zondag 30 augustus 2015

Sunday Stamps: Fish in the water

Today's Sunday Stamps theme is 'Fish in the Sea (or lake, or ocean)'.

First I thought it would be hard to find fish stamps, but wandering through my received mail, there appeared to be more than one Fish stamp!

The first fish I would like to show is a fresh water fish, the pike ('snoek' in Dutch).
This fish stamp is from the United Kingdom (thank you, John!):



I have an old Dutch stamp sheet which shows a pike, too, but alas I can't find it to scan for you at the moment. Fortunately you can see it somewhere else on the internet. That stamp sheet was issued in 2005 and showed flora and fauna in the Naardermeer ('Lake of Naarden'), the oldest protected nature area in the Netherlands.
Recently, ten years later, the Dutch post issued a new stamp sheet on this lake. This time a ten stamps sheet, of which the bottom two show underwater life. Among them the pike again:



From the lakes in the countries at the North sea to some more southern European sea, close to Spain. Eva sent me fish mail (not to be confused with fishing mail :-) ) and on the cover were two sea mammal stamps, and two fish:



A stamp from the far south. In the South African sea beautiful fish are living. Among them this one:



And from the south to the far east. I was so lucky to receive some Asian fish stamps.

From China:



From Taiwan:



From Sri Lanka:



And finally, a stamp from the Netherlands, showing an Indonesian fish:



More interesting and beautiful fish stamps you can see on the Sunday Stamps blog and the related links mentioned there!

zaterdag 29 augustus 2015

In: from the Sea

The Sea is an interesting phenomenon. Eva sent me several Sea items from the sea Spain, of which I am posting three different ones right now.



Above you can see a wonderful stamp showing the sea, seen from the air.
There won't be Sea without Land, as you can see also on this stamp: below the airplane the Canary Islands archipel is visible.



Bottles containing messages are frequently sent by people. Sometimes they arrive on the beach, brought to Land by the Sea, to be found by other people.
My home town doesn't have sea close by and I don't go to the beach often, so the chance for me to find a message in a bottle is almost zero. Fortunately Eva knew a good alternative to send her bottled message to my place: the mailmen, who travels by bike and/or car over land. So I finally found a bottled message in my mailbox!



Last but not least, and I received this card in July already, aeas contain wonderful flora and fauna. Fish, mollusc, mammals. All kind of animals. And mermaids, of course. This card shows our marine friend Salina, and the beautiful lighthouse.

Thnak you very much, moltes gràcies, Eva (and Salina)!

vrijdag 28 augustus 2015

In: from Japan



In Japan so-called Gotochi ('local') cards are issued, shaped cards showing nice illustrations.

I was happy to 'meet' Tomoko from Japan via instagram. She wished to receive Jip & Janneke cards, which I sent to her, while I was delighted by the picture of this Japanese Mailbox 'Summer' card, which she sent to me!

On the back she added a delightful serie of Japanese nature stamps.



Thank you very much, Tomoko, arigato!

woensdag 26 augustus 2015

In: from Macau



Natalie did a short trip from Hong Kong to Macau. Despite of the short time she was there, she was so kind to surprise me with this great postcard! It shows the General Post Office in Macau.

On the back no stamp... But at least a postmark, and that is nice, too. And it makes me know how to write 'Macau' in Chinese characters.



Thank you very much, Natalie!

In: from Scotland



An interesting story! And I didn't know, or at least didn't realize, that Dutch people crossed the North Sea and even traveled far north to Scotland in the Middle Ages, 500 years ago!

So I learned, thanks to John, who was very close to this octagonal house recently, and who sent me some more very interesting postcards from Scotland.



I didn't know before either that the Scottish have issued their own national (international) stamps. This one shows Loch Ness, and thanks to John I also learned there are more stamps showing the Saltire.

zondag 23 augustus 2015

Sunday Stamps: Lighthouses

Today's theme of Sunday Stamps is 'Lighthouses'.

There are two persons to whom it always is a pleasure to send lighthouses to, both on postcards and stamps. In turn, they make all received lighthouses accessible for us via the internet. So you can check wonderful lighthouse stamps, in the great online photo album of Eva, and on Ravindra's lighthouses on stamps blog.

Fortunately the Dutch mail has issued several lighthouse stamps last year. Four of them were available via post agencies and online, and besides that, there's a serie issued on subscription. I'll show you the four accessible ones:

My favourite picture is this one, the 'Paard van Marken', because it shows what a lighthouse is meant to do: give light at night!



Another fave is the Brandaris, on the Wadden Island of Terschelling. It is the oldest lighthouse in the Netherlands:



And there is the more 'common' lighthouse of the Wadden Island of Texel. Saying 'common', I mean, if someone would ask me to draw a lighthouse, it probably would look like this one:



Or like this one, the Westerlichttoren in Haamstede in the province Zeeland:



Some years earlier, a single lighthouse stamp was issued, but alas the price, 7 euro, was far beyond my spending limit. Fortunately this great stamp can be seen online.

The following stamps have been issued in the nineties, before the euro was introduced:




Outside the Netherlands there are many more, beautiful lighthouse stamps. As said, you can see lighthouse stamps on Eva's and Ravindra's websites, but also be sure to check VioletSky's blog post of today, and all links under her post.

Also I was lucky to receive some lighthouse stamps from other countries.

John sent me some most beautiful postcards of lighthouses from the United Kingdom. Fortunately he put some awesome English lighthouse stamps on the back, too, and I love to share them with you:





These American lighthouse stamps I received from my dear old great-uncle, who went to Arizona in the fifties. Only a few years ago the two of us discovered that the other loved stamps, so since then we are exchanging stamps every now and then. Alas he and my dear great-aunt had to move to a smaller house recently, and now he has no room for his collection anymore. He has been so kind to donate stamps for youth education, you can find more information about this 'youth education thru stamps' project here.



Also other kind people sent lighthouses:

From Vietnam:



Australia:



Germany:



Croatia:



Finally back to the Netherlands. The lighthouse-at-night on top also has been pictured at daylight. Be it not on a stamp itself, but as a background to this stamp sheet on traditional clothing:


donderdag 20 augustus 2015

In: from Greece



Besides turquoise I love bright green and bright, lemon-coloured, yellow. How did Eva know that?
Great card of a lemon tree and a - to my opinion - interesting, inspiring background on the Greek island Sifnos.



Also the stamp shows fruit!
Thank you very much, Eva!

woensdag 12 augustus 2015

In: from Greece



Eva knows my favourite colour is turquoise. She has sent me turquoise on houses from Morocco recently. And suddenly I am surprised by turquoise in houses from Greece! Well, I already knew since a long time that there are places in Greece (and other Mediterranean countries) with turquoise paint used for houses (doors, window frames, fences), but it's Eva who surprises me. Such a globetrotter, I love that!

These doors, on the Island of Milos, are named 'syrmata' and originally were used to keep boats indoors.



The nice stamp, as far as I can decipher it, must have to do something with the European Maritime Day. In the end of May 2015, there were public days for this Day in the city and harbour of Piraeus.

Thank you very much, ευχαριστώ, Eva!

dinsdag 11 augustus 2015

Out, in: Netherlands - Italy - Japan - Singapore



Sometimes there are cards which you very much would like to receive, but would not send to yourself by yourself that easily. Unless you find a good opportunity to do so. For instance by joining a 'traveling postcards' swap.
This swap I found on instagram, and I am grateful to @ioog who organized this, and to my three group mates who joined this add-and-pass, too.

This card I've send to Rio in Italy, and from Italy the postcard traveled to Japan and Singapore, to return home finally. So happy to receive this card! And additional to the nice scenes, the back side has been stamped and postmarked in four countries:



Meanwhile three other cards made the same journey (be it from different starting points) and were added postage stamps to at each pit stop:



Tomo's postcard from, and to Japan.



Pratiksha's postcard (I forgot to scan the front side):



And Rio's postcard:



With on the front side a great picture of a bookstore in Venezia:



Thank you all!

zondag 9 augustus 2015

Sunday Stamps: Food



Today's theme of Sunday Stamps is "Food and/or drink". When searching in my stamps I found several food stamps, so that I forgot to search for drinks, too.. Well, from some food you can make drinks at least.

I am curious to know how these dishes would taste, they look delicious! Above a traditional meal from Singapore, below different types of meals from Turkey.





Greece has issued some nice stamps on food recently. Thanks to Katerina from Greece I was the lucky receiver of these legumes (so healthy and delicious!) and grapes.



Fruit belongs to my favourite food. Especially cherries (did not find stamps on that) and strawberries. Fortunately the Dutch post has issued a stamp on these tiny red 'summer kings' (aka 'zomerkoninkjes' as we call them in Dutch), and I must say that I prefer the raw strawberry on the left to strawberry cake or any other produced food:



And in the same serie the Dutch post issued one on apples (see also above). As did the Chinese post:



The word 'appel' in Dutch is part of the word for potato, 'aardappel'. Similar to French: pommes, and pommes de terre, and in Farsi, sib (سیب‌) and sib zamini (سیب‌ زمینی). And who knows in which languages more?

Regarding potatoes, the painter Vincent van Gogh painted a famous painting on the Potato eaters. The Dutch PostNL has issued stamps on van Gogh's paintings, and fortunately also on on this scene:



On the internet I found this nice stamp set on potatoes, from the Antilles (alas not in my hand, but I love these pictures so much that I cannot resist to show them to you):



Finally a nice stamp on a vegetable (and a great postmark on someone who loves to eat vegetables, too!). I am not sure whether it is lettuce or green cabbage, but as I love fruit and vegetables most, this stamp from Japan is a pleasure for the (at least mine) eyes!



See more special and wonderful stamps on food on Sunday Stamps and the links below that posting.