Latvijas Pasts has issued the last new philatelic releases of 2017: the traditional Christmas stamps. This year the three new stamps feature the motifs from the works by Alberts Kronenbergs, a well-known Latvian artist and illustrator of children’s books, and unlike most stamps they are printed on a self-adhesive base. The first day cancellation of the stamps is scheduled to take place in Riga post office No. 50 located in the shopping mall Origo, 2 Stacijas laukums, from 8 AM to 7 PM on the 24th of November 2017.
To provide the opportunity for anyone to send mail with the stamps dedicated to the Christmas theme at the end of the year, these stamps are released already on the eve of the First Advent. This year, which marks the 130thanniversary of A.Kronenbergs, Latvijas Pasts commemorates the artist by issuing Christmas stamps, featuring the works by A.Kronenbergs from various books illustrated by the author. The first day postmark and the special cover are also decorated with A.Kronenbergs’ drawing.
Each of the stamps has a different face value and print run. The stamp with a face value of € 0.50 is suitable for sending a regular Class B letter within Latvia and its print run is one million copies. The stamp with a face value of € 0.78 corresponds to the cost of sending a regular Class A letter within the European Union (EU), and its print run is 200,000 copies. The face value of the third stamp is € 0.85 and it can be used for sending a regular Class A letter within the EU or a regular Class B letter to any country of the world outside the EU. The print run of this stamp is also 200,000 copies.
The print run of the special cover is 1,500 copies.
A.Kronenbergs illustrated about 130 books, including those written by him. The first children’s picture book by the well-known artist, Mazais ganiņš (The Little Shepherd), with the author’s text came out in 1931. Since then, the characters of A.Kronenbergs’ drawings and poems – Jurītis of Tuntuļi, the Five Cats and the Little Shepherd – have been together with several generations of Latvians.
The new philatelic releases can be viewed here.
Latvijas Pasts launched the Christmas series of stamps in 1994, and so far more than 60 Christmas stamps have been released. All the stamps in the series Christmas are available for viewing here.
