In: from Romania

With Nora, who is from Singapore and lives in Germany, I've joined a few chaincard projects. To my surprise she was in Romania and sent me this pretty postcard.
On the back nice postmarks, and a stamp showing cactus - the first cactus stamp I've ever had in hands!



Thank you very much, Nora!

Sunday stamps: professions

This Sunday Viridian choose 'Professions and trades' as theme for Sunday Stamps.

The Brazilian post has issued beautiful stamps on professions in 2005 and 2006. Here you see the manicure (manicurist), sapateiro (shoemaker) and costureira (tailor).



In our country there's a nation wide 'flea market' on King's Day in April. On this day everyone can sell his/her old stuff, and of course buy, too, all for small amounts. Last April I was looking for something else, when I suddenly found an old stamp collection book. With many empty pages, and I bought it to use it to have my own stamps organized. But I also was happy to find some old stamps in some of the pages. Among them this one from former West Germany. It has been issued in 1971 to pay attention to safety measures (you can see seven others from this serie here). And the profession shown is an important one. Thanks to construction workers we have warm houses, roads etcetera. While their hard work isn't that easy nor safe.



Also in this old album I found this stamp from Indonesia. I'm not exactly sure what kind of fabric she is making, but I think we humans can't live without the beautiful products made by fabric / textile workers.



And an other old stamp has been issued in Romania. Concerning Post, one of the most important workers for us snail mail lovers :-)



Last month the Dutch post issued a so-called 'postset', containing three postcards and a special issued stamp sheet called 'beroepen en ambachten', which means 'professions and trades'. How coincidental!
The stamp sheet shows a beautiful compilation of illustrations of professions: a blacksmith, postman, hairdresser (barber) and wooden shoe maker. The illustrations have been created by Rien Poortvliet (1932-1995). He was famous for the general public for his beautiful illustrations of animals (among them horses), old Dutch sceneries and 'drawn stories', for instance about gnomes. However, there was dispute whether his creations were 'art' or not. He finally found recognition as an artist when a museum of his works was opened, in 1992.

Sunday stamps: Clocks

This Sunday stamps' theme is open: 'anything you wish'.

Some time ago I had the theme 'Clocks' in mind, but due to the fact that I'm too busy these weeks and there's only little spare time, I initially thought to skip my contribution this time. However, I happened to have received mail art from Romania yesterday, and the stamps showed, besides flowers... Clocks! No coincidence, I suppose, and thanks to the Romanian (mail) artist Mariana Serban I tried - and succeeded - to find some time to scan these and some more clocks-on-stamps.



One place where clocks are important, is the railway station. You can see the clock on top of this railway station in Brazil:



And in 1989 the Dutch post issued this stamp for the 'Nederlandse Spoorwegen' (Dutch railway company), which were a national company for 150 years then. The stamp shows a clock (and train), too:



A wellknown clock stamp is of course the American clock:



A clock on an other building is this one, on the Beurs van Berlage:



At the end of the year, of course all of us are watching the clock.
In the Netherlands:





And in Spain, where it's tradition to eat a grape every time the clock strikes at the turn of the year:



And for the ones who like technics (among them, I do), the inside of clocks is very interesting, too. 'Uurwerk' means 'clockwork':



Check for more contributions to this Sunday's Sunday Stamps via Viridian's Postcard Blog. Various and very interesting themes!

Sunday stamps: Airplanes and air transport

This Sunday's Sunday stamps theme is another favourite of mine: airplanes.
The stamp you see above is from Romania. I love that one a lot because it combines the Airplane with AirMail!
This stamp didn't land in my mailbox, but in the mailbox of a postcrossing relative instead. Fortunately she let me take a picture of this stamp, so at least I have the digital one to share with you :-)

Other airplane stamps from outside my country I received from Eva from Spain. You can see two of them here.
Below I'll share some Dutch airplane stamps.



This sheet is one of my favourites, issued in 2009 due to the 100th anniversary of motorised air transport in the Netherlands (which was just 2 years earlier than the Modesto Airmail).
When I asked myself 'why do I love this sheet that much?', I found out that I love the bright yellow of the trauma helicopter and the blue airplane on top. And the airport Schiphol on the right: I've seen this hall several times from inside and I associate it with travelling and freedom.
The one on top right is familiar, too: we drive over the A4 motorway every now and then, and you can see an airplane riding on the viaduct above you really! Always a special feeling when passing under this giant vehicle!



This airplane is a very small one: it is part of the Dutch miniature world 'Madurodam'.

And below some older stamps, all from the gulden era.



On this one you see a British airplane dropping food into our country at the end of World War II.



And these stamps show Dutch airplanes: above a Fokker airplane and below KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines).



Check Sunday Stamps for more Airplane stamps!

Sunday stamps: Letters, postcards, and the post

This Sunday Stamps' theme is 'Letters, postcards, and the post'. A great theme, of course, for mail lovers like me and all who like to visit blogs like this :-)
Below my contribution. And check Sunday Stamps to find more post-related stamps!

The first stamp I'd like to show is a Dutch stamp sheet, issued in 2001 as 'children's stamps'. These stamps ('Kinderpostzegels') are issued every year in November, to support projects for children.
The theme of 2001 was 'Child and Computer'. And the funny thing is that, although it was meant to show the pathways of electronic mail, still you can see that it's a Real Letter being brought around!



This Swedish serie of stamps shows the postal process, both in place and time (be it the paper post instead of the digital mail). (Thank you Niklas, for sending!)



How Post works? Write a letter or postcard (or create mail art). Add a stamp, put the mail item into the letterbox or ask the post office (wo)man to deliver (the posthorn has been the sign of Post in many countries), see there are several ways for transport. And finally there's the receiver's mailbox!
Stamps from the Netherlands, Estonia, Canada, United Kingdom, Romania and Finland:








P.S. Don't forget to write the postal code:



A very nice idea is Postcrossing. See this website: postcrossing.com. You can send postcards and will receive postcards at random from many places in the world.

In the Netherlands, in 2011 a stamp sheet has been issued, dedicated to Postcrossing. I wrote about it here.
And to my surprised I received a Postcrossing postcard from Finland recenlty, showing also a Postcrossing stamp.
To make the circle round: I started with a stamp sheet which showed that the computer (email) and snail mail go together well. Also in exchanging postcards via Postcrossing, the digital and snail mail life show an excellent symbiosis!