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: