zondag 31 juli 2016

Sunday Stamps: Horses

Two days ago my 'Horse' chaincard arrived back home. In an almost two months journey, via Taiwan, Hong Kong and Malaysia my card gathered beautiful horse stamps.

And this Sunday Stamps theme happens to be 'Horses'! A good opportunity to share this chaincard with you:



The photos on the Dutch stamps top left have been made by Dutch photographer Charlotte Dumas. These stamps are part of a ten stamps sheet named 'portraits'. On her website you can see more wonderful animal photos, and some background information about the horse on the left stamp, and about the white horse.

Of course I used stamps from this sheet also for the other chaincard participants. I scanned the other person's cards before forwarding to the next participant. And you can see some similar stamps and some different one:







Mail companies from many countries have issued horse stamps. Since a year I found myself collecting horse stamps. By 'collecting' I mean I keep them when found, even if they are folded, like this one from Germany:



In the past decennia Dutch Post has issued more stamps showing horses:

Former queen Beatrix and her late, sympathetic husband Claus riding a horse:


(their minor granddaughters were pictured without a head protection cap, too, by which they were not giving a good example to other horse riding kids)

A 'personalized stamp', created by Arnold Voordewind from natuurlijkefoto.nl and issued by PostNL, showing a Konik pony, the only type of horse living in the wild in the Netherlands:



A Dutch traditional character is Sinterklaas, aka Sint/Saint Nicolaas. On his white friendly horse Amerigo he even rides on roofs. You can see them often along with their companion Piet/Pete:



An other 'Sinterklaas' and Amerigo, pictured by late Dutch illustrator Max Velthuijs:



An other white horse, carrying Prince Siddhartha, is shown on this stamp from Sri Lanka:



Horses have inspired many artists and craftsmen:
A horse shaped flute from Latvia:



Stylised horses, also from Latvia:



A double headed, winged horse from Kazachstan:



A horse shown on an inkpot on a Ukrainian stamp:



Horses at work:

From Canada:



Horses helping delivering the mail, from the United Kingdom:




The chess horse stamps I've found I will keep for an other theme :-)

See more wonderful horses on stamps on this Sunday Stamps blog post and follow the linke mentioned there!

6 opmerkingen:

  1. Wow, what a wonderful collection you have shown today. And it doesn't even include the ones I sent you. I didn't know you had started keeping horse stamps when I sent you the card.

    In particular I like the Latvian stylized horses - a depiction of horses I have never seen before - fascinating how some designs hundreds or even thousands of years old still stand up as good design.

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    Reacties
    1. Thank you again, FinnBadger, you made my day by adding such matching stamps! Of course I had those three in mind when searching for this Sunday's theme, but I saw you had them on your great Envelopes blog already.

      And yes, the Latvian horses are so futuristic! I don't know how old the design is, I guess ages, too, but I think it post-modern :-)

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  2. Again, I am in awe of your finds! And of your good eye - I've seen that Ukrainian inkpot countless times, but did not remember the horse design.

    Sorry about the link's disappearing act, but you are all linked up now.

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    1. Yes, it's funny how our eyes percept only what we are focussing on. It helps that I am myopic, so while searching through my postcrossing cards (where this inkpot stamp is from) I watched the stamps closely, and just because of a mix of love for animals and curiosity ('what is this?') this one attracted my attention more than most other stamps did.

      Thank you for adding the link! The disappearing links still are a mystery to me. I tried different browsers, both on my desktop and phone, but in none of the opened blogs the link section showed/shows up. Meanwhile my desktop internet explorer gave some warning against continuing but my phone internet explorer and the other browsers didn't.

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    2. This link problem is a mystery - and annoying. I've recently been getting a notice when I tried to add the link to the posts that the link "could be compromised". Anyway, I've done some more research and will try something a fix for next Sunday.

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  3. Putting an elephant on a horse is wonderfully whimsical. This week's theme has made me notice how popular stylised horse designs are.

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