Sunday Stamps: 'I' is for Iran, Ierland and insecten

The Sunday Stamps theme of Sunday 1st October is the letter 'i'.

A pretty stamp which includes a country which starts with the letter 'I' is this one:



The stamp is from Iran, from the year 1395 (2016), and has been dedicated to NowRuz. It shows, besides Iran, also other countries / regions in which the New Year starts at the vernal equinox. I think it a nice idea - and logical - that the new year starts at exactly the same time as does spring.



From the Iranian stamp to stamps from an other country starting with the letter 'I'. That is, not in the native language itself, but in Dutch we name Éire 'Ierland' (pronounced differently from the English 'Ireland').



And of course the word 'insect', or 'insekt' (plural: insecten or insekten), starts with an 'i'. In Dutch the accent (emphasis) is on the second syllable, inSECT, while as far as I know in English the accent is on the first syllable, INsect.



See more stamps on the letter 'i' at and via Sunday Stamps!

In: from the United Kingdom

Beautiful illustration of a dragonfly, issues as a postage stamp and a maxicard, sent by John.
On the back more insects: a fly, on a stamp issued for the 150th anniversary (in 1989) of the Royal Microscopical Society, and my favourite butterfly, the Atalanta.



And this interesting stamp, or even intriguing as long as I don't know the meaning. I see a lady, a deer, the lady rowing a boat, horses, a building, trees... Please let me know if you know what this stamp is about!



The same day this postcard arrived. I had to look several times, wondering if is it a photo or a painting. It is a painting! Created by Robert K. Calvert, who has painted more trams in that era.



On the back two great matching - metro - stamps.



Thank you very much, John!

Sunday Stamps: Butterflies

This Sunday Stamps' theme is 'Butterflies or moths'.

The first butterfly stamps which come into mind are from a pretty butterfly serie, issued by Correos in Spain. This is one of them, issued in 2011:



A stamp which seems to be 'common', and which shows one of my favourite butterflies (even though I've never seen this 'common swallowtail' in real), is this Belgian one:



In the United Kingdom, Royal Mail has issued butterfly stamps as well, of which I received this one:



These 'citrus swallowtails' arrived from South Africa:



This year Dutch PostNL issues several stamp sheets in collaboration with the 'Ouderenfonds', a charity fund, founded to help elder people.
By the way, on their website - alas in Dutch only - the Ouderenfonds mentions several projects, among them a 'send a card to a lonely elder person' project, and I think the project website's name very suitable: 'no facebook'. I think it a nice initiative, and fortunately there are similar projects in other countries, too (a quick search via google learn me about, among others, this one, and this, and this, and of course we can look around in our neighbourhood or faraway family, I think there are many people to whom a real written card will bring a smile - and see, how coincidentally, this month the Mail a Smile project's theme happens to be 'Butterfly'!).

Regarding the stamp sheets, among them is a serie of four, showing both butterflies and flowers, in relation to the four seasons. One stamp of the spring sheet has been posted some Sundays ago. Above the Crocus stamp there was/is a butterfly, and also one butterfly flew in the stamp sheet edge:



One other is a serie of butterfly stamp sheets, this is one of them:



The illustrations of these stamp sheets have been created by Janneke Brinkman-Salentijn.

By the way, a year ago Dutch post already has issued a serie of four nice stamp sheets showing butterflies, be it photos instead of drawings, but also in relation to the four seasons. You can see them at PostNL's collector's shop website.

A special manner to picture butterflies is shown on this stamp sheet: butterfly silhouets. It is a sheet from the serie 'Mooi Nederland' ('beautiful Netherlands'), dedicated to the city of Amersfoort.
I was wondering what butterflies have to do with this particular city, and the only information I found is that there has been constructed a 'butterfly way' throughout the city, with butterfly friendly flowers planted in several locations.



If you look close you can see a blue butterfly on the stamps themselves.

See more colourful and beautiful butterfly stamps at Sunday Stamps.

Out: to the United Kingdom

This painting by Carl Spitzweg is named 'Der ewiger Hochzeiter' or 'The eternal bridegroom'.

In the back you can see a clock (and I think it a nice and fascinating painting!), that's why I couldn't resist to send this card to John for his clock postcards collection, even though his clock blog is closed now.

On the back I added a stamp which shows a flower who is appearing in real in our country, these days, as a sign of spring: the crocus.

Sunday stamps: Animals in the wild

This time the Sunday Stamps' theme is - like many other themes - a favourite of mine: animals in the wild.

One family of animals I admire for both their beauty and for something we, humans, are not able to do: birds!
Bird are able to fly (except for ratites of course). So caged birds I always think sad. While watching birds fly in the wild always makes me smile and provides a sense of freedom.

This great flying tern stamp I received from South Africa.
By the way, a flying tern is in the logo of the international bird protection organization Bird Life, and also in the logos of several partners, among them the Dutch and South African bird protection NGO's.



Love the way the stamp has been postmarked across. As if it is to show how high a bird can fly :-)

The following stamps show the contrast between a caged bird and birds in the wild:



Well, the caged bird isn't on a stamp himself, but is part of a larger stamp sheet, of which the stamp shows an other freely flying species.
The godwit (grutto in Dutch) is a bird who thrives in the grass-land. Grass-land birds have been, and still are, threatened by intensive farming in our densely populated country. Fortunately there are several initiatives to help farmers combine farming with nature protection (but still it's not enough, I am afraid).

Other flying birds are these wild ducks, beautifully pictured on a Finnish stamp. This bird is common in many countries.



