Just one week after releasing the first sheetlet, Myanmar Post has issued a second reprint—this time featuring the Myanmar Traditional Arts stamp series originally released in 2020. This move suggests that additional sheets from other popular series, such as Endemic Birds, Costume Series, and Butterflies of Myanmar Series, may also be reissued soon. Collectors will have to wait and see what comes next.
The original Myanmar Traditional Arts series began with the Panbe stamp (The Art of Blacksmithing) issued on 24 July 2020, and concluded with the Panyun stamp (The Art of Making Lacquerware) on 18 December 2020. In this new sheet format, the stamps are arranged in their original release order—five stamps on the top row and five on the bottom. The sheet’s margin is labelled “10 Traditional Art Forms of Myanmar”.
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| Untrimmed sheet with Mandalay GPO First Day Cancellation (U Sein Min) |
However, the reissued sheet has drawn criticism. It is sold untrimmed, with a large blank margin beneath the stamps. The full sheet measures 9 x 7 inches (approx. 229 x 178 mm), and the excess blank area is large enough to accommodate another two rows of stamps. This forced collectors to manually trim the sheets using paper cutters or knives to mount them on covers for first day usages—resulting in inconsistent sheet sizes on different covers. No official first day cover (FDC) was issued for this release.
A total of 50,000 sheets were printed, with each pack containing 50 sheets. The official date of issue is 5 May 2025. Due to the oversized format, collectors have resorted to using larger cacheted envelopes, which may exceed the size allowed by standard postal regulations.
Collectors have also noted that the printing quality appears lower than that of the original 2020 stamps. Additionally, two distinct types of perforations have been observed: rough and sharp, adding further variation for specialists to examine.
The first day cancellation was rather messy. It attempted to squeeze illustrations of all ten traditional art forms into a single circular design by dividing it into ten equal segments. This approach resulted in a cluttered appearance. A similar design was used for the 12 Seasonal Festivals and Flowers sheetlet issued last month—this time with 12 segments, making the cancellation even more crowded and difficult to discern.
I have identified a color error involving missing cyan ink. This issue affects the right four stamps on the sheet, while the rest of the sheet appears normal. The image below shows a side-by-side comparison of the standard stamps and the error stamps.
My comparative study reveals that the new 2025 reissue is not a direct reprint of the original 2020 version but a redesigned mock-up. Unlike the 2020 stamps, which featured smaller text and a larger central image, the 2025 version displays enlarged text and a reduced main image. Additionally, the shadow effect in the title of the art, present in the original design, has been removed. The illustration below highlights these differences.
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