The Philatelic Service gives full credit to stamp designers in its catalogues (The JNF and the Philatelists Association do not). However, First Day Covers (FDCs) and other non-stamp philatelic products do not receive the same treatment. Is it correct to assume that a stamp designer always gets the commission to design the envelope? Reuven Cohen, who was for years a member of the advisory committee of the Philatelic Service , told me that there was no consistent policy regarding the design of the envelopes.

I wanted to find for myself in the Philatelic Service archive who designed the FDC of stamps designed by Shamir brothers and was refused. They said: "No strangers were allowed in the Philatelic Service archive." After long negotiations and an intervention by the Posta Authorityl Director in 2008, they agreed and Itzik Granot, their former production manager, examined the stamp portfolios and made a list of envelopes designed by Shamir.

Press Releases on the issuing of stamps usually specified the names of the stamp designers as well as the designers of the FDC. My search through newspapers yielded a longer list of Shamir designed FDCs than the ones on the list produced by Itzik Granot. Since the information published in several papers on the same stamp was the same, I assumed that the editors of the philately sections received the information from the same source - the Philatelic Service. I asked them to locate the files with their press releases and the answer was - "not found".

Gideon Marinsky, the current manager of “Production Range” ( תחום הפקה ) wrote to me that it is most likely the First Day Cover envelopes of Shamir stamps were also designed by Shamir. However, he pointed out that the envelope of the Shamir Bezalel stamp 1957 was designed by Miriam Karoly.

Yinon Beilin, the former director of the Israel Philatelic Service, conducted a further investigation in 2010, and concluded that it was very likely that the first day covers of the two stamp series of city emblems (designed by Shamir in 1965) were also designed by Shamir.

At the same time, Beilin indicated that the envelope of the 1950 Reuven Rubin Negev stamp was probably designed by Wind – Strussky. This contradicts the information I found in the philately columns of Davar and Al Hamishmar of 25.12.1950 which were clear that the FDC of the Negev stamp was designed by Shamir Brothers.

Two years later, in September 2012, I received from the Israeli Association of Stamp Collectors a Collector Guide – A Tourist Newsletter (in Hebrew and Russian). In it I found an ad by Gafny's Stamps Holyland (a Tel Aviv Stamp dealer). The ad included the images of a souvenir sheet of the Shamir Petah Tikva stamp and two FDC envelopes of the Negev stamp. One of the envelopes was issued by the Philatelic Service and a the other by a private producer. Both displayed an image of the Gulf of Eilat decorated with coral and shells. The second envelope had the signature of M. Shamir on it. Gafny's asking price for this “only one in existence” envelope was $ 2,500. I explained to him that all I needed was a scan of the item for the Shankar Institute for its graphic documentation database, and he promised to send me a scan.

Yoram Shamir  2012