The third United Nations High-Level Conference on Oceans will take place in 2025, and many postal administrations have scheduled philatelic issues dedicated to the oceans. As far as our field of study is concerned, Guernsey, Åland and the Faroe Islands will issue various series of variable value stamps related to this theme.
The annual series of variable value stamps of Posta Stamps, the Faroe Islands philatelic service, is dedicated to the lives of creatures inhabiting the ocean depths.
The Faroe Islands are an archipelago of 18 islands in the North Atlantic, with a consequent history, economy and culture extraordinarily dependent on and related to the sea. Many of the Posta Stamps issues, both “traditional” and variable value stamps, reflect this geographical situation.
The four designs in the series are by Turið Teitsdóttrir, a young, self-taught local artist. The nice illustrations are created using a personal painting technique that combines colourful and vibrant watercolours with thousands of dots (see main image of the article).
The rolls of thermal self-adhesive labels, with the four consecutive designs, were printed by flexography and manufactured by the Danish company All4Labels.
The ‘Havsins botnur‘ (in Faroese) or ‘The Ocean’s depths’ series was available from January 2nd 2025 and as with the previous years’ series, was printed on two different equipments, the aCon desktop printers and the IAR’s DKU (Desktop Kiosk Unit), installed at the premises of the philatelic service.
The small aCon thermal printers only print the face value and an 11-digit code at the bottom of the stamp. Customers can purchase stamps with any face value from 0.50 to 99.50 kr.
The stamps printed by the DKU unit include the face value, the type of shipment indicator, and a code consisting of four data blocks. For the stamps illustrated below, printed in January 2025, show the code with the first block as D1FO25 (D for the DKU equipment, followed by the month (1), country (FO) and year of issue). There then follows the equipment code (FO01), the session and stamp number.
This kiosk only prints stamps with four programmed values, which vary each year with the change of postal tariffs (see table below). The 2025 set is made up of the values of ‘10.00 Supplementary up to 100g‘, a make up or complementary value which does not correspond to any existing postage rate; ‘25.00 Local Letter Up to 100g‘, the first domestic postage rate; ‘35.00 Rest of World Up to 100g‘, the first value for international mail; and ‘48.00 Local Letter Up to 100g‘, the domestic mail rate for large letters or small parcels.
aCon desktop printers
DKU – IAR unit
‘Local Strip’
DKU – IAR unit
Set or ‘Collectors Strip’
After each transaction the DKU unit issues receipts printed on thermal paper. ‘Local Strip’ is the strip of four stamps with the first domestic postage rate. ‘Coll. Strip’ is the set with the four programmed values. ‘Coll. Set’ is the full set of 16 values that includes the four postage values with the four designs.
Official first day cover with the four designs, issued by an aCon desktop printer, and the special postmark.
(English edition rewritten by J. Gareze – May 2025)
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