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: Bicycles

This Sunday Stamps' theme is 'cycles: bi, tri, motor'.

I love bicycles! They are good for health and for the environment. Here in the Netherlands most Dutch have learned to ride the bicycle already in early childhood, and we're lucky to have a lot of good cycle pathways and bicycle parking places :-)
Some consider the Netherlands a 'fietsland' ('bicycle-land') so it might not surprise you that the Dutch PostNL, including it's predecessors TNT, TPG and PTT, has issued several stamps showing bicycles.

My favourite stamp I've posted before - see here, a postman riding a bike, illustrated by Sieb Posthuma). And you can find two Tour de France stamp sheets here.

Bicycle stamps are part of two present 'forever stamps' sheets.
The national 'forever' stamp sheet consists of 10 stamps showing ten typical Dutch themes in white on blue background. Among them this bicycle:



The international 'forever' stamp sheet consists of five stamps, showing five different themes in blue on a white background. Also the bike:



Some years earlier - when 'Europe' and 'World' had different rates and different stamps (now both cost the same postage) - a bicycle showed up on the 'Europe' stamps. The 'forever' stamp was introduced in 2010:



One year before, in 2009, the rates for Europe were € 0,77, and outside Europe € 0,95 as you can see below (while today the 'forever' stamp above is worth € 1,25 for all countries outside of the Netherlands).



Riding the bicycle is common for most Dutch people as proofs this stamp, showing the royal family cosily together riding their bikes:



And yes, you have seen it right: in our country most people, including me, consider wearing helmets for common bicycle transportation 'not done'...
Only a few very young children and all sport / tour cyclists do...

From the pre-Euro, 'gulden' era come the following two stamps.
The first has been issued in honour of the ANWB which once has started as an organisation for bicyclists (but nowadays has more car drivers as a member):



And this pretty CEPT stamp:



Last but not least this Dutch stamp, which is part of a 'ten inventions' stamps sheet, issued in 2010 for the 100th anniversary of the Dutch Patent Act, and which shows an important part of the bicycle: the chainguard:




Fortunately I received some bicycle stamps from other countries, too, which of course made my day:

From Spain:



From Greece:




Finally from bi-cycle to a tri-motor-cycle. Usually I detest motor cycles, because their exhaust/muffler gasses ruin my good mood when I smell it while riding my bike.
However there are a few exceptions, among them tricycle electric motor cycles like these, because they help to deliver mail :-)
Lucky and happy I was when I found these maximum cards via the internet:

The electric trike Kyburz DXP,



and the electric trike Tribelhorn, both from Switzerland.



See much more great bi-and more-cycles at and via this Sunday's Sunday Stamps!

In: from Switzerland and Spain

Here's an other postman: the 'Basler Standesläufer'. The statue, probably made around the year 1500, is located in the courtyard of the City Hall of the Swiss city of Basel.
The story about this messenger, courier, is rather sad. This figure pictured is generally associated with the Basel messenger, who, during the Battle of Saint Jakob an der Birs on the 26th of August 1444, delivered the terrible news to the Council of Basel about the approach of the dreaded Armagnacs.
After delivering the courier is said to have collapsed and died of exhaustion...
By the way, a similar thing happened about 2000 years before this occasion.



Sent from Spain by Eva. Thank you very much, Eva!

In: from Switzerland

Als je veel post verstuurt, kan het vaker gebeuren dat een kaart niet aankomt. Maar geen man overboord. Zodra Postcrossing aangeeft dat een van mijn kaarten 'expired' is, probeer ik het meestal gewoon nog een keer.
Omgekeerd is het ook leuk om te merken dat mensen moeite doen voor mij. Zo ontving ik deze postcrossing kaart van Monika uit Zwitserland. Bij het registreren zag ik dat ze een heel andere kaart had geüpload, en die vond ik leuk genoeg om in mijn 'postcrossing wall' te laten staan. Maar deze vond ik ook ontzettend leuk, want zeg nu zelf, hoe vaak zien we vuurtorens op 2046 meter hoogte boven zeeniveau?!

When you send a lot of mail, the chance of not-arriving of some mail becomes higher. It's all in the game, so as soon as Postcrossing tells that a sent postcard is 'expired', I usually have a second try and send a new card.
It's nice to see that other people act similar. This way I received this postcard from Monika from Switzerland. When I registered this card, a totally different postcard appeared at my 'postcrossing wall' automatically. That one was too nice to delete. And this card is great and worth showing, too. However, at the Postcrossing wall there's no room for both of them. So I decided to post it here.
I think it special: how many times do we get the opportunity to see a lighthouse at 2046 meters above sea level?

Thank you very much, Monika!