Stamp Out War: Support Ukraine! (2023 Edition)

Postcards & Mail Mail, stamps & postal info
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Dear all,

As the 2022 edition of my Ukraine project – now renamed to Stamp Out War: Support Ukraine! – is now entering the auction phase, I am officially kicking off the 2023 edition of the same project.

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[One of the two complete sets resulted from 2022; it consists of 30 maxicards]

Like last time, I am recruiting volunteers across the globe to go to a local post office in their countries on the 24th of August – Ukraine’s national day – to ask for a postmark on my blue-yellow postcards showing Ukraine solidarity stamps. This way, the visual of the cards, the stamps, and the cancels are all related to the same theme – Ukraine. These are called in philately maximum cards, or maxicards for short. I plan on auctioning off these cards and donate the net proceeds to Ukraine relief funds (my chosen beneficiary for the 2022 edition is Canada Ukraine Foundation).

Since last 24 August, 3 more countries have issued special Ukraine suppot stamps. They are (in order of stamp issue):

  1. Slovakia (16 September)
  2. Portugal (27 September)
  3. Italy (22 November)

Together with other countries’ sunflower / yellow flower stamps, let’s pay tribute to Ukraine as a democratic, independent country, on 24 August 2023!

Finland-01-front
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[A Finnish variety of Ukraien support maxicard, created with the help of @tiitinen ]

Japan-01-front
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[A Japanese variety of Ukraine support maxicard, created with the help of @-Makoto- ]

Romania-01-front
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[A Romanian variety of Ukraine support maxicard, created with the help of @mihneaR ]

USA-01-front
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[An American variety of Ukraine support maxicard, created with the help of @Dorinco ]

This edition will involve countries that didn’t end up participating last time. The premilinary list includes the following (whose stamps I have acquired) :

  1. Algeria (confirmed)
  2. Antigua & Barbuda (confirmed)
  3. Argentina (confirmed)
  4. Armenia (confirmed)
  5. Belgium (confirmed)
  6. Bosnia and Herzegovina (confirmed)
  7. Brazil (confirmed)
  8. Bulgaria (confirmed)
  9. Cambodia
  10. Central African Republic
  11. Chile (confirmed)
  12. China (confirmed)
  13. Czech Republic (confirmed)
  14. Dominican Republic (confirmed)
  15. Egypt
  16. Falkland Islands (confirmed)
  17. French Polynesia (confirmed)
  18. Gabon
  19. Ghana (confirmed)
  20. Greece (confirmed)
  21. Greenland
  22. Guernsey
  23. Hong Kong (confirmed)
  24. Hungary (confirmed)
  25. Iceland (confirmed)
  26. India (confirmed)
  27. Indonesia (confirmed)
  28. Iraq (confirmed)
  29. Ireland (confirmed)
  30. Isle of Man (confirmed)
  31. Italy (confirmed)
  32. Kazakhstan
  33. Kyrgyzstan (confirmed)
  34. Laos (confirmed)
  35. Liechtenstein (confirmed)
  36. Malaysia (confirmed)
  37. Mauritius (confirmed)
  38. Mexico (confirmed)
  39. Monaco (confirmed)
  40. Mongolia (confirmed)
  41. Morocco (confirmed)
  42. Peru (confirmed)
  43. Philippines (confirmed)
  44. Portugal (confirmed)
  45. Singapore (confirmed)
  46. Slovakia (confirmed)
  47. Slovenia (confirmed)
  48. South Africa
  49. South Korea (confirmed)
  50. Sri Lanka (confirmed)
  51. Suriname (confirmed)
  52. Switzerland (confirmed)
  53. Thailand (confirmed)
  54. Turkey (confirmed)
  55. United Arab Emirates (confirmed)
  56. Uruguay (confirmed)
  57. Uzbekistan
  58. Vietnam (confirmed)

I am trying to include as many countries in Central/South America, Africa, Middle East and Asia as possible this time. If you know some countries that have issued sunflower / yellow flower stamps that are not included in my list, please let me know! I will try to buy those stamps and add these countries to my list.

Please comment below or contact me if you should like to join this global effort at showing solidarity with Ukraine. I look forward to creating a second unique set of Ukraine support maxicards with the Postcrossing community.

