Egypt issues stamps to mark new Suez Canal - but uses pictures of Panama Canal

[AdamSmith]

Egypt issues stamps to mark new Suez Canal - but uses pictures of Panama Canal

The multi-billion pound scheme to widen the canal was announced last month, but officials have suffered a series of false starts

Egypt issues stamps to mark new Suez Canal - but uses pictures of the Panama Canal instead Photo: FACEBOOK

By Alastair Beach

12:52PM BST 13 Sep 2014

telegraph.co.uk

When the Egyptian government proudly announced plans to build a new Suez Canal last month, officials were so puffed up with pride that they took the time-honoured step of commissioning a series of stamps to mark the £2.4 billion project.

But in an embarrassing start to the scheme, it appears that the stamps are not all they seem – the designers have managed to mix up their canals.

Instead of featuring photographs taken only in Egypt, the stamps have been printed with pictures of the other world famous canal that runs through Panama.

“Egypt issues stamps of “new Suez Canal”, but steals an image of the #Panama Canal instead,” tweeted Amro Ali, an academic from the coastal city of Alexandria. “Major fail”.

The stamps feature images of a map of the Suez Canal, along with photographs of a waterway in a desert setting which do indeed appear to come from Egypt.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/11094071/Egypt-issues-stamps-to-mark-new-Suez-Canal-but-uses-pictures-of-Panama-Canal.html

[RA1]

The good news about the failure of the US Congress and administration is that "others" are more incompetent. I hate for this to be the reason we maintain any semblance of eptitude but that seems to be the way it is. The Panama Canal improvements are years ahead of the Suez Canal improvements and likely will stay that way for many years. Also, 2.4 billion Egyptian Pounds is about 336 million USD which is chump change or chunk change (depending upon which is correct) for the US. We waste that much every day, don't we?

Now if Jimmy Carter had not given away the Panama Canal perhaps things would be better, certainly different.

Best regards,

RA1

[AdamSmith]

Oh my I love postal errors.

The latter is the so-called Dag Hammarskjöld invert, thus named by the philatelic community with no apparent sidewise smirk at Hammarskjöld's own sexuality.

[AdamSmith]

P.S. Just remembered that in my stamp collection I have one of those inverts! Wikipedia explains:

The Dag Hammarskjöld invert is a 4 cent value postage stamp error issued on 23 October 1962 by the United States Postal Service (then known as the Post Office Department) one year after the death of Dag Hammarskjöld, Secretary-General of the United Nations, in an airplane crash. The stamp, showing the yellow background inverted relative to the image and text, is also known as the Day's Folly after Postmaster General J. Edward Day who ordered the intentional reprinting of the yellow invert commenting, "The Post Office Department is not running a jackpot operation."

The stamp reprint was in effect a deliberate error produced by the Post Office Department to avoid creating a rarity. It was decided to reprint 40 million of the inverted stamps after the discovery of the error so there would be no rarity factor in the inverted stamp and to prevent people profiting from the Postal Service's mistake.^[1] The reprints were issued to the public on 16 November and described as a Special Printing.^[2]

The black, brown and yellow commemorative stamp with yellow background correctly printed has a Scott catalogue number of 1203 but the inverted error is numbered 1204. The catalogue value of the invert is worth little more than the normal. The stamp, printed on Giori press in plates of 200, was designed by Herbert Sanborn and engraved by C. A. Brooks. 121,440,000 normal stamps were printed and 40,270,000 of the inverted reprint were produced.^[3]

Normal stamp

It has not been recorded how many original invert stamps were produced and it is virtually impossible to tell a reprint from an original unless it has a clear early date, but an invert error on a first day cover, proving that stamp was from the original printing and not from the reprint, was sold in 2005 for US $3,500.

The finder of the discovery sheet, a New Jersey jeweler named Leonard Sherman, obtained a court injunction against the reprinting, but it came too late to stop production. He did however receive an affidavit from the (then) Post Office Department that his was the original sheet.^[4] In 1987 Sherman donated his sheet to the American Philatelic Society because the reprint dashed his hopes of owning a valuable stamp error.^[5]

[RA1]

I have been known to covet an invert.

Best regards,

RA1

[markgordon]

Considering that The Telegraph is a British newspaper, I think it's reasonable to assume that the figures quoted are in British pounds. 2.4 billion British pounds = 3.9 billion US $.

[RA1]

That did not occur to me because I knew the Egyptian "coin of the realm" was the Egyptian Pound, but I do believe that you are correct. The Egyptian banks apparently have already printed or issued 8 billion Egyptian Pound certificates for this project. Anyone for 12% interest payable quarterly?

Best regards,

RA1