Postage Stamps and Postal History of Malta - 1974 To Date

1974 To Date

In 1974 the stamp issues were quite leftish and on December 31, 1974, Malta became an independent republic installing a President and ending the role of the Queen and Westminster. Since 1974 Malta has been a republic with a Maltese president as head of state. In 1979 the British naval presence in Malta was ended and they were forciably evicted under the Neilsen accord. Malta declared itself as an island of peace, with Libya as the main ally. Stamp issues at this time were flat but about 5 came out a year. The later 80s saw a return to form, some more innovative sets came out and by 1987, the Mintoff Labour government had gone, to be replaced by a more pro Westminster government and the rejection of socialism and Libya followed, especially in the midst of the Lockerbie bombing. Great sets included Maltese shipping and Maltese uniforms (The first to reuse English language as they realised that English speaking collectors would buy this set). The 1990s and millennium saw the number of sets per year increase and more use of photography and high quality art, made these stamp issues very collectable. Nearly all of the stamps were local topics and therefore Malta has upheld a reputation of conservative issuing of collectable stamps. Postage rates on the island have also remained very cheap, and English has taken over from Malta as the predominant language on stamps and of the people.

From 1999 to 2003, a definitive set depicting Maltese flowers was issued in four sets of 6. Later in 2003 the local and foreign rates (7c, 16c) were re-issued as smaller, self-adhesive booklet stamps. These are the only self-adhesive stamps ever issued by Malta. Reprints of the 7c and 16c values were made in 2005, as personalised stamps, and in 2006 the 1c was reissued with a different inscription at the foot and with a watermark (The original 1999-2003 stamps had no watermark). In all 27 gummed stamps and 2 self-adhesive stamps were issued.

In 2004 they joined the European Union and in 2008 the Euro was adopted. The only complaint, being since 2003 there have been a lot of sets with rogue high values of 2 or more Euros in sets, when standard postage is €0.26. The highest face values were:

• €5.00 in the 2009 Definitive set,
• €4.66 in the 2007 Caravaggio miniature sheet,
• €4.16 in the 2011 Senate and Legislative Assembly and 2012 George Cross miniature sheets,
• €3.49 in the 2007 Prehistoric Sculptures set,
• €3.00 in the 2008 St. Paul set, in the 2008 Cruise Liners I set, in the 2009 Vintage Postal Transportation set, in the 2010 Pope's Visit miniature sheet

Although such issues state the need for values with little practical use other than thematic collecting, higher values are still used on parcels or registered letters since postage labels are rarely used in Malta compared to other countries. Until recently, MaltaPost was managed by Transworld Enterprises, a subsidiary of NZPost based in New Zealand.

Ever since, Malta issued about 1880 stamps and miniature sheets (as of 2013) and also takes part in various programmes including Europa (since 1971), WWF (since 1991), SEPAC (since 2007), etc. Since 2006, the Europa stamps were also issued in booklets. Malta also issues joint issues such as with Denmark (2005), Vatican City (2007), Gibraltar (2010) and Iceland (2011).