I used to collect stamps. I had a brilliant collection (I thought), but it just stayed in my cellar storage when I moved on to record collecting. Eventually I sold most of it, but I keep finding remnants — first day covers, or bits of sheets of stamps whenever I go through old boxes of books or such.

I saw that Madagascar (of all places) had released a set of stamps with Banksy’s art in 2018. They released two mini sheets — One with four Malagasy Ariary 18.00 postage stamps and the other with a single Malagasy Ariary 65.00 diamond-shaped stamp.

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Some further research, via that well-known research engine, Ebay, turned up an even earlier use of Banksy’s art on a mini sheet of stamps produced in a prestige stamp booklet by the Royal Mail on January 7th, 2010. This booklet was produced to celebrate famous record covers: Pink Floyd — The Division Bell, Coldplay — A Rush of Blood to the Head, Blur — Parklife, New Order — Power Corruption and Lies, The Rolling Stones — Let It Bleed, The Clash — London Calling, Mike Oldfield — Tubular Bells, Led Zeppelin — IV, Primal Scream — Screamadelica and David Bowie — The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.

However, also included in the booklet were two mini sheets of ordinary definitive stamps (i.e. standard stamps bearing only the Queen’s head). One of these had a Banksy connection.

So I rekindlled my stamp-collecting and added these to my Banksy collection.