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I made a presentation slide that aims at explaining this project to the general public. You can find it on the project’s official website, or download it here:

Edit on 9 September 2023: A typo in the presentation was corrected.

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Creative and professional slide presentation! :clap:
Have you sent out your call for volunteers to the Stand with Ukraine RR?

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No, I haven’t. Sorry I don’t really understand how that thread work – I thought it’s for participating in a ‘round-robin’ game?

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Wow, amazing :star_struck: :heart_eyes:

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It is for participating in a round robin, but people occasionally post an update related to the theme of supporting Ukraine; such as, new stamp releases, etc.
You just might find some volunteers for your project there.

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China?Which stamps you confirm?

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By ‘confirm’ I meant that the participation of those countries is confirmed, that I have found a volunteer.

For China, I think my volunteer will use this sunflower stamp:

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Pretty.

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I just realised that currently, Canada Post does not deliver to Libya, Niragua and Somalia. So I have removed them from the list. However, if safety can be assured, and if there are other routes (via other countries) that can led to these countries, I would like to try to recruit volunteers for this project.

I am not entirely sure what will happen to delivery from Canada to Sudan and Myanmar …

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If you should have the time, please take a look at a related thread that I have started, about the future of Stamp Out War project, which may be held again in 2026.

The 24th of August in 2024 and 2025 will fall on Saturday and Sunday, when many post offices across the world will be closed. So unless we can find a way around this limitation (says, get the postmark of 23 or 25 August), there will be a 2-year pause to this international collaboration. Besides, I really need a break to work on the artistic side of this project.

However, if someone is willing to keep this project running, I would be more than willing to help passing down whatever legacy I have built up during the first 2 years.

So, the 2026 event may be the last one I will be in charge of organising at the global scale.

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Also, some people wondered about my decision to exlude the 25 countries that had participated in the 2022 edition of the project. My reason is the more countries are included, the harder I as the organiser have to work. There are a lot of countries in the world whose voice people often neglect, so I think the priority should be to invite people from countries that had not participated yet to participate.

Another reason is about stamp stock. Beside the newly issued Ukraine support stamps by little more than a dozen countries, most of the sunflower / yellow flower stamps used in this project are old and difficult to find – at least on online market. In the past year, I have purchased pretty much all such stamps that I could find were afforadable, so that today, I simply don’t have any stamp left for a fair amount of countries. Unless I can find local dealers in each individual country who offer those stamps at a reasonable price …

But, my decision is subject to change. So far I have received messages from American, Lithuanian, German, Austrian stating their wish to participate. I will see how likely an eventual inclusion of the previous 25 countries in the 2023 edition can be.

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I can organize this stamp for Switzerland
swiss1

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Thank you Nata!

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Just a quick update to say that the 2023 edition is very much alive!

While working on the auction of the 2022 Ukraine support maxicards, I have been collecting sunflower / yellow flower stamps across the world and so far I have these in my possession that I look forward to use on this year’s 24 August:

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For Czech Republic, I have hesitated between the personalised stamps and the official release with floral motif.

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Originally, my worry was that the actual stamp part of this personalised issue doesn’t show the blue/yellow color scheme and the reuse of the Dancing House motif doesn’t have any connection with Ukraine. However, this Czech issue was one of the 15 stamp programs recognised by the Ukraine Post earlier this year, so I just thought I should use it together with the ‘coupon’ part (the part next to the stamp that shows Ukraine’s flag or territory in blue/yellow) to create this year’s Czech varieties of Ukraine support maxicard.

There are of course, @s0nata 's Swiss stamp and my philatelist friend’s Italian stamp that are not pictured here.

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Great initiative!

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So if we don’t have a Ukraine solidarity stamp, we can use a blue/yellow one? Ok, I’m hunting for one for Netherlands.
We’ve got Europa Peace, the Blue King, Blue on Yellow Meneer de Uil, a heart, or maybe Girl with the Pearl Earring.

ZGU-s
HBR-s
HRE-s
GVM14-s
ING-s

Or some personalized

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For the Netherlands, we used Van Gogh’s painting last year!

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Ih nice!!

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@owlcrossing, did you actually make some personalized stamps, as shown here? Really cool! :blue_heart: :yellow_heart: