Thursday, November 18, 2010

Updated Generic sheet listing, Part 1

I have continued to update my list of generic sheets, and had a few collectors send me lists of what they had seen as well. Since my list has changed a lot over the last few weeks, I figured I would post my findings here. If you have a generic sheet not on the list, please let me know so I can add it. I am missing a few, so if you have extras to trade, please let me know as well.

Flowers. As far as I know, this is the first generic sheet offered by Israel. There were only printed twice. The first printing was February 4th, 2001. The second printing was July 8th, 2003. The second printing was done for Telabul, and has the smiling stamp logo in the blank spots. The second printing was offered for sale to philatelic service customers in bulletin #8. The first day for this was March 18, 2001 with the Telabul one being released on July 15, 2003.

The second generic sheet was also done for Telabul, and was also offered for sale in bulletin #8. This one was printed on December 2nd, 2001. Even though the sheets were printed in 2001, I haven't seen from before this Telabul publicity one in 2003. The first day was July 15, 2003. I do have a sheet with the same printing date but with 24 stamps. The 3 columns of the smiling stamp are replaced with actual stamps, and the column of flowers to the left of the leftmost smiling stamp on this picture are perforated, but I do not believe this was ever personalized.
On October 19, 2003, a set of 6 generic sheets were released. The all had greetings stamps and were offered in bulletins 10 and 11 from the Philatelic Service. This one is the Mazel Tov stamp. As far as I can tell, there have been 3 printings for this sheet. The first was July 17th 2003. The next printing was March 21, 2006. I have only seen this second printing with Israel's gold medal winning windsurfer pictured, but that doesn't mean other personalizations don't exist. The third printing was October 7, 2008.

The next one in the set of 6 is the Hugs and Kisses stamp. I know of 6 printings of this sheet, but only have 4 in my collection. The first printing was once again July 17th, 2003. The second printing was October 21st, 2003. It was quickly reprinted a third time, on January 12th, 2004. The fourth printing wasn't until April 12th, 2007. The fifth printing from February 10th, 2008 was a special one, as I have only seen it on the Jetix sheet. The sixth printing was December 1st, 2008. I am looking for the second and fourth printings if anyone has them available.
Next comes the Thank You stamp. This one has had four printings so far, with the first once again being July 17th, 2003. The second was January 12th, 2004. The third, and only one I do not have in my collection so far was December 5th, 2006. The fourth printing was April 12th, 2007.


The next stamp is once another Mazel Tov stamp. This one has a scene at a Huppa with a bride and groom. As far as I know, there have only been two printings of this sheet. The first was July 17th, 2003. The second is January 12th, 2004. I only have the first printing, and have not personally seen the second printing listed for sale yet, but a collector in Israel has told me it exists. If anyone has a spare, let me know.


The fifth member of this series is the With Love stamp. This has had three printings to date, with the first once again being July 17th, 2003. The second printing was December 5th, 2006. The third printing was December 1st, 2008. I have the first two printings, but do not yet have the third.




The last member of this set of 6 is the Good Luck stamp. It must have been very lucky for the Philatelic Service, since it has undergone nine separate printings. The first, like the other five members of this set was on July 17th, 2003. The second was October 21st, 2003. I have neither of these first two printings, the first I have in my collection is the third printing, from January 12th, 2004. The next three printings were all in December, 2006. The 1st, 2nd, and 5th were the dates. I am missing all 3, as well as the seventh printing from April 12th, 2007. This was followed with an eighth printing on my parents anniversary in 2008 (June 17th for those of you not related to me who are still reading this!). The ninth printing was December 1st, 2008. Hopefully, nine printings will be enough. I am missing 6 of the nine, so maybe the issue has not been that lucky for me.

1 comment:

Mike said...

Hi Adam,

I have another version of the first sheet here (the Flowers issue). I have both mint and FDC sheets of the variant listed in my Carmel 2008 catalog on the bottom of page 140 as the 'a' variety. This has the photo of Mr. Vanooijen (stamp's designer) and a printing date of Mar 18 2001 (18.3.2001). Also listed in Carmel is a variety with "photo of family Druck" printed two days later on International Friendship Day (20.3.2001), but I do not have this and have not seen a copy.

I'm not sure if these count in your listings, but they did warrant a listing in Carmel (not always a great indicator tho lol).

Thanks for all your trouble in classifying and listing these sheets. It looks like it's shaping up into an interesting "sub-field" of Israeli collecting. (In both the original meaning and Chinese curse versions of "interesting" ;)).

Mike Mehr
Mountain View, CA