Sunday Stamps: Trees

It's been a long time since I posted stamps for Sunday Stamps. I'm happy to finally share these stamps, matching this Sunday's theme 'Trees' (click to enlarge):

These Dutch stamps have been issued as a serie of 4 sheets containing 10 stamps each and representing the four seasons: spring-, summer-, autumn- and winter trees. They were issued in 2007 when € 0.44 still was sufficient for mail within the Netherlands (since 1-1-2023 it is € 1.01).

The stamps show (in Dutch, English and scientific name):

top rows:
Zaad van noorse esdoorn: norway maple seed (acer platanoides)
Bruine beuk: brown beech (fagus sylvatica atropunicea)
Zwarte els: black alder (alnus glutinosa)
Schietwilg: white willow (salix alba)

bottom rows:
Hollandse linde: common linden / european lime (tilia x vulgaris / tilia x europaea)
Knop van witte paardenkastanje: bud of a horse chestnut (aesculus hippocastanum)
Schors van een plataan: bark of a plane tree (platanus)
Zomereik: common (also pedunculate or European) oak (Quercus robur).

See more tree stamps at and via Sunday stamps!

In: from Spain, France, Morocco

Today Sinterklaas aka Saint Nicolas arrived in Friesland, the northern part of the Netherlands, after a long trip by steam boat from Spain. And tomorrow he will visit Amsterdam, our capital.
However.. Already yesterday the Sint arrived in my mailbox! Not with his horse Amerigo, but accompanied by a lovely Donkey. And not from Spain, as he did today, but from France, via Morocco!

As proven by this wonderful tree stamp:




Thank you very much, Eva!

In: from Morocco and Cadiz

Camels in Morocco and Kuifje and Captain Haddock visiting Cadis/Cádiz.



I was happy to receive both postcards, along with beautiful stamps, sent from different countries. Thank you very much, moltes gràcies, Eva!

In: from the UN and the US

It is fascinating to see how Finnbadger manages to send mail from... er, as many countries as the United Nations do count!

The stamps show three of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, the successor of the eight Millenium Goals (which alas haven't been accomplished in 2015).

Inside the envelope, besides a kind message from the sender, a vintage written back of a postcard, and this wonderful mailbox collage by Craftgasm.



Thank you very much, Finnbadger!

In: from the United Kingdom

It is still winter, here in the northern hemisphere. After a few days of plus 6 to 8 degrees Celsius I was hoping that my favourite season, spring, would be back again. Alas no, more coldness on its way. The weather forecast predicts frost in the coming days, and maybe snow.

Reflecting about the four seasons, I came across this postcard John had sent me last October, two days before an other kind of spring (off-spring?) would enter his life :-) .
I love trees, and this European oak in the autumn sunlight makes a nice picture.



On the back side John added two postal related stamps: the Falmouth packet ship which traveld in the 1820s and a Traveling Post office (1890s).

Thank you very much, John!

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!

Sunday Stamps: Green

Today's Sunday Stamps theme is 'Green'.

The first stamp I'd like to share with you I don't own myself. Thanks to the internet I found an image and I am happy to show it today, because it is such a matching stamp!
Today not only is a 'green' themed Sunday Stamps day, but today also is the start of the Persian New Year: Now ruz or Norooz.
For this celebration, people arrange 'haft seen', a tabletop with 7 items which start with the letter 's'. One of the items is Sabzi, which literally means both 'green' and 'vegetable'.
This stamp shows Sabzi: the green sprouts of, for example, wheat or lentils, bound together by a red ribbon.



(I think the tulip is optional, I have never seen it in real/on pictures so far.)

For anyone who is celebrating this New Year: Happy Norooz!


I happened to have joined a chaincard project themed 'green' via Instagram recently.
The postcard started its journey in the Netherlands and after a short stop in Taiwan (ROC), Japan and Italy it returned with these stamps containing the colour green:



Austria issued this stamp for the 20th anniversary of the Alps Adriatic Philately:



Much green you can see in this stamp - one of my favourites - from Japan:



'Green' of course also has to do with environment friendly issues.

These environment friendly themed stamps are from Spain:



The following five are from a 'green' ('groen', environment friendly) ten stamp sheet from the Netherlands:



'Het nieuwe werken, groene winst' means 'the new way of working, green (environmental) profit'. The laptop represents working-at-home, in order to decrease car use and traffic.

Some of the other stamps, of which the one top right says 'groene post, een goed bericht', which mean 'green mail, a good (positive) message':



More about this stamp serie (in Dutch, but I think the non-Dutch speakers will enjoy the pictures, too) on this site and about the design process by Gesina Roters on this site.
Other 'Green' stamps (among them the 'denk groen', 'think green', stamp sheet you can find on this site.

