Greenland stamps show seasons, regional costumes, and child

By Denise McCarty

Greenland issued seven stamps Jan. 18 featuring the seasons, national costumes and children’s rights.

The Seasons stamps are part of the Sepac (Small European Postal Administration Cooperation) multination series for 2016. Sepac’s themes for previous years include scenery, animals, flowers, and culture.

On the new stamps from Greenland, the seasons of winter and summer are represented by photographs taken by Mads Pihl.

The 13-krone stamp reproducing Pihl’s photograph of a dog sled team includes the Sepac emblem on the left side of the design.

The 27kr stamp shows a photograph of two tourists wearing backpacks and looking out over a fjord.

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The Women’s National Costumes stamps depict Lisbeth Karline’s illustrations of regional costumes: the North, 10.50kr; West, 12kr; East, 13.50kr; and South, 48.50kr.

Karline, an artist born in Nanortalik, reported in the first issue of Greenland Collector for 2016 that she experienced the making of a traditional Greenlandic outfit for her own wedding.

She said that it was physically difficult, requiring blood, sweat and tears, but it also involved many hours with other women with “grinning and smiling, storytelling and cohesion, that I had not experienced before.”

A 12kr+1kr semipostal stamp honors MIO, Greenland’s national advocacy center working for children’s rights founded in 2012.

The face of a child is shown on this semipostal stamp designed by Julie Hardenberg.

Hardenberg, who has designed a dozen stamps for Greenland Post, said: “The organisation MIO works to pave the way for children’s rights. These rights are fundamental to ensuring that there is a foundation for children to have a good upbringing and that the basic conditions to form the life they want to live are present.”

Lowe-Martin printed the stamps by offset in sheets of 40. The Women’s National Costumes stamps were produced as self-adhesives in a booklet that sells for 169kr, and the MIO semipostal in a souvenir sheet of four.