Sunday Stamps: 'D' is for Duif

My contribution for 27th of August's Sunday Stamps came a little later. Nevertheless I like to share with you the 'Duif'.

The Dutch word 'duif' in English is both 'dove' and 'pigeon'. Still it is hard for me to distinguish the difference between these two English translations, as in Dutch we name them both simply 'duif'.

Of course mail lovers will love the Postduif (Mail Pigeon).
Dutch PostNL happened to have issued two shaped stamps in honour of the 'youth philately's day' in 2014. One of these shows the Postduif:



The fact that postduiven ('duiven' is plural of 'duif') have to do with mail, is also shown on the following Europe stamp from Kazachstan. In 2008 the Europe stamps' theme was 'letter writing', and here he/she is: the postduif!



Many more duiven have been issued on stamps.

This (post)duif is from Indonesia:



And an other kind of duif from Malaysia:



Duiven also appear on cancellation stamps. Here is one on an official postmark from Taiwan:



And an unofficial postmark, but real rubberstamp print, from the USA, showing this most well-known bird to deliver mail:



See more stamps on the letter 'D' at and via the 27 August Sunday Stamps.

Sunday stamps: 'C' is for 'Cavia' and 'Capibara'

In common Dutch, the guinea pig is named 'cavia'. Which is also part of the scientific name, Cavia porcellus.
A nowadays old-fashioned Dutch word for cavia is 'Guinees biggetje', which means 'Guinea piglet'. However, the animal is no family of pigs, nor origins from Guinea, but from the Andes mountains.

In English, the term 'guinea pig' is also used as a metaphor for a subject of scientific experiments. In contrary in Dutch, an other animal is the unlucky one in common language, namely the 'proefkonijn' ('experiment rabbit').

A large cousin of the cavia is the capibara, whose name also starts with the letter 'C'. In English it is spelled with a 'y', in Dutch we use an 'i' instead.
I would love to have a capybara stamp in hands, but alas I haven't. Fortunately I found on the internet several nice pictures, among them these two from lands they are living in, these largest rodents in the world:




Curious to know what other stamp lovers have in mind when thinking of the letter 'c'? Check the delightful Sunday stamps site and the links mentioned there!

Sunday stamps: 'B' is for 'brief', 'bellen' and 'blindengeleidehond'

I love 'false friends': words which in one language have a certain meaning, and which have in an other language a totally different meaning.

That is the case with the word 'brief'. In English 'brief' means 'short'. But the Dutch word 'brief' has a meaning which I guess you all might like: 'epistle', 'letter'!



On the first stamp Nijntje (Miffy) is writing a brief (letter).
And on the second stamp you see the happy receiver of this brief (letter).



An other funny false friend is the verb (not noun) 'bellen', a false friend between German and Dutch.

In Dutch, the verb 'bellen' means 'to make a phone call'. In German, 'bellen' means... 'to bark' (in Dutch: blaffen).

Here you see some people 'aan het bellen' (calling),



And talking about barking (blaffen), the type of dog on the next stamps doesn't bark a lot, but works hard instead, to help to guide blind people.
In Dutch he/she is named 'blindengeleidehond' (blinden = blind people (plural), geleiden = to guide, hond = dog).
Sunny was the first guide dog in the Netherlands and started to work in 1935, the founding year of the KNGF (Royal Dutch Guide Dog Foundation).



The characters on top are from the Braille alphabet, named after Louis Braille and thus has the same name in Dutch, English and German.


See more stamps concerning the 'B' at and via today's Sunday Stamps.

In: from Spain and Greece

From the city of Athens this postcard originates. Showin 'Pensive Athena', a marble relief (made appr. 460 BC) depicting the ancient Greek Goddess standing in front of a stone stele. Pallas Athena is one of my favourite mythological figures for the fact that she is the goddess of wisdom and art/craft.

Fortunately Eva remembered me liking a rubber stamp depicting Athena, and therefore she chose to send me this card. Bought in Greece and sent from Spain. So the stamp on the back is Spanish, and has been issued for the 2017 Europe theme, 'Castles'. Click on this link, and then on the country, to see the variety of Europe 2017 stamps issued this year.



Thank you very much, moltes gràcies, Eva!

Sunday stamps: 'A' is for 'Aap'

From last Sunday until 25 Sundays later, the Sunday Stamps are dedicated to the alphabet.
As it is easier for me to find a complete pictoral / stamps alphabet in my native language than in English, I thought to combine my to-be-shown stamps with a small course in Dutch language. Twenty-six nouns only, you might have learned after the coming half year.

So the letter 'A' does stand for... Monkey! In Dutch the word is 'aap', the pronounciation of which I cannot explain to non-native speakers. Even translate.google.com has difficulties explaining: its sound (click the speaker under the word in this site) does not sound native into my ears.
Anyway, we have been lucky that the aap also is part of the Chinese Zodiac. Thus many stamps have been issued on this theme. Above the very first Chinese Zodiac Dutch PostNL has ever issued: a year of the monkey (jaar van de aap) stamp sheet in 2016.

From Hong Kong I received this beautiful matching combination of postcard, stamp and postmark.



FinnBadger sent me this wonderful stamp and postmark from the USA. It took me some time to find the aap on the stamp, maybe you can spot him/her sooner?



Here he/she is:



This stamp arrived from Malaysia:



This apenmasker (monkey mask) like picture appeared on a Canadian stamp:



And three different apen ('aap' plural) stamps traveled from Japan. The first two seem to have had some trouble during their journey, but the two of them make one complete picture. From 1968:



From 1992:



A definite stamp (I think, not a zodiac one), received in / probably from 2016:



From Taiwan I received various zodiac stamps in one mail. First I thought to cut out the aap from this picture, but the postmark is worth sharing, too:



See what 'A' stamps our colleague stamp lovers have chosen for this Sunday at and via Sunday Stamps!