See more stamps on the theme 'Green' on the Sunday Stamps blog and the links under the blog post.

Sunday stamps: Mushrooms, Fungi

The theme of Sunday Stamps of today is 'Mushrooms, fungi'. Useful creatures, most of the time overlooked and sometimes considered revolting, but I think they're always interesting.

They have been depicted on postage stamps in various countries, check for instance Violet's blog and the links mentioned under her post of today. And Eva drew our attention to a weblog which completely is dedicated to mushrooms on stamps!

However, so far I only received one: this Fly agaric ('Vliegenzwam' in Dutch) on a beautiful Canadian stamp.



The fly agaric of course is wellknown for its use for housing and as seats for gnomes. However, the toadstool below seems a bit too small for this tiny fellow (and the coffee pot too big!..).
This stamp has been issued in 2008 by the Dutch mail (named TNT then) as an international stamp (worth € 0.75, while seven years later international postage has been raised to € 1.15). More gnomes in this serie you can see on this website.



Also in 2008 the Dutch post issued a nice stamp sheet to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Dutch Mycological Society. The sheet contains ten stamps, showing five different mushrooms: a 'young' version and a 'grown-up' one. It's very interesting, because it shows the variety in growth of mushrooms.

I thought I had the complete sheet, but I appeared to have used all of them except for two (which I plan to use for a mail art project on mushrooms). Below you can see the two ones left. The complete set you can see on the Filahome website and especially on the stamps blog, on which nice detailed pictures of each stamp are shown.

This is the 'Inktviszwam' or 'Octopus stinkhorn':



And here again the Fly agaric or Fly amanita, with in the stamp sheet's edge from right to left the development of an other mushroom, the Ink cap:



Two years later, in 2010, the Dutch post (still TNT Post then) issued a stamp sheet themed 'Long live the Forest', to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Royal Dutch Forestry Association. Also of this sheet I haven't the complete version anymore (you can see the complete sheet on the stamps blog), but fortunately I kept the bottom part so far, and indeed there are mushrooms, not only on the forest floor, but also on this stamp sheet 'floor'!



Finally I would like to show you two very tiny types of mushrooms / fungi.
These are part of a stamp sheet containing ten pictures of different microbes (I blogged about it before, see the last picture of this post). The stamp sheet was issued in 2011 (TNT post was changed into PostNL then), to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Netherlands Society for Microbiology.

This fungus is the Aspergillus niger, which helps to produce compost:



And this beauty has been discovered in 1928 to be life safening: the penicillium (or Penicillium chrysogenum to be exact):



Don't you think the fact that fungi obviously are related to at least three different associations / societies, proofs that fungi are ubiquitous and play an important role in many different stages and parts of life?

Sunday stamps: December stamps

After 200 editions of Sunday Stamps hosted by Viridian, Viridian passes the baton on to Violet Sky, so fortunately the Sunday Stamps continue. This Sunday's theme is 'Christmas / Hannukah stamps'.

There are many Christmas / December stamps issued by the Dutch post, and I've received several beauties from overseas. However, this time I'll limit my contribution to one stamp I received from Spain (thank you, Eva!), and two I received from the United Kingdom (thank you, John!).

This Spanish one has been issued in 2013 and is multilingual: Gallego, Catalan, Basque and Castellano.



And these English two show what many people also in the Netherlands do: take a Christmas tree home, and send cards to family and friends (speaking for myself: I safe the christmas tree, but I do send cards, so I do not safe other trees...).

Out: to Belgium

Verstuurd naar België, naar een liefhebber van bomen.
Sent to Belgium, to a tree lover.

Out: to Spain

Verzonden naar Spanje. Sent to Spain



De stempel is ontworpen door Studio Formo.
The snail mail rubber stamp has been designed by Studio Formo.

In: from Spain

Kijk ze eens mooi bij elkaar, de Uil en de Papegaaiduiker - 'samen met u onder de paraplu' - op deze ansichtkaart. Oorspronkelijk een boekomslag uit 1966, geïllustreerd door Jill McDonald voor Puffin Books. Meer werk van Jill McDonals (1927-1982) vind je hier.
Hartelijk dank, Eva!

Look them standing together cosy, the Owl and the Puffin - 'together with you under the umbrella' - on this postcard! Originally a book cover, made in 1966 by Jill McDonald for Puffin Books.
More work by Jill McDonald (1927-1982) you can find here.
Thank you very much, Eva!