Are postage stamps celebrating the 50th anniversary of Irish rockers Thin Lizzy coming out a year too early? That's what's suggested by the band's former manager of the two commemorative stamps being issued Wednesday (Oct. 3) by An Post, Ireland's state-owned postal services provider.

Terry O'Neill, the band's first manager, said Thin Lizzy didn't officially form until 1970. Nevertheless, An Post is issuing the anniversary stamps based on a reported 1969 inception date. The former manager claimed the postal service based that decision on information gleaned from Wikipedia.

"Wikipedia have it that they formed in December 1969 when they met up," O'Neill told the Irish Daily Mirror this week. "This happened, I met them, I already knew them. We talked about a band but nothing happened … In 1969, there was no band called Thin Lizzy, it was only an idea."

He continued, "In January [1970], the band started rehearsing in the Countdown Club and I started booking shows for them." However, O'Neill remained insistent "there was no such thing as Thin Lizzy in 1969. It didn't exist."

Perhaps bolstering the confusion, as echoed by Ireland's Extra, is a scheduled Oct. 4 appearance from Thin Lizzy drummer Brian Downey to introduce the anniversary stamps at Dublin's General Post Office. That would seem to indicate the band's in agreement with 1969 as their anniversary year.

Further, An Post remains committed to the group's anniversary time frame represented in the 2019 stamp program. Regardless, the Thin Lizzy stamps will be available well into the coming year — whether one wants to believe that 2019 marks the band's 49th anniversary or their 50th.

"An Post is issuing two stamps to mark 50 years of Thin Lizzy, including the decision to play together, right through the many firsts for the band in that year," a postal spokesperson explained. "Stamps will be available from October 3 for a full year until October 2, 2020."

According to purported images leaked of the two stamps, one will feature flower imagery related to the band's 1979 album Black Rose: A Rock Legend. The other will highlight founding Thin Lizzy bassist and singer Phil Lynott, who died in 1986. See An Post's own Facebook tease of the stamps below.