30 April was the birthday of former Dutch queen, Juliana, mother of the also former queen, now princess,
Beatrix. Beatrix' birthday is the 31st of January, and she didn't want the holiday to take place in winter. Also she wanted to honour her mother. So when she became queen, she chose to keep Queen's Day on the 30th of April.
In 2013 Beatrix retired and her son, Willem-Alexander, became king. He chose for the tradition to have the queen's/king's day take place on the queen's/king's birthday. In his case Queen's Day only had to move a few days: King's Day, WA's birthday, is the 27th of April, and last King's Day he celebrated his 50th b-day.
The definite queen's and king's stamps made me frown. There exist great bright photos of these people, but for the definite stamps they apparently chose for a bit colour-empty design.
The present definite King's stamp:
Previous definite stamps of Beatrix:
To show what nice other stamps could have been used as definite stamp, see for example this stamp sheet, issued for Willem-Alexander's 50th birthday last week:
The photos on top have been made by his father, late prince Claus.
I don't have this sheet at home yet, so this is the picture, downloaded from the PostNL webshop's site.
See more Kings and Queens at and via today's Sunday Stamps!
I think I might have mentioned before that I find the new design a bit ghostly.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenThe international stamp is even worse, ghostlier: where you see some colour (blue) on this stamp, the international is grey!..
VerwijderenSee http://collectclub.postnl.nl/koning-willem-alexander-internationaal-2016.html
To do him right, add some colour, as the king has proofed to be a sympathetic guy, I updated this blog post with a recent stamp sheet. So see above :-)
I like the 50th birthday sheet. Nice contrast between black and white and color photos.
VerwijderenMaybe Philip is right...
BeantwoordenVerwijderenI sent you an envelope for Koningsdag, did it arrived on time?
I added a colourful sheet, see my reply to Phillip's comment and the new picture in this blog post :-)
VerwijderenAlas your Koningsdag mail didn't arrive yet.. But I still am happy with your even-more-colourful letter! I read it in phases, so even though not having received your new mail, I am enjoying your previously sent mail!
:(
VerwijderenI suppose definitive stamps have to be more formal because of the symbolism implied of country and monarch. I rather like them, wish someone here would come up with something new we have had the same boring definitive stamp for 50 years.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenI've only seen the int'l - grey - stamp of the King and it is truly bland and boring and almost indistinguishable.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenThe other stamp sheet is interesting for all the informality of the prince.