Print quality on Japan's regular issue vs personalised issue

The prefecture issues you show here are personalized issues. They are not designed by Japan post but are printed by Japan post in small quantities as special orders by individuals or local entities. We have something similar here - have you ever seen zazzle or stamps.com issues where people can send in a personal photo and have stamps printed? The personalized issues all have those frames in common.

Here’s a Scott catalog listing for a few of these.

Right! You’ve got it! Frame stamps come in several sizes and can be quite fun to collect. There are a bazillion million of them out there - at least I think that’s the proper mathematical term. Ha ha! Or how about a googleplex? Oodles in any case. There are numerous sizes - vertical, horizontal etc. too.

OMG! As khj just said, I use to watch Ultraman every Saturday morning as a kid. Never thought that my super hero would get a stamp one day! lol

Thanks for sharing Linda

Linda, Linda:  Japan Post is not making the original decision about which designs appear on personalized issues -- another entity is involved in this.   My guess is that the company that owns the right to Ultraman, perhaps in conjunction with his hometown prefecture, is organizing this series of issues.   So it's a quasi-public/private deal, and typically for-profit.  I'm not totally sure, but I'm pretty sure the price of the stamps is more than their face value. 

These stamps won't be catalogued in any of the major catalogs -- because the generic elements of the stamp (the frame) are catalogued.  As philatelia said, there are an inordinate number of different issues, since they are, essentially, private issues, and of very limited quantity.   (Although they're not truly private issues, because they were issued under the imprimatur of Japan Post, and can be used for postage.) 

Let me just add that this is my current understanding of how the program works, but I'm always happy to be corrected about it.

So, 'frame' stamps are really just personalized stamps.  (Indeed, I actually have some of me made when I attended PhilaNippon in 2001, when the personalized stamps (then called "P-stamps", I think) were first introduced.)

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Prefecture issues are different from the frame stamps.  The stamps were/are produced by Japan Post, but to honor something local to or evocative of a prefecture or regional group of prefectures.   They sell for face value. 

When they were first introduced, they were only available in the prefecture(s), not nationally.  However, this caused some stamp catalogue publishers (particularly Scott) to question whether or not they should be listed, because they were essentially local issues, which are not ordinarily catalogued by the mainline publishers.  A compromise was made, where they were also available at the Central Post Office in Tokyo, where they could be ordered by customers who did not live in those prefectures.  (This was especially helpful for overseas collectors.)   That compromise resulted in prefectural stamps being listed as "Z"-prefix stamps in Scott.   (Others can explain how they're listed in Stanley Gibbons, Michel, Yvert, etc.)

Later (sorry, I'm not near my references to check dates), Japan Post changed the issuing policies, so that they are more widely available nationally, and Scott started including them in the main postage listings again.  This is the current policy.

But prefecture issues are not frame (personalized) stamps.  The design is like other stamps,  and issued by Japan Post.

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If you were able to consult a copy of the 'Sakura' stamp catalog (relatively inexpensive, especially considering it's fully illustrated in color), you'd see the 'taxonomy' of all these issue types.

I hope this is a bit helpful.  On the other hand, it may just triggered more questions instead ...

Philatarium --

Thank you for your detailed explanation! I learn news thing everyday on TSF

You are right on that these personalised stamps are sold at a higher price than their facial values. For example, this Mount Fuji sheet of 10 stamps of 84 yens is sold at 1600 yen, nearly double of the sum of the facial value of the stamps. I was wondering if anyone use them as regular postage stamps or in creating maxicards (I did anyway, though may be considered a waste?).

Let me correct and stop calling these 'frame stamps' prefectural issues to avoid confusion.