TWO FIRST DAY OF ISSUE DATES

Ai Li-shan

Recently the Taiwan post office issued a set of stamps for the Modern Taiwanese Paintings.

The set was to be issued on August 7, 2009. In preparation for this issue date, first day covers had been prepared for mailing on the first day to those with standing order accounts. Figure 1 is a cover that was mailed with the international cancel, reading August 7, 2009 from Taiwan, R.O.C. This cover was mailed from the philatelic department to the U.S. (address obscured for privacy) You will note also the printed FD obliteration in English of the stamps.

Figure 1

The first day of issue ceremony was scheduled for the morning of August 7 (Friday). However, the typhoon "Morakot" struck Taiwan the evening of August 6, resulting in the all the post offices being closed on August 7. (The one exception was the post offices on Kinmen which remained open). The first day ceremonies were postponed until the morning of August 10th. Covers still had the same printed date of issue on the stamps, but had the actual cancel of August 10, the date of issue. Figure 2 is an example from the Taipei Nanhai post office (Branch 5). The covers thus sold had a chop, Figure 3, "Typhoon stopped business, next day processed". From information received, those that processed their own first day covers (not standing order account), would have received the blank envelopes on Monday, August 10th.

Figure 2 Figure 3