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!

Black minus red is blue and yellow

Today's Sunday Stamps' theme is 'Dark, colour or theme'. When I saw this theme announced last Sunday, I immediately had an atmospheric, nice dark / sunset stamp in mind. Not knowing what would happen later this week.
Thursday morning, 24 February, a horrible news shook the world. How can one man even think of attacking a country, and then let his bad saddening thoughts come true by letting the army of his country invade the neighbouring country...

Thanks to our stamp hobby on instagram I've learned to know kind and thoughtful people from both countries. While the woman in RU feels guilty and sad and supports the UA people, the UA woman is hiding in shelter due to the bombing...

Both you, dear visitor, and I know how real mail can connect real people in a positive way, and I wished that this agressive president would have been sending postcards and drink tea and make music with the neighbours instead of causing pain and loss by starting a bad, sad war.

Instead of the dark sunset stamp I originally had in mind, I chose two specific bright colours for today. The connection with the theme, dark/black: Painters know that the three primary colours together make black (or at least a dark grey).
So if we pull the red out of this black, the remaining colours form the bright colours of the flag of the country we are supporting in these hard times.
And I chose these stamps (coincidentally from other countries) to have these Blue and Yellow always keep on shining bright.

Last but not least, I dont know if KR Post did issue this yellow umbrella stamp intentionally to support the people in HK, but anyhow I think these people, whose freedom has been taken away by an other mighty country, deserve attention and support, too.

Let us not forget that many other countries have been invaded and even stolen by other countries (also in 'our' past via colonialism) and still today many more people in many countries suffer from war and agression.
Hopefully peace will gain victory all over the world very, very soon.

See more stamps on the theme, supporting Ukraine and peace, at - and in the comments to - today's Sunday Stamps post.

Sunday Stamp: Nella Larsen

It has been a long time since I posted for Sunday Stamps, and I am happy to add a stamp for today's theme: 'N'.

My late mom was named Nelly, and the woman on this stamp is named Nella, so her name is dear :-)
I found some more information about Nella Larsen on the internet, and her career is matching to this Sunday Stamps' theme also: she was both a nurse and a novellist.
I didn't know her books so far. But now that I was searching for more information, I found out that her novel 'Passing', first published in 1929, still is available (and even has been translated into my language, Nederlands / Dutch). As it is about two women from mixed families (which is a dear theme to me) I just ordered it, to read it more than ninety years after Nella has written the book.

Nella's stamp was accompanied by a stamp of an other writer, plus a matching postmark of the Harlem Renaissance movement (many thanks to FinnBadger for these stamps and postmark):

See more stamps on today's theme on and via the comments on today's Sunday Stamps.

Sunday Stamps: F is for Feathers and Fountain pens

Today's Sunday Stamps theme is the letter 'F'.

I found some good old writing tools. The feathers might be hardly used anymore nowadays, in contrary to fountain pens, who have a lot of new fans.











See more stamps showing an object or name starting with an 'F' at today's Sunday Stamps.

Sunday Stamps: E is for Envelope, Erwtjes and Embrace the Earth

Past Sunday's Sunday Stamps theme is/was the letter 'E'. As I was elsewhere, my contribution has a littlE dElay. But here they are:


Envelopes have been pictured on the 2008 Europa stamps (in the year two-thousand-Eight :-) )
For example on this Dutch Europa stamp:



And on the Russian Europa 2008 stamp a modern and classic version of an envelope:



Envelopes behind a modern communication medium (facilitating E-mail!) on the Europa stamp from Azerbeidjan:





Erwtjes, I think a funny Dutch word. It means 'tiny peas' (erwten is the normal plural form of the singular 'erwt'), and I was happily surprised when I saw erwtjes being honoured with a stamp from France:




The erwtjes came on a chaincard themed 'green'. And when thinking of 'green' I think of the Environment, and the need to protect it. So I also was happy to see this stamp on the card. Issued by Turkish Post, a beautiful symbolic way to show the importance of protecting the environment, to embrace the Earth.





See what other 'E' other stamp lovers had in mind on this Sunday at Violet's See it on a Postcard and follow the links in the comments.

