Singapore - Liechtenstein - Joint stamp issue 10.11.2014

To mark the strengthened relations, Singapore Post and Philatelie Liechtenstein released a joint stamp issue on 10.11.2014. This is the first joint stamp issue between the two postal organisations.

The Singapore-Liechtenstein joint stamp issue comprises two stamp designs "Singapore" and "Liechtenstein" with the value of S$1.30 each.  

Liechtenstein, which is located between Austria and Switzerland, lies at the heart of Europe. It is the fourth-smallest state in Europe and sixth-smallest country in the world. The capital of Liechtenstein is Vaduz which is home to many historical and cultural attractions.

The Liechtenstein stamp is part of a painting, "Looking at Vaduz" by Ms Hong Sek Chern from Singapore who is well known in Asia for her ink paintings. The painting is an attempt to depict the town of Vaduz in a non-homogenous way. It depicts an aerial view of the town of Vaduz, aspects of the national bank and Vaduz cathedral incorporated into the middle portion and suggestions of snowscape in other portions.

Singapore, which lies at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, is a bustling cosmopolitan city with landscape populated by high-rise buildings and gardens. One interesting facet about Singapore is a ubiquitous collage of cultures, where people of different ethnicities and beliefs coexist in unity.

The Singapore stamp is designed by Jens W Beyrich, an artist working in Liechtenstein. It illustrates his perception of Singapore. The stamp design is developed along a mathematical concept. The design looks like a complex structure with six equally sided and sized triangles that can configured into 12 possible different arrangements. It can fit all the 12 different pieces into a surface of a rhomb with a six-fold side length. Rotating the rhomb structure around one of its large angle corners generates a regular hexagon, and with some imagination, a visual of a cube. The artwork symbolises virtues and essentials of Singapore that has equilibrium of amazing progress and growth despite complexity.