Sunday Stamps: 20th century inventions

Today Sunday Stamps theme is '20th century inventions'.

I like stamps which feature technical things, so also this theme makes me happy. Check the wonderful stamps people shared on today's Sunday Stamps blog and the links mentioned there!

On my turn I'd like to share one of my favourite Dutch stamp sheets with you, showing 10 Dutch inventions. The stamp sheet was issued in 2010 for the 100th anniversary of the 'Octrooiwet', the Patent Act, in the Netherlands.



Not all are 20th century inventions. The submarine, invented by Cornelis Drebbel, and the telescope by Hans Lipperhey were early 17th century inventions.
And the LED lamp by Philips and new additions to the solar car by the Solar Team Twente, have been 'born' in our 21st century.

Nevertheless the majority of stamps show 20th century inventions, six in total. The year mentioned is the year in which the patent was granted:
- The artificial kidney, by Willem Kolff in 1948;
- the VacuVin wine saver by Bernd Schneider in 1987;
- the milking robot (or: automated milking) by Van der Lely in 1987;
- improvement of the chainguard (chain case) by Wilhelmine van der Woerd in 1974;
- automated handwriting recognition by TNT Post in 1980, which is used for turning the mail address into a code (you can see the - for mail lovers wellknown - (orange) lines on the stamp);
- the Dyneema fiber, 'strongest fiber' by DSM in 1979.

See more inventions on Sunday Stamps and via the links mentioned there.

Sunday Stamps: Children

Google shows this picture today, 20th of November, because it is the International Children’s (Rights) day. This day marks the anniversary of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989.

Today's Sunday Stamps theme also is 'Children'.
So I like to share this 'kinderpostzegels' stamp sheet, issued in 2006 for children's welfare, showing the diversity of children in nowadays Netherlands:



You can see more children's welfare stamps and learn about this project at Eva's blog of today (thank you very much, Eva, a nice surprise that you paid attention to these stamps today!).

Besides children's welfare stamps, Dutch Post issues the less well-known 'elderly welfare stamps', in cooperation with the National Foundation for the Elderly.
In 2005 these two stamp sheets have been issued, which I thought matching for today's Sunday Stamps theme.
They are showing pictures from the famous Dutch children's books 'Ot & Sien', issued more than a decade ago and illustrated by Cornelis Jetses. The sheets also show present pictures of children.





See more children's stamps at and via today's Sunday Stamps.

Postcards for the weekend: Books, reading, authors

This weekend the theme of Postcards for the Weekend is a favourite of mine, too: Books, reading, authors!
Also a favourite theme of many postcard lovers, and a lot of postcards have been issued on this theme. See for instance the website of Dutch postcrosser Willemijn, who posted hundreds of postcards on her 'Lezende vrouwen' ('Reading women') site between 2006 and 2012.

The first postcard I like to share here is this illustration by Fiep Westendorp. She became famous by her book illustrations of Jip & Janneke, the children's books by Annie M.G. Schmidt. But Fiep has drawn many other great pictures, among them cartoons about women's lives (in the 50'ies-60'ies and still actual!), and illustrations like this one:



A reading man is shown on this painting. I've sent this card to John in the UK, but alas I forgot to note who the painter and painted are:



From Eva I received this cartoon: 'Compre un libro. Y luego léalo!', in other words: 'Buy a book, and then read it!'
Who of you still has unread books on his/her shelf? (I have..)



To my opinion books preferably should be bought in real bookstores, not online. In order to keep sceneries like this alive:



Painting by Dutch painter Willy Belinfante-Sauerbier (1922-2014). She has made more paintings of reading people and bookstores.


And here a few books I received from Eva, that is, the covers on postcards, not the books itself :-) They are from a serie of Puffin Books postcards:





See more postcards on reading, books and authors at this weekend's Postcards for the Weekend.

Postcards for the weekend: Coffee, tea

This weekend's theme for 'Postcards for the weekend' is 'Coffee, tea, pastries'.

I love to drink coffee on my own, while doing some home or work tasks, or read a book or something like that. Enjoying the relaxed moment and the fact that I'm drinking coffee. With milk, no sugar.

But also coffee and tea can connect people. Not only by drinking together, but even from a distance, by a postcard!

Eva and I have exchanged a lot of postcards about tea or coffee.
Among them this one, a Finnish postcard, sent by Eva to the Netherlands:



More postcards which I received from Eva, showing coffee, you can see here, and here, and here. And see this one! And this, and see this one!.

On my turn I've sent a Finnish postcard from the Netherlands to Eva. I think many of you will know this two happy old ladies, drawn by Inge Löök. Drinking tea in a rather unusual, but surely cosy place:



See more postcards on tea, coffee and/or pastries via Postcards for the Weekend!

Sunday Stamps: Fireworks

This Sunday Stamps' theme is 'Fireworks or Night Views'.



As far as I know Dutch Post has issued only the fireworks stamp you see above. It is from the December 2014 stamp sheet, which contains twenty different 'December' themes.

The main image on the following Spanish New Year's stamp shows a clock and grapes: twelve grapes are eaten at each beat when the clock shows twelve at New Year's Eve midnight. But looking more closely, you can see the fireworks behind the Feliz Año (Happy [New] Year) wish:



From the USA I received several Chinese New Year stamps (thanks to Phillip), and one of these shows the fireworks before they are set off:



Fireworks are also shown on this stamp from China:



See more night views / fireworks at today's Sunday Stamps and the links mentioned there.

Postcards for the weekend: Foods of the world

This weekend's theme of Maria's Postcards for the Weekend on her 'Connections to the World-blog' is 'Foods of the world'.

I choose two postcards, one which I received from Spain, and one I still have to send to the sender of the Spanish card :-)

The first dish which comes into my mind when I think typical Spanish food, is paella. By Eva's postcard I learned how to distinguish the different paellas from each other. As you can see by yourself:



Spain is a big country with many more kinds of dishes. Spanish Post (Correos) has issued an interesting stamp serie on food, and Eva was so kind to add a mathcing stamp on the back of the paella card:



I am very happy with the other stamp, too, as I love music (I think I've posted more 'music' on this blog than 'food'?!..). The stamp I think matching to this theme, too, because I think music food for the heart and soul!

The second postcard to share shows a typical Dutch meal, boerenkoolstamppot, stamppot made of boerenkool and potatoes. Many Dutch eat it in winter, but I hardly have seen boerenkool on menus in Dutch restaurants.



See more postcards on food on and via Maria's Postcards for the Weekend!