Isabel Vieira read in a Portuguese newspaper that a Portuguese stamp won an Asiago International Award for Philatelic Art this year.

I couldn’t find an official site, not even in Italian, but stumbled upon an article in Linn’s Stamp News with full information on the 44th Asiago Awards, considered the “Oscars” of stamp design. The Portuguese stamp, above, by João Machado, and part of the 2013 International Year of Statistics set, won the tourism category. Confusingly, all Portuguese blogs and newspapers I found, probably citing the same source, say the award went to the €0.36 stamp, which in my view makes even less sense to be considered a tourism stamp.

The designer had already won three Asiago awards, in 2005 (tourism), 2007 (environment category) and 2010 (tourism). Portugal also won (ex aequo with Switzerland) the tourism category in 2011, with the funicular stamps by Eduardo Aires. CTT sources say that another Asiago award (tourism category again?) was won in 1977 with a Europa stamp.

If you have further information, please leave a comment below.

Although the AGM is still a week away, I really hope everyone has a great time.

Welcome to the new PPS website, re-built and re-styled from scratch! I thank the previous Webmaster, João Paulo Cota, and the Treasurer, Francis Rodrigues, for their assistance in the handover process.

Being a British society related to Portugal, I chose a look based on the common colours of the Union Jack and the Portuguese flag: red, blue and white.

Over time, I will copy over the content of the old website and edit it to fit the new blog format, to remove old dead links, to make use of the features (like image galleries) of the new platform used (WordPress), etc. I will keep attribution of the past entries to the previous Webmaster.

If you spot any mistakes or omissions in any entry, please leave a comment in that entry. Note that your first comment will be moderated, to prevent spam. For comments or suggestions regarding the website in general, please contact me directly.

I hope you enjoy the new site and look forward to your contributions.

The National Court judge, Santiago Pedraz, has ordered the lifting of the tapes which have been preventing entry into the Afinsa company, one of the two stamp trading businesses intervened last week.

It means the Judicial Administrator can now start work and searches of the offices and those of company affiliates are expected to continue all week.

The offices of Fórum Filatélico are expected to be opened in a similar way later in the week.

Meanwhile, the National Court judges who are investigating the alleged stamp company frauds, Santiago Pedraz and Fernando Grande-Marlaska, have today called for an office to support the people who have invested in the companies. The idea is also to set up an Internet page where those affected will be able to obtain upto date information.

From typicallyspanish.com

The top directors of both Afinsa and Forum Filatélico were arrested by the Spanish Police and are still in jail, awaiting results of ongoing Judicial investigations related to this case. Shares of the Spanish philatelic group – the third largest collectibles house worldwide, after Sotheby’s and Christies – crashed creating waves in the philatelic markets worldwide; Stanley Gibbons shares fell slightly too. Even though the later is also heavily involved in philatelic investments for the general public, this is in no way connected with their Spanish counterparts actions.

Britain based, Portuguese Philatelic Society (PPS) was recently awarded the prestigious Invaluable Services Order award from the Portuguese Philatelic Federation (FPF). This award was presented to the PPS at a dinner function hosted by the FPF in Lisbon on the 4th December, 2004.

Federação Portuguesa de Filatelia (FPF) celebrated 50 years of its existence last year and they ended their year long festivities with a great gala dinner for members and invitees at the old FIL expo site at Alcantra, Lisbon area. The PPS attended the function with a contingent of about 10 people from the UK and USA.

During the function, the PPS was awarded the MEDAL OF INESTIMABLE MERIT and our honourable president Mr Hal Reynolds received it on behalf of the PPS.

During the function also, distinguished PPS member, Mr John Dahl was awarded an award for his contribution to Portuguese Philately.