In: from Hong Kong

World Post Day is celebrated each year on 9 October, the anniversary of the establishment of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) in 1874 in Bern. In 1969 the day was declared World Post Day by the UPU Congress, which was held in Tokyo in that year.

As far as I know in the Netherlands there haven't been issued stamps to celebrate World Post Day. In my collection I have none, and on the internet I only found one stamp and a postmark on the UPU (which is 'Wereldpostvereniging' in Dutch).
A yearly stamp on the 'Day of the postage stamp' is issued on a later date in October (like this 2014 stamp, on 17 October, or the 2015 stamp on 16 October).

In contrary, other countries pay more attention to World Post Day. I was very happy to receive a postcard from Natalie from Hong Kong. The back side showed these beautiful stamps, cancelled by a suitable postmark:



The stamps came on a beautiful postcard as well, showing a fine watercolour painting by Shen Ping.



Thank you very much, Natalie!

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!