Sunday Stamps: D is for Darwin and Dragon

This time the Sunday Stamps' theme is the letter 'D'.
Yesterday I happened to have received a postcrossing postcard from Czech Republic, showing a stamp which matches to the theme:



Charles Darwin, I think he doesn't need any introduction, pictured on a stamp designed by graphic designer Pavel Dvorský.

Darwin was famous by his book 'On the origin of species'. However, despite of the resemblance with the little animal on the Czech stamp, I think no one exactly does know the origin of the following animals:



These stamps were issued in honour of the Year of the Dragon. To two of them some relief has been added, or, as we also say in Dutch, some diepte (depth):



See more stamps showing the letter 'D' on Sunday Stamps!

Sunday Stamps: C is for Chair and Couch

Today's theme for Sunday Stamps is the letter 'C'.

Coincidentally I received a chaincard back home yesterday. The card started its journey on 19 November 2018, and after traveling from the Netherlands to Germany, Hungary, China and Taiwan, it came back full of nice stamps.
As the theme was 'Furnitures', there appeared to be some matching stamps: chairs!



The front side of the card is matching, too! It shows contemporary art by Bill Viola, a video still titled 'Catherine's Room (panel 3)' (2001).



On some of the cards of my chaincard pals I didn't stick the same stamp shown on my card bottom right, but an other stamp from the Children's Stamps 2015 serie, showing a couch:



This time the words in Dutch don't start with a 'C':
chair = stoel
couch = bank (the 'a' pronounced as the 'a' in 'harvest' or 'calm')
coincidentally = toevallig
contemporary art = moderne kunst
card = kaart
chain = ketting
children's stamps = kinderpostzegels

See more stamps on the theme 'the letter C' at today's Sunday Stamps, and don't forget to check the links in the comments to that post!

Sunday Stamps: B is for Bridge is Brug

Today's theme of Sunday Stamps is the letter 'B'.

Thanks to Eva I received this beautiful stamp, showing a bridge, 'brug' in Dutch.



Which happens to be no bridge at all, do you see that?

See more stamps on the letter 'B' at today's Sunday Stamps.

Sunday Stamps: A is for Aletta Jacobs

Today the new Sunday Stamps alphabet is starting, with the letter 'A' of course.

In the previous alphabet my chosen theme was 'Dutch words stamps'. I was wondering what theme to choose now, or if I should maybe show random stamps.
Thanks to Eva's blog post of today I suddenly thought of 'people'.
And the stamp Eva showed, 'American Women' in general, reminded me of a certain Dutch woman who has played an important role: in becoming a university student and a medical doctor in times when women were not supposed to study, in supporting people who had a bad and poor life, and a main role for women in obtaining the right to vote.
Aletta Jacobs I'm talking about. I must confess that I don't have a stamp showing herself, but the stamp I have immediately reminds me of her. The stamp has been issued in honour of the women's right to vote. Maybe Aletta Jacobs shows up on the black and white photo in the upper part of this stamp?



In 1999 the Dutch Post issued a stamp sheet, themed 'highlights of the 20th century'. One of them is this stamp, dedicated to the obtained right to vote. So to see the woman on this stamp is not Aletta Jacobs, but anyhow the stamp is related:



On the internet I found this one and only stamp, a personalized one, showing her portrait:



Since a few years the archives of Aletta Jacobs are considered as world heritage, and in the UNESCO Memory of the World program.


See here what interesting 'A'-stamps other stamp lovers chose for today's Sunday Stamps!

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.

Sunday Stamps: 'Z' is for zee, zeeschelp and zwemmen

We made it! In 26 weeks the owner of Sunday Stamps posted stamps of all 26 letters from the alphabet, and she made us - Sunday Stamps and Mail Lovers - do the same! Congratulations to all, and many thanks to Violet, thank you for hosting Sunday Stamps so carefully!

So, the last letter of the alphabet is 'Z'. In English pronounced as 'zea', in Dutch we name this letter 'zet'.

