Sunday stamps: professions

This Sunday Viridian choose 'Professions and trades' as theme for Sunday Stamps.

The Brazilian post has issued beautiful stamps on professions in 2005 and 2006. Here you see the manicure (manicurist), sapateiro (shoemaker) and costureira (tailor).



In our country there's a nation wide 'flea market' on King's Day in April. On this day everyone can sell his/her old stuff, and of course buy, too, all for small amounts. Last April I was looking for something else, when I suddenly found an old stamp collection book. With many empty pages, and I bought it to use it to have my own stamps organized. But I also was happy to find some old stamps in some of the pages. Among them this one from former West Germany. It has been issued in 1971 to pay attention to safety measures (you can see seven others from this serie here). And the profession shown is an important one. Thanks to construction workers we have warm houses, roads etcetera. While their hard work isn't that easy nor safe.



Also in this old album I found this stamp from Indonesia. I'm not exactly sure what kind of fabric she is making, but I think we humans can't live without the beautiful products made by fabric / textile workers.



And an other old stamp has been issued in Romania. Concerning Post, one of the most important workers for us snail mail lovers :-)



Last month the Dutch post issued a so-called 'postset', containing three postcards and a special issued stamp sheet called 'beroepen en ambachten', which means 'professions and trades'. How coincidental!
The stamp sheet shows a beautiful compilation of illustrations of professions: a blacksmith, postman, hairdresser (barber) and wooden shoe maker. The illustrations have been created by Rien Poortvliet (1932-1995). He was famous for the general public for his beautiful illustrations of animals (among them horses), old Dutch sceneries and 'drawn stories', for instance about gnomes. However, there was dispute whether his creations were 'art' or not. He finally found recognition as an artist when a museum of his works was opened, in 1992.

In: from the United Kingdom

Een prachtige zee met vuurtoren aan de Franse kust (Bretagne), verzonden vanaf de overkant, zuidkust van Engeland, door John.
Met op de achterkant een bijzondere postzegel: de gewone Elizabeth postzegel. Die had ik nog niet, en het is bijzonder dat John déze stuurt :-)

A beautiful sea with lighthouse at the French coast (Bretagne/Brittany), sent by John from the other side (South coast of England).
This card is also special because John added a regular stamp on the backside. A stamp I didn't have received so far, and adding a common stamp is unusual for John :-)
Thank you very much, John!

In: from Sri Lanka

Ravindra stuurde me twee mooie kaarten met interessante mooie postzegels vanuit Sri Lanka.
Op de postzegel hierboven een brievenbus! De zegel is uitgegeven vanwege de Asian-Pacific Postal Union Executive Council Meeting, eerder dit jaar.

From Ravindra I received these two cards with interesting stamps from Sri Lanka. The stamp above shows a letterbox! It has been issued because of the Asian-Pacific Postal Union Executive Council Meeting which took place in Sri Lanka this year.



Op deze foto zie je de Aukana of Avukana Boedha.
This photo shows the Aukana or Avukana Buddha statue.



En op onderstaande postzegel vissen, uit de familie van de koraalvlinders (vissen), in het Pigeon Island Marine National Park.
The stamp below shows fish from the Pigeon Island Marine National Park.



Thank you very much, Ravindra!

Out: to Morocco and the United Kingdom

'La sieste' heet deze foto uit 1972 van Paul Almásy. Gelukkig had ik twee exemplaren, zodat ik ze naar twee postvrienden kon sturen die (net als ik) van plaatjes van lezende mensen houden.

The name of this picture (1972) is 'La sieste'. It has been made by Paul Almásy. Fortunately I found two copies, so I was able to send it to both mail friends who like pictures of reading people (like I do, too).



Met op de postzegels allerlei bekende mensen: de bouwer van de eerste onderzeeboot Cornelis Drebbel, de DJ Armin van Buuren, 'De Zouaaf' door Vincent van Gogh, en de Nederlandse koning.

On the stamps some well-known people: Cornelis Drebbel, who built the first navigable submarine (in 1620), Armin van Buuren, the Dutch DJ, 'The Zouave' by Vincent van Gogh, and the Dutch king.

In: from Spain

Uit Murcia, de hoofdstad van de gelijknamige provincie in het zuid-oosten van Spanje, deze kaart. Op de Plaza de Santa Catalina heb ik ook de nodige voetstappen gezet :-)
Aan dit plein is ook het museum van de schilder Ramón Gaya (1910-2005).

From the south east of Spain, the city of Murcia to be precise, which is the capital of the province of the same name. I've walked this square, Plaza de Santa Catalina, several times. The museum of the painter Ramón Gaya (1910-20015) is also situated at this square.



Op de postzegel de beroemde gitarist/componist Paco de Lucía, die helaas in februari van dit jaar overleed.
The stamp shows the famous guitar player and composer Paco de Lucía, who sadly passed away in February of this year.

