Sunday stamps: Public Transport

I just added my belated contribution to last week's Sunday stamps, # 163: Farm animals, showing Dutch cow stamps.

Hopefully I'm not too late for this Sunday's Sunday Stamps # 164, themed 'Buses and Public Transportation', as I like a lot to travel by bus, train and tram and 'thus' love to see - and share - stamps showing public transport.

Here are some train (respectively train station) stamps which I received by postcrossing:

From Finland:



From Brazil:



From Taiwan:



From Ukraine:



From Latvia:



And one I've sent out some time ago, from the Netherlands:



By the way, the last shown I've sent to Ravindra in Sri Lanka. He is collecting postcards showing trains. And besides train postcards, he receives a lot of train stamps, too. You can enjoy marvellous stamps on his blog 'Discover the World on Trains'.

Sunday stamps: Farm animals

More than a week after, I finally found some time to scan and add Farm Animals for Viridian's Sunday Stamps # 163.

When hearing about the Netherands (better known as 'Holland', while Holland only is in the western part, the two provinces Noord-(North) and Zuid-(South) Holland to be exact), many people think of wooden shoes, tulips and cheese (and Johan Cruyff and windmills).
Dutch cheese usually is made out of cow milk. And cows have been honoured a few times by being pictured on Dutch stamps.

This is the most recent one, a cow on this year's stamp sheet. The stamps above are used for international mail (worth € 1.05 each), below for national mail (€ 0.64 each).





In 2012 a stamp sheet was dedicated to the various types of cows. The Holstein cow is wellknown all-over the world, but some other types, like the Blaarkop and Lakenvelder cows I hardly see anymore in the present days (or would they be kept inside the whole year round?..).



In 1998 this Delft's Blue (Delftware) cow stamp was issued.



The following, orange-brown long haired, cow not really is living on a farm. The 'Schotse Hooglander' (lit. Scottish Higlander, in English known as Highland cow) has been introduced in the Netherlands to maintain, by grazing, the fields in Dutch nature. To my remembrance they were introduced in our country not so long ago, probably in the nineties, as this stamp was issued in 1997.

The amount shown is hundred Dutch guilder cents, that is one guilder (gulden). This stamp was used for international mail at that time. So in the nineties we could send mail to the world paying € 0.45.



My most favourite cow stamp is this one, issued in 1995. You can see a few similar objects as on the first stamps: tulips, wooden shoes.
But what I like most of all - and I must admit: I discovered it years after seeing this stamp for the first time - is that the spots represent some European countries. A real world citizen, this Holstein cow!



Last but not least I would like to show some miniscule animals. I think most of the ones shown on this stamp sheet (issued in 2011 for the 100th anniversary of the Dutch Society for Microbiology) live on farms, too. What could we do without them?!

There are farmers who make their own cheese. And for this, they need the Lactic acid bacteria, the Lactococcus Lactis, which you can see on the left, the second from above.
And the cows produce methan gaz, and are helped to do so by the Methanosarcina, which you can see right from the lactic acid bacteria. Plants, including the cow's food, thrive well due to the Rhizobium, while the Anammox helps to provide all of us with clean water.



P.S. Check Viridians blog and all links for more farm animals!
And don't forget to see many more beautiful cow stamps from all-over the world on Eva's Cow Mail Project!

Sunday stamps: Letters, postcards, and the post

This Sunday Stamps' theme is 'Letters, postcards, and the post'. A great theme, of course, for mail lovers like me and all who like to visit blogs like this :-)
Below my contribution. And check Sunday Stamps to find more post-related stamps!

The first stamp I'd like to show is a Dutch stamp sheet, issued in 2001 as 'children's stamps'. These stamps ('Kinderpostzegels') are issued every year in November, to support projects for children.
The theme of 2001 was 'Child and Computer'. And the funny thing is that, although it was meant to show the pathways of electronic mail, still you can see that it's a Real Letter being brought around!



This Swedish serie of stamps shows the postal process, both in place and time (be it the paper post instead of the digital mail). (Thank you Niklas, for sending!)



How Post works? Write a letter or postcard (or create mail art). Add a stamp, put the mail item into the letterbox or ask the post office (wo)man to deliver (the posthorn has been the sign of Post in many countries), see there are several ways for transport. And finally there's the receiver's mailbox!
Stamps from the Netherlands, Estonia, Canada, United Kingdom, Romania and Finland:








P.S. Don't forget to write the postal code:



A very nice idea is Postcrossing. See this website: postcrossing.com. You can send postcards and will receive postcards at random from many places in the world.

In the Netherlands, in 2011 a stamp sheet has been issued, dedicated to Postcrossing. I wrote about it here.
And to my surprised I received a Postcrossing postcard from Finland recenlty, showing also a Postcrossing stamp.
To make the circle round: I started with a stamp sheet which showed that the computer (email) and snail mail go together well. Also in exchanging postcards via Postcrossing, the digital and snail mail life show an excellent symbiosis!

In: from Morocco

Vandaag kwamen deze vliegtuigen / vliegeniers in mijn brievenbus, door Eva verstuurd vanuit Marokko en nog geen week onderweg!

Today these airplanes / aviators flew into my mailbox. They were sent by Eva from Morocco and travelled less than a week!



De dame hierboven is de actrice Edna Munsey. De foto is genomen in 1916 door Harris & Ewing. Op internet vond ik naast deze een foto die net ervoor of erna gemaakt is (zie hier).

The young lady above is Edna Munsey, actress. The picture has been made in 1916 by Harris & Ewing. I happened to find an other picture on the internet, which should have been made just before or after this one (see here).



Van deze twee zijn geen namen vermeld. Wel doen ze aan een pilotentraining. Ook gemaakt door Harris & Ewing, in 1912.

