For 2020 Australia Post has altered the format of its Year Books. Gone are the Hawid / Safe style mounts that the buyer inserts the loose stamps into and in its place the entire page is gummed with the stamp designs printed as part of the page and perforated accordingly.

Page 65 of ALL Year books have an error where the word Australia has been omitted!

DONT get scammed by unscrupulous bottom feeding oportunists charging like wounded bulls for just this item. At least one Eastern State dealer is hyping this up as a thing to buy now as an "investment" at hundreds of dollars for just the block of 4 shown removed from the page. EBay low lifes are also trying to cash in!

The item is NOT RARE as EVERY year book has it and the books are still available as of writing this (Jan 5 2021) from Australia Post Shops and online for just over $120

As to its status as an error - surely this is questionable? How many eyes looked at the proofs before going to print - so is it deliberate as a "marketing idea" by the boffins at Aust. Post? Every collector wants errors in their collections. Is what the book contains actually stamps as they were never issued over the counter in this format? I personally am dissapointed with the new format as I collect stamps not perforated and gummed book pages.

Additionaly most of the other "stamps" in the book are in a format not available over the counter.

Buyer Beware - if you believe its worth a huge premium then its your money to spend but I would locate the complete book then go out and buy some good bottles of red.

Another point to bear in mind is that historically these year books don't hold their value and sell for a pittance at auctions. Many people source year books simply to remove the stamps for their MUH collections. Anything produced exclusively for and marketed as "collectible" seldom has any real value as an investment due to sheer volume produced.

I may be completely off the mark here as to my opinion (and it is only my opinion) and the values of these may skyrocket. The market will eventually determine their true worth.

Many of these books will no doubt get torn up just to get the different block configurations. But I restate my case - THEY ARE NOT RARITIES. Many 10's of thousands of these books have been printed and if it is truly an "error" that "missing Australia" was not seen by the person/s approving the draft copies and gone unnoticed it is now a very common one.

I have also noted online "value adding" where this error has been put on a cover and posted as this usage should be "scarce" as the books were / are aimed squarely at the collector market and a true collector would not engage in this sort of unscrupulous and blatantly predatory sort of practice to inflate a percieved price.

Rant Over - its all up to you...