In: from the USA

Both FinnBadger and Eva completed the 'A to Z challenge' in April, a wonderful and amazing achievement. For that reason I sent them a special 'A to Z' congratulations mail (see Eva's and FinnBadger's blog).

On my turn I felt lucky, not only by enjoying the forementioned blogs, but also by all kinds of kind and beautiful mail, both FinnBadger and Eva send to me.
As I like typography (and civil airplanes), and there happened to be a matching magazine cover, FinnBadger surprised me by sending this great A-Z envelope.
By the way, do you notice that the airplane on the stamp is flying upside down?

In the envelope a card showing one of my other favourite themes, being born in the Year of the Dragon: a YotD-Dragon!



Thank you very much, FinnBadger!

In: from Spain (and the United Kingdom)

What do Morris Mouse and Harry Potter have in common?

They send/receive mail, they experience adventures...



...They can fly!...
(in apparently impossible ways)



... And they have been sent by Eva from Spain to the Netherlands!



The Mouse Mail caused some jolly way of canceling.



Thank you very much, Eva!

Sunday stamps: Flying

Today the Sunday Stamps' theme is 'Flying'.

Apart from flying flies, wasps and mosquitoes (which I never have seen on stamps so far), the flying 'objects' I see around my home on a regular base are birds and airplanes (and leaves and maple seeds in autumn).

Dutch PostNL has started to issue a serie of four beautiful bird photo stamp sheets this year.
The third and fourth stamp sheet I hope to get in future. At this moment I can show you some flying birds from the first two sheets:

From the 'lentevogels' ('spring birds') the stork ('ooievaar' in Dutch):



and the black redstart (in Dutch: 'zwarte roodstaart' which literally means 'black redtail'),



And from the previous 'winter birds' sheet this greylag goose:




This flying bird I happened to receive yesterday, but it is in transit. The stamp is on someone else's chaincard, so I have to forward it. But fortunately I could make a scan in time :-)




Luckily some months ago I received one of my own chaincards back, themed 'aviation'. Here it is, after traveling from the Netherlands via Singapore, Thailand, Russia, back home, now showing several airplanes, and a helicopter:



See more interesting stamps, and wonderful variations on the theme 'flying' today's Sunday stamps and follow the links.

Out: to Singapore

I happened to have to go to The Hague some days ago. On my way by bus and train I came along Schiphol Airport. Of course I took the opportunity to visit the book- and stationery store there, to see if there were interesting postcards.
So I found this Airport postcard which I sent to Jael in Singapore.

And fortunately Dutch PostNL has issued Schiphol Airport stamps last year, so I was happy to be able to add these to my card for her.

Sunday stamps: Odd shaped stamps

Today's Sunday Stamps theme is 'Odd shaped stamps'.

A nice theme! It shows the creativity of postal companies, and fortunately the present stamp printing machines are able to vary the shape of stamps.

Recently I received two wonderful shaped stamps from two different countries, which I posted on this blog before: a dragonfly from Eva from Spain, and a bat from John from the United Kingdom.

Eva also sent me a bat on a shaped stamp, this one from Spain:



Sometimes animals simply are too large for a stamp, especially prehistoric reptiles. Not only United Kingdom's Royal Mail but also Canadian Post knew how to solve the problem: just provide a little more room, and the dino's would be satisfied.
(click to enlarge)



The fourth dino on this envelope was so happy by the purposed enlarged room that he even decided to stay within the normal shape!




Finnish Post has issued many amazingly shaped stamps, and today I'm sharing this stamp showing more than one hexagonals:



'Hexagonal' is also known as honeycumb shape, and Japanese Post issued this matching stamp:




As far as I know Dutch PostNL has issued a few triangular stamps in the past, and apart from that, only one stamp sheet showing two really special shaped stamp designs.

One of the triangular stamps has been issued already in 1933, to be used for airmail between the former Dutch Indies and Holland:



The more recent stamps were issued as a stamp stickers on one sheet, for youth philately.
The names written on the stamps form a nice wordplay: 'postzegel' means stamp, but leaving the 'z' it becomes 'post-egel, which means 'mail hedgehog'. And 'postduif' means 'mail pigeon'.



Here you can see what the stamp stickers leave behind when used.



The disadvantage of odd shaped stamps is the fact that Dutch Post not always recognizes these as real postage! I once got a letter from PostNL in which I was told to pay 'missing postage'. Fortunately they included a code, and via this code I could find a scan of my outgoing mail, which proofed sufficient stamps had been sticked. Among them this Postduif, which apparently had been new to the controling employee!..




See more extraordinarily shaped stamps on and via today's Sunday Stamps post.

Sunday Stamps: commemorating a battle or disaster

Today's theme of Sunday Stamps is 'commemorating a battle or disaster'.

Personally I consider each battle, each war, a disaster. After so many decades, centuries, millennia, many people still invent the disastrous wheel of 'fight-against-them' and still didn't learn that 'them' and 'we' always is 'us', 'humans', 'world citizens', having a lot more in common than differences.

Searching my stamps collection, I couldn't find stamps which commemorate a single battle. So let me first share with you this postcard instead, showing the result of the four battles that have taken place here.
My dear ones had taken this postcard home for me. Last Thursday they happened to visit Ieper in Belgium, while I had to stay home and go to work. The postcards (I got more) and their stories increased my attention to WW1.



This postcard shows a painting by the Australian born artist William Longstaff. He painted it in 1927, after attending the unveiling of the Menin Gate Memorial in Ieper. This memorial records the names of nearly 55,000 of the missing of the Ypres Salient. At first sight it looks like a common painting of a memorial and its surroundings. But if you look close, do you see the ghost soldiers, too?!

