STAMP ISSUES RELATED TO THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY

 

Egypt - 75th Anniversary of ICAO

 

Issue date: 07/12/2019

 

 

The stamp shows ICAO’s 75th anniversary emblem with the text in Arabic and English: “75 YEARS OF CONNECTING THE WORLD”.

Admirably luminous blue stamp.

Syncopated perforations at the top and bottom parts of the stamp (see footnote).

 

Official First Day Cover. The cancel shows ICAO’s regular emblem without the acronyms.

 

Full sheet of 50 stamps.

 

Background: The First Regional Air Navigation Meeting for the Middle East Region was held in October 1946 in Cairo, Egypt. This country took this opportunity to overprint one of its stamps for the commemoration of this meeting (see link here); this is the only stamp from the topical collection issued during the lifetime of PICAO, the Provisional International Civil Aviation Organization. The Middle East Regional Office was opened in Cairo, Egypt on 20 January 1947 and now encompasses 15 Member States. Previously Egypt issued ICAO related stamps in 1978 (History of aviation) and in 1994 (ICAO’s 50th anniversary).

 

Footnote about syncopated perforations:

For postage stamps, separation is the means by which individual stamps are made easily detachable from each other. In the early years, from 1840 until 1850, all stamps were issued imperforate, and had to be cut from the sheet with scissors or knife. This was time-consuming and error-prone. Once reliable separation equipment became available, nations switched rapidly. Imperforate stamps are issued occasionally.

Variations in the perforation include syncopated perforations which are uneven, either by skipping a hole or by making some holes larger or by adding large elliptical holes to the perforations on each side as in this case for Egypt.