Sunday Stamps: New Year

This week, on 16 February, the Chinese New Year will start: the year of the Dog.

That means, we'll say goodbye to the Year of the Rooster..
Dutch PostNL issued a stamp sheet on which you can see this change. 'Vaarwel jaar van de Haan' means 'goodbye / farewell to the year of the rooster', and 'welkom jaar van de hond' means 'welcome year of the dog':



Via Instagram I got to know several mail loving people from all over the world. And some of them are starting a so-called 'chaincard' themed 'Year of the Dog'. We are just about to start, so I haven't received any of the stamps yet, but some of them showed the stamps they'll going to use already in the instagram groups, and I like to share the print-screens of these stamp pictures with you!

On alphabetic order:

From Australia / Christmas Island:



From China:





From Indonesia:



From Japan:



From Korea:





From Malaysia:





From Singapore:



From Taiwan:



From Thailand:



On my turn, I'll add the Dutch Year of the Dog stamp to their cards. Dutch PostNL officially will issue this stamp sheet on 16 February, but to my surprise my order arrived already last week :-)



See more stamps of this coming New Year at and via Sunday Stamps.

Postcards for the Weekend: Love / lovely

The text says:
'A 'lief' (kind/lovely/sweet/cute) message
from me ...
... for you!'

(the scanner made it a little dark but in real the letters are bright shiny red)

There are a few days left before the send-lovely/loving-messages-to-each-other-day (14 February, Valentine's day) and before the Chinese New Year will start (16 February: the Year of the Dog). Meanwhile this weekend's theme of Postcards for the Weekend is 'love/lovely'.
So - apart from the fact that my (vegetarian, rodent) pets are chased (and eaten?) by pets like these pictured two - I though this postcard a matching one!

See more lovely / loving / love mail at and via Postcards for the Weekend!

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 Taiwan

Some countries do issue not only a variety of postage stamps, but also a variety of beautiful pictural postmarks. Taiwan is one of these countries. And Komimi from Taiwan was so kind to send me these two postmarks as a surprise within other mail. I love mail related postmarks, fortunately these are! Showing mail transport, a mailbox and a mail logo.



Komimi also made me happy with this postcard, designed by herself:



And on the back side there were these wonderful Chinese New Year stamps, from the Year of the Monkey, including a present monkey postmark, the Year of the Goat and the Year of the Horse.



THank you very much, Komimi!

In: from Hong Kong

I am very pleased to have received this beautiful maximumcard from Natalie from Hong Kong.

Besides sharing this card and stamp with you 'regularly', there are two more reasons to post this card today:
- Tomorrow the New Year will start, according to the Chinese calendar, and it will be the Year of the Monkey!
- And today's Sunday Stamps theme is 'illustrations', to which I would like to add these two illustrations of a monkey!

Check for more illustrations the Sunday Stamps blog and the links under the post.
And for all mail friends (and all others) who celebrate the Chinese New Year: happy New Year!

Thank you very much, Natalie!

Sunday stamps: Lunar New Year, Year of the Sheep / Goat

Today's theme of Sunday Stamps is the Lunar New Year, and also sheep en goats, as last Thursday the Year of the Sheep / Goat has started.

Only a few Chinese New Year's stamps have reached my mailbox, and I posted them previously among many other-themed stamps: the Year of the Pig and of the Dog, and the Year of the Dragon.
By the way, having been born in the Year of the Dragon, I always love stamps and postcards on Dragons :-) .
So I jumped a hole into the air (Dutch expression of happiness) when Finnbadger sent me this great Dragon, accompanied by some other American Chinese New Year's stamps:



And from Australia I received this older stamp, honouring the Year of the Tiger:



Concerning the present Year of the Sheep/Goat, fortunately also a beautiful Canadian New Year stamp came into my mailbox recently. In real it is even more beautiful for it's golden details. Anyway, I love to share it with you:



The complete stamp sheet you can see on Violet Sky's Sunday Stamps blog, and be sure to check the links under her blog so you can find more beautiful Lunar New Year and Sheep/Goat stamps!

Concerning the 'Chinese Year of', first I was a bit confused: Sheep? Goat? But my Chinese colleague told me that the Chinese character is similar for both animals. And I realized that in our (Dutch) language we have similar words for animals which other people will distinguish clearly. For instance the Dutch 'kangeroe' means both 'kangaroo' and 'wallaby', while an Australian guy told me that these are complete different animals, and when he told me so, I saw the difference indeed is clear.

An older Dutch sheep stamp (from the gulden/guilder era) is this one:

Sunday Stamps: Chinese and Taiwanese stamps

It's Sunday, so time for Sunday Stamps!

The 31th of January the Chinese New Year began - it's the Year of the Horse, now - and for this occasion Viridian choose the theme 'Chinese and Taiwanese stamps'.

Thanks to Postcrossing I received several stamps from China and Taiwan. And due to my wishlist - 'Dragons', as I was born in the Year of the Dragon - I received some beautiful Dragon postcards, too. Most of these postcards I'll show on an other occasion.

So today I'd like to share Chinese and Taiwanese stamps with you, and one from Hong Kong, from where I received a beautiful Year-of-the-Dragon card, too.
However I'll start with this backside of a (dragon!) card, which shows two great rubber stamp prints concerning Chinese New Year: The Year of the Dragon, 2012, and the previous year, the Year of the Rabbit:



Even the 'Airmail' is a stamp!
Guangxi from China made my day with sending this card, not only because of the Dragon on the front side and the friendly Happy New Year wish on this backside, but also due to the wonderful stamps, as I love rubberstamps a lot.

And of course you can see a Chinese postage stamp top right.

Secondly I'd like to share these stamps with you, which I received from Taiwan. For me, as a animation movie fan, the Finding Nemo stamp is a delight. And note: top right there's a Chinese New Year stamp, of the Year of the Dragon!



The New Year stamp above has been sticked on the card. Below you can see the same stamp, which is a little different: it has been printed on the back of a postcard:



And this is the postcard the stamp belongs to:



Concerning postcards-and-suitable-stamps, Canada has issued a 'Year of the Dragon' postcard and similar stamp. The postcard I'll show on an other occasion, as said. However, I couldn't wait to show the wonderful Year of the Dragon here!



An other beautiful Dragon postcard came from Hong Kong. With beautiful stamps, too, no dragon but a rubber / cancellation bridge stamp and an Olympic (summer games) stamp:



More stamps from Taiwan:









More stamps from China:









The stamp with the world / round probably show two of the elements (although I'm not sure: I found other stamps of this serie here, which show water (I think) and.. a tree..).



More nice bird stamps:





And architecture: