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!

In: from the United Kingdom - of Mail, Transport and Peter Rabbit

Mail transport, a tram and the railway station, to my opinion always nice themes to see. And I was happy that John sent these in one postcard!

On the back side more vehicles:



Also related to mail is of course the mailbox, a famous one from the United Kingdom is the red pillar box:



The stamp on the back side of this card is a 'bridge' to a postcard John had sent me some time ago, namely an illustration by Beatrix Potter of a character from the tales of Peter Rabbit. This is Benjamin Bunny, Peter's cousin:



The card sent / received previously shows Peter Rabbit himself, plus a squirrel and Jemima Puddle-Duck:



Peter Rabbit also shows up on a stamp, accompanied by a stamp of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, the hedgehog:



Thank you very much, John!

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':

Sunday stamps: Automobiles

This Sunday Stamps theme is 'Automobiles and motor transport'.
The stamp above is the last one from a stamp sheet on sustainability. This happened to be a car stamp; 'auto delen' means 'car sharing' or 'car pooling'.
The stamp sheet was issued in 2009, when national mail postage still was € 0.44 (for international mail within Europe € 0.77 and outside Europe € 0.95).

Only five years later we have to pay € 0.64 for national mail and € 1.05 for all international mail. However, one cannot see that anymore, because the postage stamps are marked with '1' now, as you see on the stamp sheet below.

This stamp sheet has been issued in January 2014, themed an automobile museum, the Louwman Museum in Den Haag (The Hague) in the Netherlands.
I already have used the upper two for my mail to Ravindra in Sri Lanka, who collects car stamps and postcards. On Ravindra's blog you can see many car stamps from all-over the world!

Below you see the eight remaining stamps; the complete stamp sheet fortunately is visible on the Postzegelblog. The text is in Dutch, but interesting: the author and some people who react are criticizing the commercial purposes of the Dutch post executives, who seem to be interested more in making money than in issuing good stamp designs, as these pictures have been taken straight from the museum's catalogue.
But for car fans they will be o.k., I suppose. And also I like the simple and clear stamp design.



By the way, the Spyker (previously: Spijker) has been honoured with postage stamps before, in 2004. See this link, and this one.

Out: to Sri Lanka

Update Sunday 8 March 2015: this Sunday stamps' theme is 'Riding the rails', so I'd like to share this previously posted Dutch stamp sheet with all of you Sunday Stamp fans (I'm a fan, too :-) ). For the ones who don't know yet Sunday Stamps, please check the Sunday Stamps blog and the links for many more postal beauties!



[Original text, Sept 2014: ]
Afgelopen maandag bracht PostNL een postzegelvel uit ter gelegenheid van 175 jaar Spoorwegen in Nederland.
Natuurlijk moeten de verschillende postzegels stukje bij beetje naar Ravindra gestuurd worden. Voor de bovenste postzegel vond ik onderstaande toepasselijke kaart, die hij zo te zien nog niet heeft.

Last Monday the Dutch post issued a stamp sheet for the 175th anniversary of Dutch railways.
Of course these ten stamps have to be sent, little by little, to Ravindra for his collection. Fortunately I found this suitable train card, which he hadn't received so far, to accompany the first stamp-to-send.



En eerder vond en stuurde ik deze auto, voor Ravindra's autoverzameling.
And some time before I found this car, to send for Ravindra's car collection.

Out: to China, in: from China

Heel toevallig kruisten onze kaarten elkaar: de Madagascar-3 kaart die ik naar Lorlay in China stuurde, en de Cars-2 kaart van Lorlay naar mij!

What a coincidence! Lorlay sent me a Cars-2 postcard from China, while at the same time my Madagascar-3 postcard was travelling to China!

Out: to Sri Lanka

Trein, verstuurd naar Ravindra in Sri Lanka, wiens trein-ansichtkaarten weblog ik via een van de links van Eva's postavonturen ontdekte.

Train, sent to Sri Lanka, to Ravindra, whose train postcards weblog I discovered thanks to an url at Eva's mail adventures.



Ravindra blijkt ook van (oude) auto's te houden, vandaar deze postzegels met een auto-van-27-jaar-geleden, bij het tankstation Hazeldonk. Deze zijn van het postzegelvel ter gelegenheid van het 100-jarig bestaan van het Openluchtmuseum in Arnhem. Heel toevallig nog bezocht, afgelopen weekend, de moeite waard!

Ravindra also likes (vintage) cars, so I chose these stamps showing a car (27 years ago) at the filling station in Hazeldonk (NL).
These stamps are part of a stamp sheet, issued to celebrate the centennial of the Open Air Museum in the city of Arnhem (NL). I happened to have visited this interesting museum last Saturday, and enjoyed it a lot!