The names of these two men haven't been mentioned, only that they are doing an aviation army pilot training. Also this picture has been made by Harris & Ewing, in 1912.

Thank you very much, Eva!

Sunday Stamps: Women on stamps, women's history

This time the theme of Sunday Stamps is 'Women on stamps'. 8 March is of course Women's day, and March appears to be Women's History Month.

Also Hawwa already wrote about it in her contribution, and I agree, I am surprised, too, by the fact that there are far more famous men on stamps than women.

Also books on history and books on music and art history still seem to describe a 'male-based' history instead of an 'all people' history. As if women contributed almost nothing to history, art and music, compared to men!..

Sadly during the ages women have had less opportunities to compose and write than men, partly because they were supposed to raise children and manage the household. Or work on the land, as was the fate of male workers, too, of course.

And whenever women succeeded to compose music or create art, they were overshadowed by men. Their compositions sometimes were published under the name of a man (for instance Felix Mendelssohn has some compositions under his own name, which had been composed by his sister Fanny Mendelssohn!).
And why, for example, is Camille Claudel so much more unknown as a sculptor than Auguste Rodin?
Let 'herstory' become clear!

Fortunately last year a thick book was issued, unique in the Netherlands, describing 1001 women who had been important to Dutch history (see also this lexicon).

Also this stamp sheet was issued:



It shows six women (four of them doubled), which of course is nice.
By the way, one of these women Belle van Zuylen, has been on a stamp in 1978 (that is, her handwriting has). See it on this blog, it's the stamp showing a letter. Striking is the fact that the primary design of this stamp was deleted. It says 'I have no talent to be subservient' (see the black-and-white stamp, in Dutch: 'Ik heb geen talent voor onderdanigheid'). But - even though it was true, also for e.g. Annie M.G. Schmidt and many more women who didn't want to bear the oppressive obligations which women had to face those days - it was considered too critical for a stamp.

So I really am happy that this stamp sheet was issued. However, still there are many people missing on Dutch stamps. For instance Aletta Jacobs, who was the first woman who studied medicine at a Dutch university.
By her profession she helped a lot of women in need. And besides that she fought for women's right to vote. This finally became possible in the Netherlands in 1922. And while there are few stamps issued for this women's right to vote, also the writer of 'Postzegelblog' (stamp blog) is wondering why Aletta Jacobs never has been shown herself on a Dutch stamp so far.

In: from the United Kingdom

Ontvangen van John, deze ansichtkaart die werd uitgegeven ter gelegenheid van de 200e verjaardag van de eerste postkoets in Engeland in 1784. Op deze kaart uit 1984 werd de rit op 1 en 2 augustus nog eens dunnetjes overgedaan.

Received from John, this postcard which was issued to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the first mail coach run in 1784. This Post Office coach is being used in the re-enactment of the original run on 1/2 August 1984. The coach is pulled by Norwich Union Greys.



En kijk wat een toepasselijke postzegels! Ik ben er blij mee. En wat toevallig, de postzegel met de brievenbus met vogels maakt deel uit van een serie uit 1983, die afgelopen december verscheen op de website van Violet Sky.

And look at these suitable stamps! I am happy with all of them. The pillar box with birds stamp is part of a serie, issued in 1983, which happens to have been published recently by Violet Sky.

Thank you very much, John!

Out: to Japan

Rond dezelfde tijd dat een Postcrosser mij een tweede kaart stuurde, raakte een van mijn verzonden kaarten 'expired'. Van het theekopje had ik geen tweede exemplaar, maar omdat de ontvangster volgens haar postcrossing-profiel van theeceremonieën èn van schattige dieren houdt, leek deze kaart me ook geschikt.
Inmiddels is deze kaart aangekomen, en wat blijkt: tot haar schrik was ze mijn eerste kaart vergeten te registreren.
Kortom, twee mensen blij: zij met de twee kaarten en ik omdat ik twee keer met plezier een kaart geschreven en verstuurd had, die uiteindelijk allebéí hun reisdoel gezond en wel bereikten!

About the same time that a Postcrosser had a second try to send me a postcard, one of my sent Postcrossing postcards became 'expired'. The intended receiver loves tea ceremonies, so my first card showed a tea cup. I didn't have a copy of that card, so I re-read her profile and learned that she also loves cute animals. And I happened to have this cute-animal-tea-cups card, which I thought suitable.
This card now has landed, and my previous card turned out to have been arrived, too! She just had forgotten to register it. So now there are two happy people: she because she received two cards, and I because I had the pleasure to write and send two cards, and both of them have arrived safe and sound!

In: from Spain

Gestuurd door Eva, deze fraaie illustratie door de Catalaanse illustratrice Pilarín Bayés. Deze illustratie maakte onderdeel uit van de expositie 'Kleine geschiedenis van de Trein' in het Spoorwegmuseum van Catalonië.
Zie voor meer illustraties van Pilarín Bayés o.a. hier.

Sent by Eva, this wonderful illustration by the Catalan illustrator Pilarín Bayés. This illustration was part of the exhibition 'Petit Història del Tren' (Small history of the Train) in the Catelonia Railway Museum.
You can find many more illustrations by Pilarín Bayés for instance here.



De postzegel laat een typisch Spaanse oud-op-nieuw traditie zien: tijdens de jaarwisseling eet men bij iedere klokslag een druif. Dit staat trouwens ook op een van de Nederlandse Decemberzegels uit 2001.

The postage stamp represents a typical Spanish New Year's Eve tradition: at midnight, on each stroke of the clock, one grape is eaten.
The grapes and the clock also were issued on a Dutch December stamp in 2001.

Thank you very much, moltes gràcies, Eva!