Sunday stamps: Chairs

This Sunday's theme of Viridian's Sunday Stamps is 'Anything you wish'.
There are so many themes so I always think it hard to choose one. Fortunately, thanks to Micu from Mail a Smile, I received some interesting stamps from Hungary.
They attracted my attention because of the fact that I hardly see this theme on stamps. Is that weird? Yes, it is, because many of us are spending a lot of time on this object (especially while writing letters and postcards): the chair!



Among Dutch stamps I found the chair you see below, called 'zigzagstoel', 'zigzag chair'. It has been designed in 1932 by Gerrit Rietveld. Rietveld has designed more chairs which were very unusual in his time. Eight years before this 'zigzag chair' he designed the Rietveld-Schröder house, which now is on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
This stamp is part of a ten stamps sheet, issued in 2012 because of the re-opening, after a long-term renovation, of the Stedelijk Museum ('Municipal Museum') of Modern Art in Amsterdam.



An other chair, in which we fortunately don't sit too often and which we like to avoid as much as possible, is the dentist's chair. Every time I visit the dentist I must think of how Mr. Bean treated the dentist's chair, which alleviates such visits a bit. So does this stamp (I love comics on stamps).
This stamp has been issued in 1984 as part of a 'children's welfare stamps' sheet. The design is by Dutch illustrator Joost Swarte.



And there are some more chairs to been seen on the terrace, in this famous painting by Vincent van Gogh:

In: from the United Kingdom

Eén dag voor Wereld Post Dag ontving ik deze bijzondere trein van John uit Engeland. John schrijft dat er bij de Londense metro een tweede stel tunnels is, speciaal door de Post gebruikt om post tussen sorteerposten te vervoeren. Op deze ansichtkaart zie je Mount Pleasant Station. De metro loopt van Paddington station naar Whitechapel, en verbindt zes sorteerposten en twee hoofdstations.

One day before World Post Day I received this very special train from John. He writes that in the London Underground there's a second set of tunnels used exclusively by the Post Office for sending mail between sorting offices.
This is Mount Pleasant station. The railway runs from Paddington to Whitechapel, connecting six sorting offices and two main railway stations.



En iedere keer verrast John me weer met prachtige postzegels. Hier een heel toepasselijke: de ondertunneling van de Londense straten.

And every time John surprises me with beautiful stamps. Here a very suitable one: showing the tunneling below London streets.
Thank you very much, John!

In: from Morocco / United Kingdom / Brazil

Twee mooie ansichtkaarten in één envelop, met brievenbussen, dus altijd mooi! Eva stuurde me deze vanuit Marokko.
Boven zie je Engelse brievenbussen op een postzegelvel. Deze is uitgebracht door de Royal Mail in 2009 en in hetzelfde jaar afgedrukt als ansichtkaart. Onder zie je een antieke brievenbus uit Brazilië (rond 1900).

Two beautiful postcards in one envelope, showing letterboxes, always a great subject!
Sent by Eva from Morocco.
The letterboxes above are from the United Kingdom. This stamp sheet has been issued by the Royal Mail in 2009, and printed as a postcard in the same year. Below you can see an antique letterbox from Brazil (about 1900).
Thank you very much, Eva!

Sunday stamps: Se-tenant stamps

This Sunday Viridian choose for 'se-tenant stamps' as the Sunday Stamps' theme.

Nice topic!
However first I had to look up what 'se-tenant' means. This term is used in philately for stamps printed from the same plate and sheet, adjoining one another, unsevered in a strip or block. They differ from each other by design, color, denomination or overprint.

According to the English wikipedia, se-tenants may have a continuous design, but this is not necessarily so (see also the example showed in wikipedia).
In contrary, according to the Dutch wikipedia continuation of design is a main characteristic of 'se-tenants'. 'Se-tenant' is translated into Dutch as 'doorloper', which literally means that the picture is continuing one in the other.

So I thought this one, according to the Dutch word 'doorloper' is not a real se-tenant:



Although according to the English description they are. Furthermore these two stamps form a continuing part of the story (and of course I love to show you these characters: the bear Ollie B. Bommel and the cat Tom Poes).

Via Postcrossing I received this beautiful se-tenant from China:



According to the sheet edge on bottom of the card (how I love it when people add these parts, too!), this Czech stamp must be part of a se-tenant sheet, too:



In the Netherlands, every now and then continuing stamps are issued.
Several of the so-called 'children's stamps' are se-tenants. I posted one here already.

The following stamp sheet obviously is a continuing picture (alas the sheet isn't complete anymore as I've used two of the stamps):



The se-tenant of the maps and 'Bos Atlas' I showed in January (see here).

Some other Dutch se-tenants:
'Day of the Stamp' (2012), showing former queen Juliana:



Stamp sheet commemorating 150 years of Blijdorp, the Rotterdam Zoo (in 2006). The sheet shows threatened species:



Six (from ten) stamps issued due to the 100 years celebration of the Royal Dutch Forestry Association:



Stamp sheet issued for the 100th anniversary of the Dutch Open Air Museum (in 2012), subtitled '100 years tribute to the daily life':