Well, here we are limping into another year and what better way to kick off Jersey stamps for 2022, than to look at last year’s offerings. If pressed to pick a favourite stamp from 2021, I’d waffle with indecision. From Post & Goes to EUROPA and SEPAC, Jersey served up some fascinating local interest. But, if you insisted, I’d have to go with Berni Martin’s Flockdown birds and Chris Wormell’s vintage style illustrations for the 150 Years of Brewing in Jersey.

Flockdown birds on a FDC.

Both offered vastly different styles of artwork, and attractive for different reasons. Martin’s wonderfully whimsical birds were inspired by the lockdowns we struggled through in early 2020. Not sure if you remember, but a few magical moments came through as the the world settled in for what has turned into a dreadfully long haul. When we became quiet, the animals appeared: 

With no cars on the roads and no people to disturb them, wildlife like the birds outside Berni’s window, became braver, and the birdsong became clearer and louder. Every day during Jersey’s lockdown, Berni Martin took out a box of paints gifted to her by a friend and spent a few minutes creating, sketching, and painting a colourful bird. Jersey Post Stamps, Jan. 3, 2021

The second set featured an historic brewing company from the island, Liberation Brewery. 

150 Years of Brewing in Jersey – Liberation Brewing co.

The style used by illustrator Wormell and the subject matter tweaked my attention. As most of my friends know (and likely sigh privately about) I love taking photos of big trucks, cranes, diggers and all manner of heavy equipment. I’m the odd person lurking around construction sites trying to figure out how to capture a better view of the hydraulics or engines on that big rig. And this old truck just about did me in. Oh be still my geeky little heart. No seriously, I got all sorts of excited when I saw this stamp. Great artwork. 

What does this year have in store for us? Guaranteed more beautiful art. Wang Huming once again starts the new year off with his annual Lunar New Year set. January wouldn’t be January if Jersey Post neglected the Year of the Tiger. The stamp to beat this year is going to be February’s Post & Go – Harvest of the Sea. I’m currently looking up info on artist Ron Mills because his style is appealing. 

Harvest of the Sea presentation pack cover

Mills works with a mix of digital and traditional art mediums to showcase the people and scenery of Jersey. If you are interested in seeing more of his work, I’ll be posting links below the February release. 

Onwards to a year of celebrating Jersey, it’s history and scenery. Enjoy
Catpaw 

January

1 stamp, stamp on a souvenir sheet, mini sheet of 10, 2 FDCs, cancel, 2 presentation packs
four colour offset lithography plus gold metallic ink with varnish

Designer: Wang Huming
Huming designed the previous Lunar New Year stamps for Jersey, as well as the UN’s Year of the Ox stamp. He has also designed stamps for China.

Release date: January 4, 2022

Visiting Commercial Aircraft

6 stamps, mini souvenir sheet, souvenir sheet, 2 FDCs, cancel, 2 presentation packs, 7 postcards
four colour lithography

De Havilland DH.86 Express, Fokker Friendship F27-200, Scottish Aviation Twin Pioneer I, BAC One-Eleven, Britten-Norman BN 2A Mk III Trislander and Vickers Viscount 806.

Designer: Toby Dixon

Release date: January 20, 2022

February

Post & Go – Harvest of the Sea

6 stamps, FDC, cancel, presentation pack
digital process

Illustrator: Ron Mills Ron Mills retro modern art illustrations and portraits

Release date: February 17, 2022

March

EUROPA – Stories and Myths

6 stamps, souvenir sheet with 2 stamps, 2 FDCs, cancel, sheets of 10, presentation packs 
4 colour lithography, UV light reactive

Ghost Stories

• The Vioge of Crack Ankle Lane
• The Woman in Black
• The Belenji**
• The Bells of Les Minquiers
• The Bride and Groom of Gorey Castle**
• The Soldiers of Vinchelez Lane

** Belenji and Bride and Groom of Gorey Castle are Jersey’s EUROPA entries. These stamps appear on the souvenir sheet.
Local ghost stories to feature on Jersey stamps – Jersey Post
Haunted Jersey’s Top 5 Most Terrifying Ghost Legends | Spooky Isles

Artist: Jensine Eckwall
New York artist Eckwall is primarily a book illustrator, ranging from children’s books to adult sci-fi and horror.

