The wider world of philately
A brief digest of the people, gatherings, discoveries, exhibitions, and new issues making news across the world of stamps.
The Postal Service will issue a new Christmas Madonna and Child stamp featuring a painting from the Clark Art Institute’s collection. The artwork, depicting the Virgin Mary and Christ child, was painted around 1500, giving this seasonal issue clear artistic and historical interest for stamp collectors.
The U.S. Postal Service has released its ninth Hanukkah stamp, featuring a colorful digital illustration of a dreidel. The stamp was dedicated at Touro Synagogue and honors the eight-day Jewish holiday observed in the United States and around the world.
Canada Post has issued four unusual, T-shirt-shaped stamps for the 2026 National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Designed by Indigenous artists, the die-cut stamps draw on the orange shirts associated with Orange Shirt Day and reflect Indigenous experiences.
The U.S. Postal Service has honored Linda McCartney with a stamp pane featuring her still-life and landscape photography. A dedication ceremony took place at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art, connecting the issue with an artist whose photographic work is being recognized through a significant new release.
A 152-year-old registered cover from Peru is among the featured lots in Sparks International’s Postal History of the World sale. Mailed from Huancavelica to Lima in 1874, the cover bears nine one-dinero stamps arranged in a strip of four and a strip of five, making it a notable postal-history item.
The Postal Service is releasing Squirrels & Chipmunks in Snow, a 20-stamp booklet featuring photographs of eastern gray and red squirrels and eastern chipmunks. The stamps will debut at the Milcopex philatelic exhibition in Brookfield, Wisconsin, offering collectors both a new issue and an exhibition first-day setting.
The only surviving British Guiana 1c Magenta has appeared in the Czech Republic as the centrepiece of the Treasures of World Philately III exhibition at Prague’s Municipal House. Its exhibition debut in Prague gives collectors a notable opportunity to see one of philately’s most famous rarities.
Canada has issued two stamps featuring historic quilts: a 1956 design inspired by the aurora borealis and a circa-1890s log cabin quilt from New Brunswick. The stamps highlight works held in a permanent collection and connect Canadian textile history with a new issue.
Collectors can expand their holdings of the U.S. Postal Service’s 2026 Postcrossing issue with four matching maximum cards. Each card combines a Postcrossing stamp with a complementary postcard image, creating additional material for collectors of postcards and postal history.
The U.S. Postal Service is issuing its ninth Hanukkah commemorative stamp, continuing a series honoring the eight-day Jewish holiday observed by millions in the United States and around the world. The issue offers collectors another addition to holiday-themed U.S. commemoratives and reflects the postal service’s continuing recognition of religious traditions.
The USPS has dedicated a new Literary Arts stamp honoring Sarah Orne Jewett, the American author known for literary regionalism and a substantial body of fiction, poetry and essays. The issue is the 35th stamp in the Literary Arts series and was presented at a local ceremony.
A group of 21 handmade first-day covers from the late 1950s and early 1960s contains correspondence, designs, extra stamps and other ephemera. Together, the material reveals a longstanding friendship between U.S. cover maker H. Long and Canadian collector Fred Wolters.
