than the Davo PPRG album… for the price.

India Post's Preserve the Polar Regions and Glaciers Issue

Happy New Year!

I see that India Post has finally put up images of their "Preserve the Polar Regions and Glaciers" stamps that they issued on 19 December 2009.





I wouldn't be surprised if we see another late addition to the PPRG series sometime in 2010.

Mexico Preserve the Polar Region

Issued 14 September 2009

Preserve the Polar Regions Update

After acquiring the Aland Preserve the Polar Regions and Glaciers issue I realize I now have all of the officially recognized stamp issues from this series. I’ve compiled a list with images of each stamp issue and placed it here. This last one gives me a total of 37 countries. India was suppose to issue a commemorative earlier this year as well but apparently it has been delayed until December 19th of 2009. Other countries that were suppose to produce stamps for this series were Mexico, Paraguay and Uruguay but I’ve not been able to find any information about these.

Azerbaijan’s Preserve the Polar Regions and Glaciers Issue

Sometimes countries issue stamps featuring popular themes just as a way to attract collectors and generate revenue. Small countries issuing stamps featuring US presidents or space missions for example. So I though this might be a similar case with Azerbaijan’s “Preserve the Polar Regions and Glaciers” issue. But I was very wrong. Apparently they sent an expedition to Antarctica that reached the South Pole 26 January 2009 and have plans to build a base on Antarctica someday as well.

Japan - Polar Regions and Glaciers

New Stamps from Belgium

I received these stamps from a fellow collector in Belgium: Preserve the Polar Regions and Europa 2009. The Polar Regions sheet was issued 9 March 2009 and features Belgians Alain Hubert and Dixie Dansercoer who walked across the Arctic from Russia to Greenland in 106 days in 2007. The Europa sheet was issued 6 April 2009 and this copy was signed by the stamps designer: Thierry Mordant - an extra touch that I really appreciate. Thank you Thomas!

Greece: Preserve the Polar Regions and Glaciers

A nice little sheet from Greece with a pair of circular stamps.

Norway's Preverve the Polar Regions not quite circular

Norway issued a "Preserve the Polar Regions" sheet in February of 2009 and it consisted of a pair of 8 Kr stamps. One stamp had UV sensitive print that showed the ozone layer coverage of the Earth and the other was printed with a foil embossing technique. They look very nice. But what confused me was the perforations. They are perforated as square stamps but the globe graphic in each stamp is perforated as a circular stamp. However the 8 Kr and Norway labeling is not within the circular perforation boundary so I can't consider them circular stamps.



Here are some of my favorite recent circular issues:

France and French Andorra Preserve the Polar Regions

Davo Preserve the Polar Region Album

Iceland Post is advertising a new Davo album for collectors of the "Preserve the Polar Region" series of stamps. I don't yet see in on the Davo website. The album is full of supplemental information about the polar regions as well as the stamps from the series and counties that produce them. But only for 27 issuing countries. I can't find any information about it on the Davo site but Iceland Post has a pdf brochure online with some photos. It's a nice album but at what a cost - you can order from Iceland Post for 24185 ISK. A bit too high for me.

Canada: Preserve the Polar Regions and Glaciers

I seem to be stuck on “Preserve the Polar Region” issues but I can’t help it. I am determined to collect them all. The Canadian issue (souvenir sheet and pane of 16) came out on 9 April 2009 and consists of two stamps: A polar bear and an arctic tern. The Northern Territories of Canada are home to something like 60% of the worlds polar bear population. Terns can be found living on either ends of the earth. In fact, they migrate between the poles during the year. Both species face certain extinction in the face of receding ice caps and warming temperatures.



The FDC was cancelled in Eureka. This is home to Canada’s northern most post office. Eureka is a research base located in Nunavut at 79°58′59″N 85°56′59″W on Ellesmere Island. It’s postal code is X0A 0G0. The image below is served from wikimedia commons.

Ukraine Preserve the Polar Regions and Glaciers

New Stamps from Slovenia

Well, some of them weren't new but they were to me. I don't collect Slovenian stamps but Slovenia Post's website looked clean and was loaded with information and some of their stamps issues were of interest to me so I figured I'd check them out. You can not order online but there is a stocklist available that is very up to date (updated monthly or weekly or something like that). However I could find no order form online. So I wrote to them with a list of what I wanted and provided my credit card number. Within weeks I received a huge envelope with stamp bulletins from the past few quarters and my stamps sandwiched between some of the thickest cardstock I've ever seen come through the mail. There was no way these stamps were getting bent or damaged. Overall I was quite impressed.

Stamps from Slovenia Post are only available for purchase for one year after the issue date. And I discovered that foreign orders are not subject to the VAT which is include in the price of the stamps so my order was even cheaper than I had expected. There was a 2 Euro handling charge on my order by after seeing the VAT savings, I didn't think twice about it.

Indonesian Interest in the Polar Regions

I received the Indonesian "Preserve the Polar Regions and Glaciers" issue the other day and there are two things about it I found interesting. The first was just the fact that there is an Indonesian issue in this series. As it turns out, they have participated in expeditions to Antarctica in the past:

The other thing about this issue that interests me is that it looks identical to a 2007 issue entitled "Melting Ice". It's the same stamp sheet. Same image with the polar bear and a tear in its eye. Even the same stamp denominations. The differences are the year, title and inclusion of the "preserve the polar regions" logo.

Tracking Down "Poles and Glaciers"

I've decided to hunt down more "Preserve the Polar Regions and Glacier Issues". My list of participants is now at 39: Aland, Algeria, Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, Faroe Islands, France, Greece, Greenland, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Moldova, New Zealand, Norway, Paraguay, Peru, Romania, Slovenia, South Africa, Switzerland, Ukraine, and Uruguay.



I picked up this beautiful sheet from the Czech Republic on EBay. Couldn't find any information about it on the Czech Post website until I went into the Czech version of the site (instead of English). I have to say I'm really impressed with Google's language tools. The list of languages it can translate keeps growing and growing and it doesn't appear to suck as much as it used to

AAT: Preserve the Polar Regions and Glaciers

I've been trying to track down all of the countries producing stamps this year as part of the "Preserve the Polar Regions and Glaciers" theme. So far, I've been able to come up with the following: Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Faroe Islands, Switzerland, Austria, France, French Andorra, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Czech Republic, Slovenia, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Argentina, Peru. I've heard there are 30 to 40 countries and I've only got 22 here. I guess I'm missing a few
Australia has issued there contribution to the series as an Australian Antarctic Territory issue, the third AAT release in something line the last 6 months.

Iceland - Poles and Glaciers

Iceland Post has released their issue for the 2009 Preserve the Polar Regions and Glaciers joint issue. What's interesting about this sheet is the use of a thermally sensitive ink to mark the extent of the current Northern polar ice cap as it is today. But when heated to a temperature equivalent to body temperature, the red lines fade to show where the ice cap will remain in 2100. The sad reality is that the ice will likely melt much faster than predicted. A more complete image would have also shown the shorelines receding as the ice metls and the water levels rise.

New Zealand - Preserve the Polar Regions and Glaciers