Release date: March 16, 2022

Tractors Working in Jersey

8 stamps, souvenir sheet, 2 FDCs, cancel, presentation pack, souvenir presentation pack, sheets of 10
lithography with light reactive ink

Designer: Martin Mörck
Mörck is well known to collectors of Nordic stamps. He is one of the premier engravers in the stamp design world. Mörck has designed and/or engraved over 600 stamps since his first one (Tawny Owl) for Sweden in 1978. His work also appears on stamps from Canada, Monaco, France and Latvia. 

Release date: April 1, 2022

May

Great FA Cup Moments!

8 stamps, souvenir sheet, miniature sheet, souvenir miniature sheet, presentation packs, FDCs, cancel, 9 postcards 
offset lithography

Designer: David Sque

Release date: May 10, 2022

SEPAC – Jersey Food and Drink 

6 stamps, 6 sheets of 10, FDC, cancel, presentation pack, 6 post cards

• Jersey wonders
• Jersey royals
• Jersey cider
• Jersey milk and ice cream 
• Jersey black butter
• Jersey bean crock and cabbage loaf

SEPAC 2022
The 91p stamp is the official SEPAC entry. Jersey cider is actually a number of different cider varieties. Jerripedia has an interesting brief historical look at cider production on Jersey Cider – Jerripedia (theislandwiki.org).  If you are interested in a more substantial look at the importance of cider production and it’s long history on the island, check out this pdf from the Jersey Heritage website,  Jersey cider: THE PAPER TRAIL – FRAGMENTS OF HISTORY by James Crowden. Crowden is both an historian and cider maker and brings a unique perspective to the art of cider production. 

Historical paper trails are fascinating in themselves and very quickly you can build up a picture of what cider
production must have been like in Jersey, an island devoted to apples and pears as if their cultivation was a
religion. James Crowden, Jersey Cider: The Paper Trail, pg. 1

Artist: Ian Rolls
Rolls is a watercolourist who makes his home on Jersey. You can see more of his water colours here Ian Rolls – Artist. This video is from 2020 and follows Ian through the entire process of how he paints from sketch to watercolour. It was produced by Little River Pictures. Hope you enjoy the short video. 

Release date: May 24, 2022

June

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II – Platinum Jubilee

1 stamp, souvenir sheet of 4, presentation pack, FDC, cancel 
Four colour process offset lithography plus special techniques: platinum suprametal, silver hot foil, spot gloss UV varnish and iridescent ink

Designer: So Design
So Design used the famous Dorothy Wilding 1952 portrait for the platinum jubilee stamp. Dorothy Wilding – The Postal Museum
Check out SO Design’s page dedicated to the development of the Jubilee stamps Platinum Jubilee Stamps (so-design.co.uk)

Release date: June 1, 2022

Jersey Statues and Sculptures

• La Travailleux D’Cauchie – St. Hellier’s Parish, Dock worker pulling a hawser. 
• King George II
• Centaur with Cupid
• Saint Malo Memorial
• Le Crapaud
• Swimmers II

Photographer: Andy Le Gresley

Release date: June 16, 2022

July

100 Years of the Jersey Island Cricket Club

6 stamps, souvenir sheet, 2 FDCs, cancel, 2 presentation packs, 6 sheets of 10

Jersey Cricket

Designer: Ron Mills

Release date: July 7, 2022

We Stand With Ukraine
Post and Go 

6 overprints

Overprints in support of Ukraine

Release date: July 18, 2022, to 10 August 2022

August

Inventions of Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison
Series: Inventions

6 stamps, 2 stamps on mini sheet, 2 presentation packs, 2 FDCs, cancel, 6 sheets of 10

Issued on the 175th year of their births.

