Errors on Bulgarian stamps

Speaking of errors on Bulgarian stamps, the following is thick.

Resume: In 2009 Bulgaria issued this block (Mi 313) commemorating the re-establishment of the country’s independence where the current coat of arms (bottom) is rendered completely wrong.

So, this is not about an error during the printing process but rather a blunder from the designer, Stefan Gruev, and the issuing administration. When Gruev was commissioned with creating the block, he’d failed to consult the only reliable source regarding the visual rendition of Bulgaria’s coat of arms, the relevant law (the link is to the English version of the law on the website of Bulgaria’s Parliament where there is an image too).

Instead, he took inspiration from somewhere else. This, I suppose, is the usual way artists act, but trespassing of the laws regarding the use of state symbols. Of course, there’s an explanation, though not an excuse, to his decision.

The current image of the national coat of arms was adopted by the Parliament in 1997 after months of discussions (during this time striking was the absence of any heraldic expertise). In the meantime, Bulgaria’s President had ordered for the Ceremonial Hall of the institution a plastic figure of the coat of arms. A movie production company was commissioned with creating it. The author of the official coat of arms, Georgi Chapkanov, made a big fuss about it (an article in Bulgarian from that time).

The result was that the ‘false’ coat of arms was widely circulated on the web, hence our stamp designer might have easily found it ten years later and took it for the ‘real thing’.