Japan Post’s Kinki regional branch announced a new original frame-stamp sheet for Kyoto’s Jidai Matsuri on 8 October 2026. The product’s full title is “Kyoto’s Three Great Festivals: Jidai Matsuri, Reiwa 8 — A Historical and Cultural Picture Scroll Colouring Autumn in Kyoto.” Sales are scheduled to begin on 15 October, one week before the festival’s main procession, through post offices across Kyoto city and Japan Post’s online shop.

The sheet contains ten stamps split between two current postal values: five ¥85 stamps and five ¥110 stamps. It is priced at ¥1,700 and limited to 600 sheets. Japan Post assigns product or catalogue code 2610000102840. Distribution covers all 217 post offices in Kyoto city except the specifically excluded Yuge, Shuzan, Keihoku Uzu, Yamaguni, Kuroda and simplified post offices, giving the release a clear municipal and regional focus.

The official artwork places a mounted historical figure above a ten-stamp grid. The individual designs depict groups and characters from the Jidai Matsuri procession, including costumes associated with different historical periods, processional scenes, shrines and banners. The sheet’s title describes the festival as a historical-folklore picture scroll, and the layout supports that idea by turning the sequence of stamp images into a compact visual survey of Kyoto’s past.

Jidai Matsuri, generally translated as the Festival of the Ages, is one of Kyoto’s three great festivals alongside Aoi Matsuri and Gion Matsuri. Its procession is known for historically styled clothing representing successive eras of Japanese history. The festival is closely associated with Heian Jingu, and its modern origins lie in Kyoto’s late nineteenth-century efforts to commemorate the city’s history after the imperial capital moved to Tokyo.

The frame-stamp sheet captures the festival through people, costume and movement rather than through a single monument. That makes it useful to collectors interested in traditional dress, historical reenactment, processions, horses, shrines or urban festivals. The designs can also support a chronological exhibit on Japanese history because the procession itself presents selected eras through carefully constructed attire and roles.

The 600-sheet quantity is notably small compared with nationally distributed character products. Limited availability through Kyoto-area offices will make the complete sheet a regional souvenir as well as a postal item. Collectors should record the exact authorised quantity but avoid assuming that every sheet will reach the philatelic market. Local demand around the festival, institutional presentation and ordinary retail sales can influence how many examples circulate outside Kyoto.

The mixed ¥85 and ¥110 values are another identifying feature. Japan Post frame-stamp products sometimes combine rates, and the presence of two denominations should be stated explicitly in album descriptions. It separates this product from sheets containing ten identical values and may produce varied postal uses. Correctly rated covers using either denomination, especially from Kyoto during the festival period, could become attractive examples of contemporary regional postal history.

The announcement date and sale date should not be confused. Japan Post published the product details on 8 October, creating the current news event, while sales begin on 15 October. The Jidai Matsuri procession follows later in the month. These stages are relevant to collectors seeking first-day material, event-related cancellations or covers sent during the festival. A pre-sale announcement image is not itself evidence that a sheet was already available.

The official sheet artwork is particularly important because many general photographs of Jidai Matsuri show individual participants or crowds. Such photographs can explain the festival but do not identify the postal product. Japan Post’s direct image displays the actual ten-stamp sheet, its denominations, arrangemen