Check Out The VPS CFN Announcement Page
2024 Easter Postmarks

Have you checked out the new VPS CFN Announcement page yet? If not, click on the "Reference" tab on the yellow banner on the Member Page of the VPS website (http://vaticanstamps.org). From the drop-down, choose the "CFN Announcements" menu option. Here you will find the Italian version of the latest press releases from the Vatican Post Office along with computer-generated English translations. The VPS Website Team built this page because the Vatican Post Office stopped distributing the UFN Bulletins that Vatican stamp collectors have used over the years as references for new stamp releases. Reading the latest version of the 2024 pdf file (in English), information on the 2024 Easter stamps and postmarks was obtained. The 2024 Easter stamp was released on February 19th, 2024 and has a first-day postmark (seen to the left below). To the right is the special postmark that the Vatican Post Office will use for Easter. A special Easter-day postmark is a long-standing tradition of the Vatican Post Office.     Easter 2024 First-day Postmark and Easter Day Postmark Another thing learned by reading the CFN Announcement file is that the Vatican Post Office will use ordinary circle Easter postmarks from March 25th to May 18th at various Sectors of the Post and Philately Service dedicated to the Easter season. These are pictured below. Use of these circular postmarks has been in use at Easter time for some years, but gaining an understanding as to when they were used has been difficult until now. Reading the translation of the announcement file will help Vatican stamp collectors understand Vatican postal procedures. Over the last few months, emails have been sent to the Vatican Post Office asking about ordering for different kinds of postmarks. Basically, from what has been learned, the procedure is simply to "place an order". However, it has been a bit challenging to simply "place an order". Thus far orders have included notes describing the stamps that are to be on each envelope with very specific postmark descriptions. So far, none of the orders for postmarked envelopes have been received. So, the anticipation is building, and a further report is forthcoming. The Vatican Post Office email address to send your postmark order request is: order.cfn.economia@scv.va If anyone else dares to order postmarked envelopes from the Vatican Post Office, please report your results.