There’s a dangerous urban myth starting to take hold online, mostly down to a misinformed post on Facebook, which has been repeated on Reddit.
In it they state that when you turn 100 in Barbados you automatically qualify to be featured on a postage stamp. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.
It is true that relatives of centenarians have been approaching the Barbados philatelic bureau asking when their elderly family member will be featured, but the answer has always been, they won’t.
The misunderstanding has come from the fact that in 2016 Barbados decided to celebrate the notable longevity of its citizens by issuing a set of stamps featuring all the current centenarians. The set was featured on this website and even made it to Time magazine, but it was always strictly a one off project.
The people featured on the stamps became mini celebrities on the island and of course, relatives wanted to have letters sent to them with their pictures on.
It was a hugely popular and successful set of stamps, but almost ten years on and it has not been repeated.
I suppose that technically it would be feasible to issue a set every five years or so, featuring anyone who had reached the milestone, but that project would be fraught with difficulties. Notwithstanding the time it would take to organise and coordinate all of this, the logistics of ensuring you had a high quality photograph of everyone, and that every individual who was over 100 was included would make it a mammoth task.
So, an uncorrected original post of Facebook has now led to Google picking this up and reproducing it as fact. This is part of the problem with search results, namely that they cannot distinguish between truth and falsehood if there’s no other source of evidence against which it can check.
Luckily, it isn’t being repeated across the AI models as ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Grok all know it to be false.
Perhaps this blog might become part of the story, as having actually visited the Philatelic Bureau and spoken directly to the people who are responsible for the new stamp issues, I can tell you that the centenarians set was a one off, and there are no plans currently to issue a second set.
Bottom line. Turning 100 in Barbados does NOT entitle you to be featured on a stamp, as appealing as that might sound. Doing something amazing for the people and island of Barbados during your 100 years, would definitely improve your chances though.
Here’s a reminder of all the people honoured in this set and the stamps, souvenir sheet and first day covers that are available.
