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!

In: from Kazachstan

This beautiful postcard I received from Assel from Kazachstan. The illustration has been made by Svetlana Popova.

On the back nice stamps, and I learn to say 'Hello' in more languages.
And do you notice the tulips on the round stamp? My country, the Netherlands, is said to be a land of the tulips. However, tulips don't originate from our low country. Their origin is in.. the mountains of Kazachstan! Via Persia, China, Turkey and Antwerp the first tulip finally reached the Netherlands in the end of the 16th century.



Thank you very much, Assel!

In: from Hungary

Behold this longing animal!
Sent by Micu from Hungary.



On the back side not a usual stamp (Hungary has many beautiful ones) but this time a postage sticker, and a priority sticker.
Boring? Not at all! Besides the interesting language - just now I learned that 'Hungary' in Hungarian means 'Magyarország'! - you can see beautiful tiny small post horns in the edges. And 'priority' in Hungarian is 'elsőbbségi'. An interesting word for non-native language lovers!



Thank you very much, Micu, köszönöm!

In: from Morocco

Traffic signs and things like that always fascinate me. So I was very pleased to receive this great postcard from Morocco, sent by Eva.

Not only a very original postcard and a beauty for the eye, but this postcard contains also an easy way to exercise some characters from the Arab alphabet (for the non-Arab speakers: don't forget to read from right to left).

On the back there was a new (to me) stamp, showing a sea animal:



Tiny (only 18 x 24 millimetres!) and beautiful. This one must be from a great serie of sea animals, as Eva had sent me two other stamps, too:





(The mail these two have been sticked to, I will post soon in the animals mail art blog).

In: from the United Kingdom

In juni 2014 arriveerden een vuurtoren en tram op dezelfde dag, dankzij John, vanuit Engeland, en een klein jaar later was dit weer het geval!
Boven zie je de vuurtoren van Bell Rock oftewel Inchcape, en hieronder de Llandudno & Colwyn Bay electrische tram.

In June 2014 a lighthouse and tram arrived on the same day, thanks to John, from the United Kingdom. Almost a year later the same happened!
Above you can see the Bell Rock aka Inchcape lighthouse. amd below the Llandudno & Colwyn Bay electric tram.



Deze keer kwam er nog een derde ansichtkaart bij, met een wat vreemd onderwerp: een stoel waarmee mensen in het water gedoopt werden?

This time a third postcard arrived, showing a peculiar subject: a chair by which people were dipped into the water!??



En alle drie weer met mooie postzegels met enkele van mijn favoriete onderwerpen: een treinstation, postvervoer, bruggen en taal (gebarentaal in dit geval).

The three of them showing nice stamps on the backside, among them some of my favourite subjects: train station, mail transport, bridges and language (sign language this time).
Thank you very much, John!







En niet te vergeten airmail/priority stickers.

And not to forget: air mail / priority stickers.

In: from Spain

Op 23 april was het Sant Jordi's dag (Sint Joris / Georgius' dag). Een dag waarop men in Catalonië elkaar ook boeken geeft. Een dag waarop Eva mij deze literaire kaart stuurde. Met mooie tekst: 'De natuur fluistert voor ons, maar slechts de helft van het geheim'. Goed luisteren, dus! Want 't zal me niet verbazen als de meesten nog geen fractie hiervan ter ore komt.

De kaart was vergezeld door onderstaande toepasselijke cartoon. 'Koop een boek. En vervolgens: lees het!'

23 april means Saint Jordi's day (Saint George's day). On this day, in Catalonia people give each other books, and Eva sent me this postcard. Containing a beautiful text: 'Nature whispers to us, but only half the secret'.
So listen carefully! I think many of us usually even don't hear a minimal part of it.

The postcard was accompanied by this suitable cartoon. 'Buy a book. And then read it.'

Grappig plaatje op de postzegels. Deden de mensen in onze stad dat maar vaker zo.
(Wie zou de postzegels gestempeld hebben? Zo wordt het kunst!)
The stamps show a funny picture. I wish more people in our city would act like that.
(Who would have cancelled the postage stamps this artfully?)

Thank you very much, Eva!

In: from Finland

Ontvangen uit Finland, deze mooie kaart met hommel.
Received from Finland, this beautiful picture of a bumblebee.



Plus het Finse weerbericht en een gebruikt bioscoopkaartje!
Plus the Finnish weather forecast and a movie ticket!
Kiitos, Roosa!