Great Britain’s Royal Mail is celebrating 500 years of regular, organized mail service in 2016, and is issuing 10 stamps Feb. 17 to commemorate developments in its postal service. A booklet and other items are being released the next day, Feb. 18. The stamp set is called Royal Mail 500.

The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, a name expressing more truth than poetry, arose out of the ashes of World War I as a marriage of convenience. It issued stamps from 1918 until the name of the country was officially changed to Yugoslavia (land of the Southern Slavs) on Oct. 3, 1929.

The American Stamp Dealers Association is giving away a two-night stay in New York City during World Stamp Show-NY 2016 at its show this weekend in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. The ASDA Winter Postage Stamp Show runs Feb. 12-14 at the War Memorial Auditorium at 800 NE 8th St. in Ft. Lauderdale. Admission is free.

Six new stamps from the United Nations Postal Administration promote a public education campaign to raise awareness for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender equality. The name of the campaign “Free & Equal” is inscribed on each of the six UNPA stamps issued Feb. 5.

On Feb. 3, an all-women post office was dedicated and opened as a in the Indian town of Singjamei in the Manipur province, according to KanglaOnline.com. In addition to having a female postmaster and staff, KanglaOnline.com reports, “This Sub Post Office serves postal and financial requirements of [a] large number of people, among them [a] majority are women.”

On May 14, 1948, following the proclamation of the state of Israel, the armed forces (the Arab Legion) of Jordan entered Palestine and occupied an area of the Palestinian territories. Jordan was able to seize the old city of Jerusalem, Jericho, Bethlehem, Ramallah, Jenin, and Tulkarm among others.

France’s La Poste issued a booklet of 12 stamps Jan. 7 called Mineral World. The stamps picture minerals from the collection of the Mineralogy Museum at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Mines de Paris. This engineering school is often referred to as MINES ParisTech.

The 2015 revised edition of James Bendon's UPU Specimen Stamps 1878-1961 will be the go-to reference work on this subject for decades to come.

Also this week, we preview an Eastern Auctions sale that covers the world, John Hotchner gets a belly laugh from a reader's expertizing inquiry, and the late prolific stamp artist Howard Koslow is remembered.

In 1912, Bolivian postal authorities overprinted in red and surcharged a 1-centavo blue Justice transactions revenue stamp to 10c for use as a postage stamp.

The Toronto Sun is reporting that a group called Canada’s Republic Now, is insisting that the Royal Canadian Mint and Canada Post remove Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-reigning monarch in modern history, from the country's stamps and coins.

Fifteen members of The Royal Philatelic Society London, all living in the East Midlands, presented the displays shown to members during the afternoon of 28 January.

The Italia al Lavoro series of pictorial definitives came upon the scene Oct. 20, 1950, as a series of 19 vertically formatted, monochrome pictorial definitives (Scott 549-567). Denominated from 50 centesimi to 200 lire, the 24-millimeter by 40mm stamps were initially printed in sheets of 50 on paper with one of three Winged Wheel watermarks at the State Printing Institute Office of Securities in Rome.

Larry Rosenblum returns to Linn’s with a bimonthly column dedicated to the stamps and postal history of France.

In the December 21, 2015, Linn’s monthly, I mentioned determined officials in London — early exponents of the adage “what is good for business is good for the country” — who put through a bold and astonishing postal reform that brought down rates, sometimes as high as 16 pence, uniformly to a single penny.

Alphonse Mucha is perhaps the best-known artist of the art nouveau movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and a great stamp artist as well.

Australia Post’s recent rate increase has created a new rarity ? specially-printed 30¢ stamps available only for a short time in the Adelaide area.

Recent stamps conveying themes of love or commemorating events have featured a heart as their main design or are shaped like a heart.

Known as “ships of the desert,” camels have provided transportation, food, and fuel for people living in desert regions for more than 3,000 years, and their importance has long been recognized on postage stamps. In the classic era of postage stamps, 1840-1940, more than 30 postal entities issued stamps that picture camels, according to the American Topical Association’s checklist of camels and dromedaries.

From 1967 through 1971, Spain issued stamps showing regional national costumes. With the exception of 1971, there were 12 Regional Costume stamps issued each year.