• telephone
• electric light bulb
• phonograph
• metal detector
• kinetograph motion picture camera
• twisted pair cabling

 “These stamps showcase inventions from two of the most iconic inventors of the 19^th century. Bell and Edison were innovators of their time; hence I chose a contemporary palette of pastel shades for the backgrounds of the stamps to reflect their modernity. The pastels also contrast nicely against the often-dark tones in the inventions, giving the inventions centre stage.” Artist Beatrice Garcia talking about the design.  Jersey stamps commemorate two of the world’s greatest inventors – Jersey Stamps 

Designer: Beatrice Garcia
Garcia designs stamps for Gibraltar Post as well.

Release date: August 2, 2022

120th Anniversary of the Jersey Battle of Flowers 
Post and Go 

6 stamps

After a 2 year postponement because of the pandemic, the Battle of Flowers returns to Jersey.    

The Battle of Flowers dates back to 1902, when Islanders decided to hold a flower parade in honour of the coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. This first event consisted of horse-drawn floats from which flowers were torn and thrown to the crowd. Spectators threw the flowers back and a ‘Battle of Flowers’ was born. Whilst the throwing of flowers stopped in the 1960s, due to concerns of safety, the Battle of Flowers, with its colourful floral floats, has remained a popular annual event. Jersey Post & Go stamps to celebrate Battle of Flowers anniversary – Jersey Stamps

Designer: Lizzie Harper 
Harper specialises in water colour botanical art.  She has created 5 previous sets for Jersey post, including the 2020 Coastal Flowers and the 2015 Dragonflies set.

Release date: August 11, 2022  

September

Jèrriais – local patois

6 stamps, 2 minisheets, 3 FDCs, cancel, 3 presentation packs, 6 sheets of 10, 7 postcards

JERRIAIS is the traditional language of the island.

Artist Ron Mills used the paper cutting style to create this series. To really see the effect, enlarge the souvenir sheet to get the 3d effect.  

Designer: Ron Mills

Release date: September 6, 2022

October

Jersey’s Black History

6 stamps, souvenir sheet, 2 FDCs, cancel, presentation pack, souvenir presentation pack, 6 sheets of 10 
offset lithography plus litho metallic gold ink

• William Smith – 1880 – advocate for formal education
• ‘Pompey’ – 1871 – Avenger of Major Pierson  Heroes and Villains.doc (jerseyheritage.org) 
• Adelaid Smith Casely-Hayford – Pioneer of pan-African politics Adelaide Smith Casely Hayford (1868-1960) • (blackpast.org)
• Hortense Watson – 1841 – Windsor Crescent Servant Summary of Individual | Legacies of British Slavery (ucl.ac.uk)
• John Jea = 1817 – Methodist Preacher, write, abolitionist John Jea | National Museum of American History (si.edu)
• Regina Wilson- 1894 – Teacher 

If you have sources for any of the people above, I’d appreciate it if you dropped them into the comments.

Designer: Pola Maneli
Maneli is a free-lance illustrator from Port Elizabeth, South Africa. His work may seem familiar to some readers. Maneli has illustrated art celebrating black history ranging from Google Doodles to the New Yorker, Atlantic and NYTimes Book Review Magazines. His artwork is very distinctive. Pola Maneli Illustration  

… centers his work around blackness and the multi-dimensional experiences of people of color. Blending bold colors and contemporary iconography with floral and faunal motifs, Maneli uses his art to speak out against the notion of a monolithic black culture. As he told us over e-mail, “My work concerns itself with reflecting expressions within the spectrum of blackness.” South African Illustrator Pola Maneli’s Reflections On Blackness – OkayAfrica

This 2018 video of Maneli talking about his art and style is a fantastic look into his creative process. 

Release date: October 20, 2022

November

Christmas – Festive Icons

8 stamps, FDC, cancel, presentation pack, 9 sheets of 10, 9 postcards
offset

Designer: So Design Consultants
So Design has created stamps for both Jersey and Royal Mail. This year, they designed Jersey’s June series Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II – Platinum Jubilee.  They also designed Jersey’s 2020 Christmas Views of Jersey set that utilised paper art design.  If you are interested in seeing how the artwork evolved, So Design has a page devoted to the issue Designing festive paper-cut stamps for Jersey Post (so-design.co.uk).  

Release date: November 14, 2022

Don’t forget to check out last year’s stamps -> Jersey 2021 stamps – great Island themes | Bitter Grounds Magazine

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