An other postcard shows an other kind of devastation by war. The beautiful Lakenhalle in Ieper (Ypres Cloth Hall) was virtually destroyed by artillery during this First World War:



The picture has been made by one of the brothers Antony of Antony d'Ypres.
Fortunately the building has been reconstructed, between 1933 and 1967, to its prewar condition.

Back to stamps, as the theme is Sunday Stamps! And forward to the Second World War, and north to the Netherlands.

The battles which took place in the Netherlands in WWII have been relatively short, from 10 to 14 May 1940 in the greater part of the country, and until 17 May in the province Zeeland.
The battles are commemorated, especially in this '75 years after' year. However, as far as I know there haven't been issued Dutch commemorating stamps on these battles.

However several interesting stamps have been issued on various themes concerning WWII.
Of which I only have the following four:

This one on "verzet" (resistance):



And on the "geallieerden" (allies):



Operation Market Garden, in September 1944:



Operations Manna and Chowhound, end of April and first week of May 1945, in which food was dropped into the still occupied western part of the Netherlands, where the Dutch famine took a lot of victims:




Back to WWI, southward to Ieper, Belgium.
Ieper was the place where in 1915 the Canadian army physician and poet John McCrae wrote his poem 'In Flanders Fields'. The museum here is named after this poem, and the Poppies became an important symbol of this sad war. You can see a stamp in honour of the poppy on Eva's blog post of today.



For anyone who is curious to know where this museum is: it is located in the reconstructed Lakenhalle, the fore-mentioned Cloth Hall:



See more stamps on battles and disasters at today's Sunday Stamps and the links under the posts.

In: from Spain

'One hour to departure' is the name of this painting by the Polish painter Wiktor Najbor.
The card was sent by Eva from Spain. I am happy that Eva sticked the Spanish Europa 2015 stamp on the back.
Out of all participating countries, and besides the Dutch stamps which of course I already have used for outgoing mail, this is the first Europe 2015 stamp I see in real!



This year's Europe stamp theme is 'Old toys', and I love this wooden train. The stamp even smells after wood!
Thank you very much, moltes gràcies, Eva!

Sunday stamps: Airplanes and air transport

This Sunday's Sunday stamps theme is another favourite of mine: airplanes.
The stamp you see above is from Romania. I love that one a lot because it combines the Airplane with AirMail!
This stamp didn't land in my mailbox, but in the mailbox of a postcrossing relative instead. Fortunately she let me take a picture of this stamp, so at least I have the digital one to share with you :-)

Other airplane stamps from outside my country I received from Eva from Spain. You can see two of them here.
Below I'll share some Dutch airplane stamps.



This sheet is one of my favourites, issued in 2009 due to the 100th anniversary of motorised air transport in the Netherlands (which was just 2 years earlier than the Modesto Airmail).
When I asked myself 'why do I love this sheet that much?', I found out that I love the bright yellow of the trauma helicopter and the blue airplane on top. And the airport Schiphol on the right: I've seen this hall several times from inside and I associate it with travelling and freedom.
The one on top right is familiar, too: we drive over the A4 motorway every now and then, and you can see an airplane riding on the viaduct above you really! Always a special feeling when passing under this giant vehicle!



This airplane is a very small one: it is part of the Dutch miniature world 'Madurodam'.

And below some older stamps, all from the gulden era.



On this one you see a British airplane dropping food into our country at the end of World War II.



And these stamps show Dutch airplanes: above a Fokker airplane and below KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines).



Check Sunday Stamps for more Airplane stamps!

In: from Morocco

Vandaag kwamen deze vliegtuigen / vliegeniers in mijn brievenbus, door Eva verstuurd vanuit Marokko en nog geen week onderweg!

Today these airplanes / aviators flew into my mailbox. They were sent by Eva from Morocco and travelled less than a week!



De dame hierboven is de actrice Edna Munsey. De foto is genomen in 1916 door Harris & Ewing. Op internet vond ik naast deze een foto die net ervoor of erna gemaakt is (zie hier).

The young lady above is Edna Munsey, actress. The picture has been made in 1916 by Harris & Ewing. I happened to find an other picture on the internet, which should have been made just before or after this one (see here).



Van deze twee zijn geen namen vermeld. Wel doen ze aan een pilotentraining. Ook gemaakt door Harris & Ewing, in 1912.

The names of these two men haven't been mentioned, only that they are doing an aviation army pilot training. Also this picture has been made by Harris & Ewing, in 1912.

Thank you very much, Eva!

In: from Spain

Ik heb iets met vliegvelden, dus ben erg blij met deze kaart van het vliegveld van Barcelona, die Eva stuurde.

I don't know why, but I like airports, so I'm a happy receiver of this card showing Barcelona Airport. Thank you very much, Eva!



Het vliegtuig hierboven is l'Avió, het vliegtuigje wat al sinds 1928 over het 114 jaar oude Tibidabo park vliegt.

The airplane above is l'Avió, the airplane which flies already since 1928 above the 112 years old Tibidabo Park. Moltes gràcies, Eva!

Out: to Sri Lanka

Verstuurd naar Ravindra in Sri Lanka, die net als ik van treinen houdt.
Op deze kaart een schilderij (ja, echt!) van Charles Burki, 'station Rotterdam CS'.

Sent to Ravindra in Sri Lanka, who, same as I do, likes trains.
This card shows a painting (yes, really!) of the central railwaystation in the city of Rotterdam, made by Charles Burki (1909-1994).