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World Youth Day, Lisbon Original Issue: No Scott Number Assigned (2023) 
World Youth Day, Lisbon Reissued Stamp: Scott 1829 (2023) Last week, the Daily Email presented a recap of the events surrounding the May release of the ill-fated 2023 World Youth Day Stamp. One of the questions raised was: how would the international philatelic catalogs deal with both the original, withdrawn issue and the replacement issue? Would catalog numbers be assigned to the withdrawn issue? The initial speculation was that, since that issue was sold and available from the Vatican Post Office (even for only two days before it was recalled), past history leaned towards catalog numbers being assigned. Thanks to the input from two VPS members, we started to get some clarity on this. Patrick Moore, a VPS member who resides in Germany and frequently provides insights and ideas to the VPS Website Team, posted a comment on the VPS Chat Page. Patrick let us know that the German philatelic publication Michel-Rundschau had reported the Michel Catalog had assigned the recalled stamp a number (Vatican Mi. 2085). In addition, VPS Webmaster Marvin Lanahan noted that a recent issue of Linn’s Stamp News reported that Scott has assigned the reissued stamp a number (Vatican City Scott 1829), but that catalog number Vatican City Scott 1828 had not been assigned to a stamp. Thanks to some communication between VPS member Dan Bayer, owner of the Penny Black Stamp Company, and Amos Media, the publisher of the Scott Catalog, we have the following to report. Dan received the following email response from Marty Frankevicz, the New Issues Editor for the Scott Catalog, regarding the recalled stamp: ---------- Subject: Vatican City 1828 Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2023 From: Marty Frankevicz To: pennyblack@earthlink.net Dear Dan: Vatican City No. 1828 is reserved for the stamp that was pulled from sale rather quickly. Naturally, we never received that item. We usually ask if we can borrow the actual stamp for 8-12 weeks so we can get it listed because I can’t put a perf gauge on a scan. While I suspect that the stamp is worth a fair amount of money, I can certainly understand wanting to send us a scan rather than sending us the actual stamp. We may be able to work around that, however. As Vatican City generally uses the same printers and perf gauges over and over, can you compare the rare stamp with other stamps of the same size, and let me know the Scott number of any recent stamp that has the same perfs on all four sides? I can copy that perf into the listing for the rare stamp. ---------- Based on this conversation, it appears that the delay in listing the recalled stamp is a technical issue, and it seems that Scott is working with Dan Bayer to provide the specifics of the stamp to proceed with the preparation of the catalog listing. In fact, Dan has let us know that he is actually lending a copy of the recalled stamp to Scott so they can do their analysis of the stamp. He indicated that an update to Scott is due in the first quarter of 2024. As collectors and members of VPS, we are fortunate to have such great resources within our Society as Dan, who is clearly viewed as a subject area expert by the Scott Catalog to provide the critical information needed to develop an accurate listing of the stamp. We are also lucky to have interested members such as Patrick and Marvin who served as ‘stamp detectives’ in the hunt for information on the recalled WYD stamp. It is a story that keeps giving us lots to talk about! |
