Philatelic Association of Sri Lanka releases new reference study on 'stamp-on-stamp' issues

A new specialist philatelic reference devoted to Sri Lanka’s “stamp-on-stamp” issues was released on 9 September 2026 through Philately.lk, the online portal associated with the Philatelic Association of Sri Lanka. Created by Indika Lakmal Pathiraja for free distribution, the 21-page publication examines Sri Lankan and Ceylon postage stamps that reproduce or incorporate earlier stamp designs.

The study identifies ten principal Sri Lankan stamp-on-stamp subjects spanning more than six decades. They begin with the 1957 centenary of the first Ceylon postage stamp and include issues marking the death centenary of Sir Rowland Hill, the 125th anniversary of the first postage stamp, fifty years of independence, the fiftieth anniversary of the first Europa stamp, anniversaries of Sri Lanka’s first postage stamp, the National Postal Museum and Philatelic Exhibition Centre, World Post Day 2015, and the fiftieth anniversary of the Republic of Sri Lanka.

Rather than functioning only as an illustrated checklist, the publication links each later reproducing stamp with the earlier stamp depicted in its design. It provides issue dates, Stanley Gibbons catalogue references, printers, designers where known, series descriptions and explanations of the relationship between the original and reproducing issues. Examples include the 1957 Ceylon centenary pair reproducing the country’s first 1857 stamp and the 2017 four-stamp issue marking the 160th anniversary of Sri Lanka’s first postage stamp.

For thematic collectors, the reference brings together material that would otherwise be scattered across different periods and commemorative programmes. Stamp-on-stamp collecting is particularly useful for studying how postal administrations reinterpret their own design heritage, while also creating connections between classic issues and modern commemoratives. The Sri Lankan examples span colonial Ceylon, independence, the republican era, postal museums and international postal anniversaries.

The publication is available as a free downloadable PDF. The release page and the document itself both identify 9 September 2026 as the publication date. The work cites Sri Lanka Philatelic Bureau reference volumes among its sources and presents itself as a collector-oriented reference rather than an official postal catalogue.