To my pleasure I see that both Violet Sky and Joy have posted Australian stamps. In Australia some of my all-time favourite animals are liviung: the echidna, the platypus, the kookaburra, the cassowary and the brushturkey. The last-mentioned I've never seen on a stamp, the others I did see.
Among them this kookaburra:



And, my favourite stamp (which I fortunately received more than once!), the platypus:



Some other wild life, tiny ones:



However, the words 'Animals in the wild' will make most people think of larger animals, mammals to be specific.

Animals in forests and nature reserves, from Belarus, Russia, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands (the latter is a personalized stamp, temporary issued by natuurlijkefoto.nl):











Wild animals like elephants....



... and lions (this is from a stamp sheet showing more animals, that is, silhouets):



And arctic animals, alas endangered, too:



Check Sunday Stamps for more animals-in-the-wild stamps!

Sunday stamps: Se-tenant stamps

This Sunday Viridian choose for 'se-tenant stamps' as the Sunday Stamps' theme.

Nice topic!
However first I had to look up what 'se-tenant' means. This term is used in philately for stamps printed from the same plate and sheet, adjoining one another, unsevered in a strip or block. They differ from each other by design, color, denomination or overprint.

According to the English wikipedia, se-tenants may have a continuous design, but this is not necessarily so (see also the example showed in wikipedia).
In contrary, according to the Dutch wikipedia continuation of design is a main characteristic of 'se-tenants'. 'Se-tenant' is translated into Dutch as 'doorloper', which literally means that the picture is continuing one in the other.

So I thought this one, according to the Dutch word 'doorloper' is not a real se-tenant:



Although according to the English description they are. Furthermore these two stamps form a continuing part of the story (and of course I love to show you these characters: the bear Ollie B. Bommel and the cat Tom Poes).

Via Postcrossing I received this beautiful se-tenant from China:



According to the sheet edge on bottom of the card (how I love it when people add these parts, too!), this Czech stamp must be part of a se-tenant sheet, too:



In the Netherlands, every now and then continuing stamps are issued.
Several of the so-called 'children's stamps' are se-tenants. I posted one here already.

The following stamp sheet obviously is a continuing picture (alas the sheet isn't complete anymore as I've used two of the stamps):



The se-tenant of the maps and 'Bos Atlas' I showed in January (see here).

Some other Dutch se-tenants:
'Day of the Stamp' (2012), showing former queen Juliana:



Stamp sheet commemorating 150 years of Blijdorp, the Rotterdam Zoo (in 2006). The sheet shows threatened species:



Six (from ten) stamps issued due to the 100 years celebration of the Royal Dutch Forestry Association:



Stamp sheet issued for the 100th anniversary of the Dutch Open Air Museum (in 2012), subtitled '100 years tribute to the daily life':

In: from Greece

Binnen een week reisde deze post van Kreta naar Nederland.
Hierboven zie je heerlijk vers fruit op een markt in Chania.
En hieronder slechts een fractie van de duizenden, misschien wel miljoenen vlinders die rondfladderen in de Petaloudes Vallei van Vlinders op Rhodos. Deze vlindersoort is Euplagia quadripunctaria rhodosensis, een ondersoort van de vlinder die in het Nederlands 'Spaanse vlag' heet, in het Engels 'Jersey tijger' (en in het Duits 'Russische beer').

In less than a week this mail traveled from Crete, Greece, to the Netherlands! Above you can see delicious fresh fruit at the market of Chania.
Below you see just a small part of all thousands or millions of butterflies who are fluttering in the Petaloudes Valley of Butterflies on the isle of Rhodes.
The butterfly is called Euplagia quadripunctaria rhodosensis, a subspecies of the butterfly who in Dutch is called 'Spaanse vlag', which means 'Spanish flag', while the English name is 'Jersey tiger' and the German name 'Russian bear'.





Thank you very much, moltes gràcies, Eva!

In: from the United Kingdom

Sent by John *Scriptor* from the United Kingdom, these beautiful postcards showing two of my favourite themes: lighthouses and public transport.



I love to watch this postcard of a lighthouse within the elements. Look at the clouds, watch that sea! And even a piece of rainbow is visible.
This lighthouse is the Fort Perch Rock lighthouse, off New Brighton close to Liverpool.



In Liverpool trams used to be green. Also Leeds had trams, of which you see this 'Horsefield' car (built in 1931). Sadly this tramway was closed in the late fifties.



I always feel so happy by the backsides of the postcards John is sending. Especially his kind and informative messages, and the postage stamps who are chosen with thoughfulness.
These two postcards arrived in a plastic, easy-to-open cover, with a polite request to the Post Office. The result, however, was not a hand-cancelling of the stamps (alas, as I like cancellation stamps), but even stampless stamps! (I always like to keep the postcards complete, nevertheless, John: in case your stamps have finished and you want me to soak off these stamps, I will do so to send them back so you can re-use them :-)



Another favourite: animals (butterfly, in this stamp) and mail transport!
Thank you very much, John!

In: from Spain

Ik loop erg achter met het plaatsen van ansichtkaarten op deze blog. Deze reclamekaart voor een Spaanse uitgever, ontving ik in de zomer van 2011 van Eva. Er staat: 'Alle universums passen in je (broek)zak'.
Het duurde ruim twee jaar voordat ik 'm aan jullie toon. Bij deze!
Maar twee jaar is maar weinig, vergeleken met de 71 jaren die het geduurd heeft, voordat deze man uit Nieuw-Zeeland herenigd werd met zijn kostbare knikker, die hij als kind in de tweede wereldoorlog had verstopt.

I am very much behind in publishing postcards here. This ad card for a Spanish editor I received in summer 2011 from Eva. The text says: 'All universes fit in your pocket'.
It has waited for more than two years to be shown to you all. But two years is little, compared with the 71 years time it took for this man from New Zealand to reunite with his precious marble he had hidden as a child in WWII.



Thank you very much, Eva!