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!

In: from the USA

I received an envelope, whose sender seemed to be 'Lost Kingdom Station' in Tulsa, USA. Curious to know how this Lost Station would know my name and address I opened the envelope. And... Inside an other envelope, showing these great tiger stamps and wonderful special postmark!

Not send by the Lost Kingdom Station, but via this place by FinnBadger.

He added this great tufted puffin card, from the National Geographic Museum.



Thank you very much, FinnBadger!

Sunday Stamps: Photography

Today's Sunday Stamps theme is 'Photography'.

Photos are used often on stamps, but photography as an art in itself seems to be rarely used in the tiny traveling postage pictures.
Fortunately I found stamps dedicated to three Dutch photographers. Who, by the way, have been traveling all-over the world to take their pictures.

Charlotte Dumas (Vlaardingen, 1977) is one of my favourite Dutch photographers, because of her photos of animals, portrayed in a personal way. I had never heard of her, neither seen her work, until PostNL issued this stamp sheet of 'animals with a story' in 2015. In the selvages you can find the names of the animals, and read some more info (in Dutch).



In 2014 the five 'children's welfare stamps' ('Kinderpostzegels') stamp sheet shows pieces of art, depicting children. The artwork is part of the collection of the Rijksmuseum (the National Museum). Four stamps show paintings, and the fifth one, twice as much larger than the other four, show this photo:



The photographer is Maya Pejić (The Hague, 1935). The boy pictured is making some amazing manoeuvre on his skateboard in the Vondelpark in Amsterdam.
Some more information (in Dutch) about the photographer you can find on the website of the IISG (International Institute of Social History), and many more pictures you can find via google.

An other stamp sheet, completely dedicated to a photographer, is this sheet, issued last year in honour of Ed van der Elsken (Amsterdam, 1926 - Edam, 1990).
Personally I wasn't that interested in these stamps, due to the photos and the tiny size of these, but reading something more about the background (alas in Dutch only ,too) they became interesting for me though.




See more stamps on the theme 'photography' on today's Sunday Stamps blog and via the links mentioned there.

Sunday stamps: Odd shaped stamps

Today's Sunday Stamps theme is 'Odd shaped stamps'.

A nice theme! It shows the creativity of postal companies, and fortunately the present stamp printing machines are able to vary the shape of stamps.

Recently I received two wonderful shaped stamps from two different countries, which I posted on this blog before: a dragonfly from Eva from Spain, and a bat from John from the United Kingdom.

Eva also sent me a bat on a shaped stamp, this one from Spain:



Sometimes animals simply are too large for a stamp, especially prehistoric reptiles. Not only United Kingdom's Royal Mail but also Canadian Post knew how to solve the problem: just provide a little more room, and the dino's would be satisfied.
(click to enlarge)



The fourth dino on this envelope was so happy by the purposed enlarged room that he even decided to stay within the normal shape!




Finnish Post has issued many amazingly shaped stamps, and today I'm sharing this stamp showing more than one hexagonals:



'Hexagonal' is also known as honeycumb shape, and Japanese Post issued this matching stamp:




As far as I know Dutch PostNL has issued a few triangular stamps in the past, and apart from that, only one stamp sheet showing two really special shaped stamp designs.

One of the triangular stamps has been issued already in 1933, to be used for airmail between the former Dutch Indies and Holland:



The more recent stamps were issued as a stamp stickers on one sheet, for youth philately.
The names written on the stamps form a nice wordplay: 'postzegel' means stamp, but leaving the 'z' it becomes 'post-egel, which means 'mail hedgehog'. And 'postduif' means 'mail pigeon'.



Here you can see what the stamp stickers leave behind when used.



The disadvantage of odd shaped stamps is the fact that Dutch Post not always recognizes these as real postage! I once got a letter from PostNL in which I was told to pay 'missing postage'. Fortunately they included a code, and via this code I could find a scan of my outgoing mail, which proofed sufficient stamps had been sticked. Among them this Postduif, which apparently had been new to the controling employee!..




See more extraordinarily shaped stamps on and via today's Sunday Stamps post.

Sunday Stamps: Hearts

Today Sunday Stamps theme is "Hearts and flowers for Valentine's Day". Although Valentine's day was the 14th of February, I think it is never too late to show our hearts and to be and feel connected. In fact, it should be every day like this :-) So I am happy that Viridian choose to extend Valentine's day this way.

There have been issued several heart stamps in the Netherlands. Alas most of them aren't in my house anymore (but it's also nice to know that they travelled into the world :-)
Fortunately Hawwa is so kind to show some Dutch heart stamps too, among other beautiful heart stamps from all-over the world. You can enjoy them in Hawwa's Mail Adventures blog (for instance here, and here).



Isn't it a nice idea that we can see hearts everywhere? One just has to look well.
So an island can be heart-shaped. Is it coincidental that the post company emphasized the heart by putting the cancellation stamp around it?

And even our own hands can create a heart:



And I happened to have received this card a few days ago, thanks to PostMuse (who attended the Ex Postal Facto event). And besides the great Ex Postal Facto rubber stamp print, she added also postage stamps.. showing a heart!