The first stamp I want to share with you is about the zee, sea in English. Zee is pronounced as [zey] or [zay] like in 'hey' and 'hay' (is there any difference in pronounciation between hey and hay? - I don't hear it!..).
And the letter Z is not only for zee, but also Zeeland, literally 'sea-land', which is the name of the province in the zuidwesten - south west - of the Netherlands. The country New Zealand is named after this province.



Last week this province was in the news and some historical movies were shown on television, because of a sad anniversary: in the night of 31 January - 1 February 1953 the North Sea Flood took place, and this flood took the lives of many victims.
This was the start of a dike protection plan, the so-called Deltaplan, to construct the Deltawerken (Delta Works). The construction took many years, and finally, in 1986 the main parts of the Deltawerken were finished. This stamp has been issued in 1986 in honour of the Deltawerken. The text says 'Deltawerken voltooid' ('Delta works completed') but in fact it was the main parts which were finished, and in 1986 the Oosterscheldekering was inaugurated. Finally, after more than 40 years of construction, in 1997 the last part of the Deltawerken was completed (which does not mean the end of all construction works: nowadays one has to maintain it!).
So, on this 1986 stamp you can see a part of the zee, a part of Zeeland and the forementioned part of the Deltawerken.

The province Zeeland is famous for the mussel cultivation (including selling / eating). I couldn't find a stamp showing a mussel, but today that is no problem as 'mossel' doesn't start with a 'z'. But fortunately I found a look-a-like, which at least is a zeeschelp - a sea shell, on this pretty stamp bwhich Eva has sent to me from Morocco:



One activity we can do in the zee is zwemmen (to swim). You also can do it in a zwembad (swimming pool), and some people make a match of it - zwemsport (swimming sports).
Coincidentally this 'chaincard' arrived back to me recently, after having been traveling to Thailand, Taiwan and Russia, where kind stamp lovers added stamps showing zwemmers (swimmers) to my card (and I added the Dutch zwemsport stamps to theirs). This is the result:



See what other 'Z' themed stamps others have found at and via today's Sunday Stamps!

Sunday Stamps: 'Y' is for ijsbeer, ijs and ijsvogel

This Sunday the theme of Sunday Stamps is the letter Y.

In Dutch we name it 'Griekse IJ', or i-grec, literally 'Greek Y', as it origins from the Greek alphabet's letter Ypsilon or upsilon.
Words in Dutch starting with a 'y' are known internationally, like yak, yoghurt and yoga. Be it that the pronounciatin of the Dutch 'g' in these words is different from the English, Spanish, French and German pronounciation (the Dutch 'g' sounds like the Spanish 'j'). The word 'year' in Dutch is 'jaar', so yearly events and anniversaries won't count for my blog post on the letter of today :-)

Of course I couldn't find stamps on yoghurt, yak, yoga. But in Dutch we can 'cheat' a little, without cheating: when naming the 'Y' in the alphabet we pronounce it like the 'IJ'. The ij is used and pronounced as a vowel, and there are several words starting with this 'ij'.
Like ijs, which means both icecream and ice.

From a Finnish postcrosser I received this snowy and icy stamp. It must be so ijskoud - cold as ice - there, that rivers freeze into ijs:



In the Netherlands there is the ijsvogel, literally 'ice bird', though in English he and she are named 'kingfisher'. Arnold Voordewind, a Dutch phographer, took this beautiful photo and turned it into this stamp:



From FinnBadger I received this wonderful stamp from the United Nations, showing an ijsbeer ('beer' pronounced as 'bear'; the English 'beer' in Dutch is 'bier').
In English this animal is named 'polar bear', though in Dutch it is simply an ijsbeer:



Despite of the name 'ijsbeer' the environment of the ijsbeer is lacking ijs / ice more and more. Climate change, global warming, these facts are a serious thing. And does not only make the ijsberen cry, but also us, humans, in the end will have to face the bad sides of our over-use of natural sources...

This beautiful stamp sheet shows the sad reality and the sadness of the ijsbeer:



I received this wonderful sheet by surprise from Virna from Indonesia - thank you so much!


More stamps on the letter 'Y' (and maybe an other 'IJ'?) you can find at and via Sunday Stamps.