2003
75
•Bugs and Butterflies •Rugby World Cup 2003 •Active with Asthma •Christmas 2003 •Christmas Island Christmas
70% actual size
Bugs and Butterflies
H
ow many insects can you see on this minisheet? Seven … or maybe even twelve? Count again! Every stamp hides another creature … and there are even more hidden insects on the miniature sheet itself.
The large butterfly on the minisheet is a birdwing butterfly, and some of the hidden creatures you will find if you look very hard include a stick insect, slater, weevil, scorpion, cicada, lacewing, crane fly, centipede, mosquito and a dragonfly.
More than three-quarters of the world’s animals are insects, and they are so useful that the human race probably could not survive without them. Insects pollinate our crops and gardens and they are part of the food chain that connects all plant and animal life.
These beautiful stamps were designed by famous illustrator Graeme Base especially for Stamp Collecting Month. Issue date 24 September 2003
The ‘stars’ of these six stamps are:
Gr een
sshopper
dler d i F m a ntid
beetle
peror gum mo
th
t ca
hardt ’s g ra Leich
Em
Uly s s
2
er
e s b u tte r fly
ia dal e V
p illa r
ladybird
Stamp pack
First day cover
Booklet
All Bugs and Butterflies products are available from 24 September 2003
on-line at auspost.com.au/bugs
Graeme Base Graeme Base was born in England in 1958 and moved to Australia in 1966. He grew up in Melbourne and studied design at the Swinburne Institute of Design.
Then came The Sign of the Seahorse (1992) followed by The Discovery of Dragons (1996). In 1999 it was The Worst Band in the Universe, which included a CD of songs ‘played’ by entrants in the Worst Band in the Universe competition.
His first book was My Grandma Lives in Gooligulch, published in 1983. It took him three years to finish the illustrations for his second book, Animalia (1986).
The Waterhole, a counting book in the spirit of Animalia, was published in 2001.
Since then Animalia has sold more than two million copies worldwide, and brought Base international attention and acclaim. He has a tremendous fan base and his new efforts are eagerly anticipated by fans young and old throughout the world. Animalia was followed by The Eleventh Hour (1989), an illustrated mystery in verse in which the clues required to solve the mystery are hidden in the detailed illustrations.
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ANT DAMSELFLY MANTID BEETLE DRAGONFLY MOSQUITO BUTTERFLY FLY MOTH CATERPILLAR GRASSHOPPER SCORPION CICADA LACEWING SLATER CRANEFLY LADYBIRD CENTIPEDE
These colourful stamps show Father Christmas arriving on Christmas Island and distributing gifts to some island crabs. In the first stamp he is riding a whaleshark, the world’s largest fish. The whaleshark on the stamp is quite small, but they can grow to be 18 metres long (that’s longer than nine men lined up head to toe)! On the 50c stamp Father Christmas sits on a green turtle and hands out presents to the red crabs of Christmas Island, while red-footed booby birds sing carols from a tree.
Issue date 31 October 2003
Stamp Collector Kit Check out this funky stamp kit available at Post Offices near you. It’s got everything you need to start your collection – a cool clear case and binder to hold everything together, stock sheets, tweezers, a magnifying glass, a Stamp Gang membership form and a packet of used stamps to get you started! All this for only $19.95!
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RUGBY WORLD CUP
2003
T
Twenty national teams play in the tournament: the quarter-finalists from the last World Cup: Australia, France, South Africa, New Zealand, England, Wales, Scotland and Argentina and twelve teams that qualified in regional competitions.
he Rugby World Cup is one of the most popular and biggest sports events in the world.
It is held every four years and this year it will be held in Australia. This is the fifth Rugby World Cup, and Australia has won it twice before. This will be the first time the final is played in Australia and the first time ever the host nation will also be defending its title.
Matches are played in four pools of five teams each. The top two teams in each of the four pools advance to the Quarter Finals. The Quarter Finals winners then progress to the Final which will be played at Telstra Stadium in Sydney on 22 November 2003. This is the stadium built for the 2000 Olympic Games (it's pictured in the centre stamp of the minisheet).
Altogether there will be 48 matches over 44 days. Matches will be played in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Canberra, Gosford, Townsville, Launceston, Adelaide and Wollongong.
Issue date 8 October 2003
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Rugby World Cup Record Year
Venue
Result
1987 1991 1995 1999 2003
Eden Park, New Zealand Twickenham, England Ellis Park, South Africa Millennium Stadium, Wales Telstra Stadium, Australia
New Zealand (29) France (9) Australia (12) England (6) South Africa (15) New Zealand (12) Australia (35) France (12) ???????
Qualifying Pools for Rugby World Cup 2003 POOL A
POOL B
POOL C
POOL D
Australia Argentina Ireland Namibia Romania
France Scotland Fiji Japan USA
South Africa England Samoa Georgia Uruguay
New Zealand Wales Italy Canada Tonga
Bold = 1999 Quarter-Finalists with automatic entry to 2003. The remaining 12 qualified in regional qualifying rounds (Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania).
Australia Post is releasing a special book to celebrate the Rugby World Cup 2003. It tells about the four previous Rugby World Cup tournaments and the lead up to the 2003 contest. It’s written by Nick Farr-Jones, the captain of Australia’s Rugby World Cup winning team in 1991. It's packed full of great photos from some of the greatest games of rugby ever!
ASTHMA
Active with Asthma Asthma is pronounced ‘assma’. It is a tricky word to spell because some of its letters don’t do anything at all!
What do Alan Border, Sam Riley, Susie Moroney, Liz Ellis and Paul Kelly have in common? They are all famous sports stars, and all of them have asthma. More than two million Australians have asthma. This means that sometimes the airways in their lungs become very narrow, making it hard for them to breathe. There is no cure for asthma, but it can be controlled with medicine and a plan for what to do when asthma symptoms appear. As our list of famous athletes proves, people with asthma can live normal active lives. And that’s the message these stamps are designed to give. Active with Asthma is also the theme for Asthma Australia’s National Asthma Week campaign. Find out more about Asthma on-line at www.asthmaaustralia.org.au
Do your friends a favour! Tell them they can subscribe to the Australian Stamp Explorer. And it's free! All they have to do is send their name and address to: Stamp Explorer Subscriptions P O Box 4000 Ferntreee Gully VIC 3156 We will send them a subscription form. Remember, always check with Mum or Dad first!
Issue date: 14 October 2003
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CHRISTMAS 2003
T
his year’s colourful Christmas stamps were designed by Aboriginal artist Sally Morgan. They depict scenes from the Christmas story: the 45c stamp shows Mary and the baby Jesus, the 50c stamp shows the three wise men and in the 90c stamp an angel tells shepherds the good news about Jesus’ birth. Sally Morgan is a famous artist and writer. She is descended from the Palku people of the Pilbara in Western Australia. The Palku have a long history of drawing and painting to tell their stories. Sally is best known for her book My Place but she has also written two plays and several children’s books, including The Flying Emu, a collection of short stories which she also illustrated. Issue date 31 October 2003
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Competition Winners
Questions & Answers What is it? The members of the Stamp Gang have been using their magnifying glasses to study the smallest details of the new stamp issues.
Explorer 73’s colouring-in design was the $1.45 Nella Dan stamp from the AAT ships issue. The winners’ names are printed below.
Can you figure out which stamp this is from?
NSW: Katrina Chow; Isabella Cannarella; Alex Job; Alice Bendeich; Prue Zak VIC: Andrew J Fitzpatrick; Illyse Schram; Alana Meehan; Lachlan Aylett; Carla Simmons QLD: Rianna Williams; Jarvis Hartnett; Ebony Gerken; Bethany Turner; Lucinda Appleton SA: Michelle Loi; Nathan Burton; Mason Robertson WA: Robert Langridge; Hannah Filsell; Stephanie Wintle; Britney Wilson TAS: Bonnie Jones; Jock Grey
Subscribers have a chance to win a stamp collecting related prize in this issue’s colouring in competition. Someone put the Gang’s list of bugs through the shredder and chopped them all in half. Can you put them back together? EWING DAMS F UITO GRAS DRAG LAC MO TID
MOSQ TLE TH MAN RFLY LAD SLA YBIRD ADA
SHOPPER CATER SCOR BEE NT PION A CIC PILLAR
NEFLY TER IPEDE CRA LY BUTTE ELEFLY CENT ONFLY
All you have to do is colour your “Colour me in” competition entry form (it‘s opposite the order form). Send in your entry by 15 January 2004 to Stamp Explorer Colour me in E75 Locked Bag 3303 Kew Vic 3101 The best twenty entries win! Winners names will be printed in Stamp Explorer 77.
A list of answers is printed at the bottom of page 3.
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Sniffer’s Letters Hi gang Bugs (and butterflies) are collectors' favourites and not just stamps collectors. Some people collect anything with a butterfly on it, jewellery, t-shirts, absolutely anything. Icky collects bugs, actual real live bugs. I tried that, but I kept forgetting to collect them and ate them. Then there was my flea collection, also a mistake, I still get itchy when I think about that. You know a collecting theme can be very general, like 'bugs', or very specific, like 'ladybirds', or 'green mantids', or 'hidden images of insects'. This year's Stamp Collecting Month issue would fit perfectly into any of those collections. Love Sniffer and the Stamp Gang
Katrina Chow NSW
Lachlan Aylett VIC
Britney Wilson WA
Lucinda Appleton QLD
One of the hardest things the Stamp Gang has to do is pick the winners of each 'Colour me in' contest. Every one is excellent in its own way. Here are just four of the many fine entries you have sent.
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In Explorer 76 we'll show you the first stamps for 2004 The Year of the Monkey, Mawson Base, beautiful bridges and more!
