Cuba 1952 - Sc 498-99 (EDIFIL 532-33) - 1952-53 Christmas stamps.
Stamps issued to celebrate the 1952-53 Christmas holiday. These are unused, original gum, never hinged, singles. The EDIFIL Catalogue price is € 16,- (US $ 22.00) . Scott prices them at US $ 14.50 for never hinged singles. In our experience, this is one of the scarcer of all of the Cuba Christmas issues. By the way, the reason why these stamps are inscribed 1952 - NAVIDADES - 1953 is not that they were issued to be used on two consecutive Christmas holidays, but on the same Christmas holiday. This reflects the fact that Cuban kids get presents (or at least used to, unfortunately) from Santa Claus on the morning of December 25th (of 1952 in this case) and again, from the Three Kings on the morning of January 6th (of 1953 in this case) so the Christmas celebration extended from December 25th to January 6th of the next year. Cuban kids were very lucky back then, but unfortunately not so much nowadays.