STAMPA is the Irish National Stamp Exhibition, which has been held annually since 1972, with only a two-year break caused by the pandemic.
In 2023, the exhibition was held over the weekend of October 6th to 8th in the exhibition hall at the Griffith Conference Center, in Dublin. In addition to the philatelic exhibition, this event brought together ten dealers, An Post, the STAMPA organization, and FAI, a German study group specializing in Irish philately.
While in other countries such exhibitions are organised by national philatelic federations and/or postal administrations, the Irish National Stamp Exhibition Limited is a non-profit making company, run on a voluntary basis by an elected Council. The exhibition was historically funded by the souvenirs and special postal and philatelic products produced for the event and sold by the organisation, together with the collaboration of An Post. However, after the covid pandemic, An Post withdrew its financial support.
This introduction is important to understand the origin of the special issues of variable value stamps. Without direct financial support from An Post, the STAMPA organisation had to find new sources of funding and asked An Post for the temporary loan of an EasyPost printer to issue variable value stamps with a special commemorative imprint.