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 Travels of Pope John Paul II, 1979 Scott C72 Release Date: September 18, 1980 The Daily E-mails to VPS members are intended to provide some insight into the stamps of Vatican City and the people and events associated with them. To fill in the days on the e-mail calendar, we have relied on things like dates of significant events in Vatican and Catholic history, the births and deaths of people on the stamps, feast days on the Catholic liturgical calendar, and the dates of issue for various new stamp releases. Given that over 1900 Vatican City stamps have been issued to date, there is certainly plenty of material. But today presented a mystery! While looking for a topic for September 18 last year, it was discovered that only one stamp has been issued on this date: the airmail stamp Scott C72, released in 1980. The stamp, illustrated above, shows Pope John Paul II embracing Dimitrios I, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, during the Pope's visit to Turkey in November, 1979. What struck me as a curiosity was this was one of seven stamps issued to commemorate the travels of Pope John Paul II in 1979. The first six stamps in the series (Scott C66 to C71) were released on June 24, 1980, while C72 was released on September 18. Why the delay? Why release the high-value stamp separately? In researching past issues of Vatican Notes, I came across an article by Conrad Goff from 1987. Mr. Goff presents a release document for the 1979 Travels set which shows a different stamp design for the high-value stamp, when compared to the stamp that was eventually issued. In addition, the first six stamps of the release have the same design, with Pope John Paul II interacting with the outstretched arms of the crowds: 
1979 Travels of Pope John Paul II Scott C66-C71 Release date: June 24, 1980 Why design a different stamp for C72, and why then change that design, apparently delaying its release? Mr. Goff indicated that he had tried to get information from the Vatican Philatelic Office but received no response explaining the different design and the change. A subsequent Vatican Notes article from 2010 by Giovanni Fulcheris reviews some print varieties discovered for C72. In the article, the author presents a possible explanation for the change in the original design for C72: "Although not known with certainty, the likely reason for the delay was that the proposed design was found to be unacceptable to the then Director of the Vatican Philatelic Office Dr. Plini. A new design was therefore requested and ultimately accepted."The two articles cited above may be accessed by clicking on the reference links below. We ended this article last year by saying: "Hopefully one of our knowledgeable VPS members can shed some additional light on this and help definitively solve the 'Mystery of C72'!Our request was answered! Click on the Page 2 button below for answer to the mystery of C72. REFERENCES: |
