1999 New Zealand Art - Doris Lusk

Doris Lusk is one of a small group of important New Zealand painters who emerged during the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s. Throughout a highly productive painting career that spanned five decades, Lusk explored both landscape painting and portraiture.

The four stamps covering 1948 - 1982.

1999 Art Deco Buildings

        One architectural style dominated construction in the 1930s - Art Deco. Popular between 1925 and 1950, the style symbolised the early 20th century's fascination with speed, power, technology and progress. Art Deco architecture is known for its simplest design, clean shapes, apparent flat roof, often with a streamlined appearance. The material of choice was usually ferroconcrete or steel reinforced concrete. A building of this style stands out from those around it.
        The rise of Art Deco in New Zealand was in part brought about by the disastrous Napier earthquake of 1931, which reduced most of the town to rubble. Rebuilt, literally from the ground up, Napier became the home of some of the most beautiful and famous Art Deco buildings in the Southern Hemisphere. The town's reputation is now so well established that in February 1999, Napier hosted the Fifth World Congress on Art Deco.
        Art Deco style reaches well beyond Napier, of course. Classic and diverse examples of Art Deco architecture can be found all over New Zealand, four are shown in this stamp issue.

1999 Victoria University Centenary

        In 1999, Victoria University proudly celebrated 100 years of scholarship and success. New Zealand Post issued a special stamp to commemorate the centennial celebrations. The 100th birthday celebrations were a year-long affair, bound together by the theme of ‘Changing Lives’, and culminating in the official centennial week. 
        The entire occasion was a unique opportunity to showcase the University’s academic achievements, past and present, and to publicise the many successes of graduates, scholars and staff. Activities included garden parties, conferences and reunions as well as major musical, sporting and artistic events.

40c - Hunter Building, Victoria University.

This 40c stamp depicted the Hunter building, a neo-gothic building officially opened in 1906 and situated on the main campus.

1998 Memorial Statues - Joint Issue with Turkey

The Gallipoli Campaign.
          On 25 April 1915, British, French, Australian and New Zealand forces launched a major sea and land offensive at the tip of the Gallipoli Peninsula in the Canakkale province of Turkey. The aim was to open up a new theatre of war as an alternative to the stalemate in France, relieve pressure on Russian forces by the Turks in the Caucasus and provide a direct link with Russia through the Black Sea by gaining control of Istanbul, the Dardanelles and Bosporus Straits.
          However, the Allied commanders who planned the offensive, First Munitions Minister David Lloyd George, First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, General Kitchener and Admiral Cardin, dramatically underestimated the resolve of the Turks. Dug into the hills overlooking the beachheads, the defenders put up stiff resistance, inspired by the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (later, founder of the Turkish Republic and its first President).
          The Gallipoli campaign lasted 9 months and involved more than a million men. By the time it was officially abandoned on 8 January 1916, both sides had suffered horrendous casualties. New Zealand and Australian troops particularly had taken a real pounding having been landed on the wrong beach surrounded by steep hills, an almost impossible situation. Over 33,000 allied and 86,000 Turkish troops died in the campaign. 
          New Zealand and Turkey have since created a relationship of goodwill and, each year many New Zealanders travel to Turkey to remember those who died on the Gallipoli Peninsula.

1997 Fly Fishing.

Brown Trout.

Once we took an overseas visitor trout fishing in a stream near Rotorua. We tried a couple of places and didn't have much luck. My friend decided to teach our visitor how to fly fish and was showing him how to caste and draw the fly back across the water's surface. His second cast he got one. Can you believe it? All the luck! Well, in the excitement, he slipped on some rocks and almost ended up in the water with the trout much to the amusement of us sitting watching. But eventually, the two of them managed to save our visitor, the rod and his trout. So that evening we had a large Brown Trout, wrapped in tin foil and cooked on the barbeque. Lovely!

1997 Creepy Crawlies

New Zealand is home to a wide range of creatures that creep, crawl, slither and fly. In this issue, New Zealand Post issued 10 self-adhesive stamps in a booklet format, featuring ten of these Creepy Crawlies.

The species depicted in the Creepy Crawlies stamp issue may not be the most obviously endearing of New Zealand's many and varied forms of wildlife. Your instinct, should you come across one of them in your home or garden, maybe to crush them underfoot. Stop yourself! Each and every one of these species plays a vital role in the ecosystem it lives in, each is a part of New Zealand's extraordinarily rich biological diversity. Many of them, including the giant wētā, are threatened by introduced predators. This stamp issue was one way to acknowledge the importance of these species. It reminded us that Creepy Crawlies are part of our unique web of life here in New Zealand and that they deserve to be celebrated in the same way that the Hector's dolphin and the tuatara are in our own small, but special, corner of the world.

1996 Extinct New Zealand Native Birds

When New Zealand broke away from the great southern supercontinent Gondwanaland some 80 million years ago, birds were abundant. But snakes and land mammals, apart from bats, were absent. It was paradise for the original birds and others that flew or floated here later.

        The same qualities that have made many New Zealand birds distinct from others around the world have also helped to make them extinct. Flightlessness and bulk, along with tens of thousands of years living in a predator-free environment, left many bird species vulnerable when they began sharing the islands with humans and introduced predators.

1998 Underwater World

        The New Zealand coastline is around 11,000 kilometres in total. It is surrounded by some of the richest and cleanest waters on the planet, and a diverse underwater world that has earned New Zealand an international reputation.
        The cornerstone for such a rich sea life is plankton. Our seas teem with these minute plants and animals, so there is plenty of food for the wide range of migratory and local fish that live in the mix of cool and warm currents that reach our shores.

These special stamps featured some of the creatures from New Zealand's diverse underwater world.

2018 Ross Dependency - Aircraft.

        Throughout New Zealand’s Antarctic presence, aircraft have provided transport both to and across the icy continent. Land and sea-based alternatives are highly time consuming or unsafe. Much of Antarctica’s surface is covered by crevassed ice and coastal areas by seasonal sea ice.
        The basic principles of Antarctic aircraft operations haven’t changed much in their 60-year history. First is the connection between New Zealand and Antarctica and second is the support of operations within Antarctica. 
        Transport from New Zealand is provided by the RNZAF (New Zealand Air Force) using the Lockheed C130 Hercules and more recently the Boeing 757. USA aircraft also provide assistance in this connection with both the USA and NZ aircraft flying out of Christchurch.        
        Science teams based in Antarctica rely on the collective capability of the aircraft type and their crews to reach areas not easily accessible by other modes of transport. Whilst technological advances assist in navigation, aircraft reliability and weather forecasting, Antarctica remains a demanding and unpredictable environment in which to operate. Without aircraft for transport, the important scientific research localities of Antarctica would be practically inaccessible.

1996 Emergency Rescue Services

New Zealand’s rescue services provide the country with an important safety net, including well-trained people who are dedicated to the task of rescuing others. Danger comes in many forms. Fire, flood, earthquake, cyclone and far too often human error, all pose a threat to people’s safety. There are eight New Zealand rescue organisations featured on the new stamp issue - they all have one thing in common, saving lives. 

2018 Christmas.

The five gummed stamps on a FDC.
The Christmas 2018 stamps go back to the roots of this annual celebration – the Nativity scene. The enchanting and enduring Nativity story encapsulates the meaning of Christmas for many.

1999 Native Tree Flowers

There are more than 250,000 species of flowering plants in the world. New Zealand has just a tiny fraction of that number - a little over 2,200 – 600 of which grow in our native forests. Once considered dull and lacking in colour, our flowering trees are now enjoying a strong upsurge in interest. More and more New Zealanders are coming to realise that we are indeed blessed with some of the most outstanding native tree flowers in the world.

1996 Race Horses.

$1.80 'Bonecrusher' (used).

The “Sport of Kings” is a well-recognised feature of New Zealand life. The big meetings attract huge crowds and generate much excitement with harness racing also making a big impact along with the more established gallops. The horse racing industry that employs tens of thousands of people and New Zealand-bred yearlings attract buyers from around the world and bring in millions of dollars in export earnings annually. Six of the country's more recent (1996) crowd-pleasers were featured in this special Racehorses stamp issue. 

2018 - Macao 2018 Exhibition.

This was the header photo for this issue on the NZ Post website.

It shows both miniature sheets and the cute little kiwi too.

The Macao stamp exhibition is the first great international philatelic event in Asia organised by the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China. It took place at The Venetian Macao - Conference & Exhibition Centre from 21 to 24 September 2018.

From 1977 to 2017, a total of 34 exhibitions have been held in different parts of Asia - Macao 2018 is the 35th Asian International Stamp Exhibition.

New Zealand Post has created unique 2018 Round Kiwi and Predator Free 2050 miniature sheets and miniature sheet first day covers for this event.