España – Spain: 2025 Issues

Introduction

When my father retired, he spent the winters in Spain. Whenever I had the opportunity, I visited him. At some moment, we started to make an annual trip to a historic town in Spain. And what better could an avid stamp collector buy as a memento of such a trip than stamps. This started my collection of Spain's yearbooks of stamp issues.

My father died a long time ago. I still travel to Spain a few times a year. However, most post offices will not sell the yearbook. So, I order "Valores en el Tiempo" from Filatelia in Madrid. I, recently, received the 2025 edition. The last few days, I have been scanning the stamps to add to a wiki-type stamp catalogue. The catalogue is a mess and, in August 2026, had only a handful of entries for Spain for 2025.

Going through the issues made me aware of the large number of issues in small print runs. Many issues comprised a miniature sheet with a single high-value stamp that does not cover any of the common tariffs. This gave me the idea to start a thread showing the volume of issues for a single year.

175 años del primer sello de Correos de España

In Spain, Navidades start on Christmas Eve and end with Epiphany. With the Nativity period out of the way and the Three Kings making their way back to the East, Correos issued its first stamp of 2025 on January 7th.

Spain issued its first postage stamp on 1 January 1850. The stamp with the effigy of Queen Isabel II was engraved by Bartolomé Corominas and printed in black. It had a face value of 6 cuartos, prepaying carriage of a single-sheet letter of no more than 8 adarmes (½ ounce) within the Peninsula, Balearic Islands, and Canary Islands. The stamp issued on 7 January 2025, commemorated the 175th anniversary of the first Spanish postage stamp.

The self-adhesive stamp reproduces the first Spanish stamp. Its black frame with corner ornaments allude to the 6 cuartos stamp of 1850. The inscription at the bottom of the stamp identifies the occasion commemorated by the stamp. To the left appears the word "efémerides," meaning an anniversary with a fixed date.

In the lower left corner of the stamp appears the logotype of the Real Casa de la Moneda – Fábrica Nacional de Moneda y Timbre (RCM – FNMT) that printed the stamp. The year of issue appears in the lower right corner. The "ñ" symbol representing Spain appears above the year of issue and is cut out of the stamp.



Date of issue: 7 January 2025.
Issue: 175 years of the first Spanish postage stamp (175 años del primer sello de Correos de España).
Theme: efemérides (anniversaries).
Face value: Tarifa A (inland normalised postcard and letter rate, € 0.89 when issued)
Paper: self-adhesive, phosphor coated.
Size: 24.5 x 35 mm.
Perforation: die cut.
Printing process: offset printing.
Sheet size: 50 stamps.
Print run: unlimited, initial printing of 6,000,000.