Literary Greats

 

1975: Jane Austen Birth Bicentenary (Design - Barbara Brown)

Lots of Mr Darcy and a lone Catherine Morland emerge from the pages of Jane Austen

2004: 200th Anniversary of the Birth of George Sand

 

The steady gaze of George Sand at her house in Nohant

1968: UNESCO - Cultural Personalities of the 20th Century

Maxim Gorky travelling across Russia

1996: Europa - Famous Women

and Madame de Sévigné is about to write a witty letter

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - Literary Greats - See It On A Postcard

The Locals

 

1920: Victory

The 'Victory' set of stamps were designed and printed in London in 1919 and were available there for sale 3 months before the issue was released in New Zealand. Philatelists in New Zealand received their stamps from UK dealers before they were available for sale from New Zealand's post offices. The stamp shows a Maori Chief wearing the tail feathers of the now extinct Huia and a Whakai or ear pendant made from shark teeth.

1946: Local Motives

The Tikar  people are known as great artisans, artists and story tellers and by the looks of this stamp, hair stylists.

1914-1933: Market

The long running issue from Senegal of food being prepared at a market.

1966: 100th Anniversary of the Naprstek's Ethnographic Museum, Prague

The Naprstek Museum specialises in collections of Asian, African and American culture and was founded by Vojtech Naprsek who converted his family brewery into a museum and library, after WW2 the museum has focused on non European culture.

And lastly I couldn't resist including this happy person - Kachima a 'good spirit' of the Hopi tribe.

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - indigenous people - meet them at See It On A Postcard


 

Birds

 

1997: Bird Conservation

Room with a view for a White-tailed tropic bird, Bermuda is the farthest north it nests where the islanders call it - longtail

1959: Defintive

Travel way down to the bottom of the planet to meet the Brown Skua in Antarctica, the top avian predator;  watch out baby penguin

2003, 2004 and 2002: Birds of Portugal

Lets have a splash of colour. Here is the Western sub-alpine warbler, European bee-eater and a golden oriel. Love a brightly coloured bird

1969: Airmail - Taiga Bean Geese

but to make the heart lift then a skein of geese flying across the sky takes a lot of beating

1966: Protection of Birds

although at the moment am looking out for the arrival of the Swallows, reported in the south of the country so I'm on excitable high alert for these birds bringing the promise of long warm days ahead.

1977: Birds of Hortobagy National Park

Purple Heron in one of Europe's largest National Parks which offers many spectacular birding sights in the sky.  The sun sets

1960: Waterbirds

and the moon rises. The Black crowned night heron comes into its own at dusk and through the night 

1967: Birds of Prey

if lucky a barn owls cry might be heard in the still of the night.

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - Birds -  on the wing at See It On A Postcard

Cityscapes

1967: International Tourist Year (Design - Cyril Bouda)

Time to take a city break and visit historic Brno. On the left is the Cathedral of St Peter and Paul on Petrov Hill which dominates the skyline and I think the building in the middle is the Town Hall clock tower. There sure are a lot of spires which I observe stamp designers particularly enjoy drawing. In this instance the designer is the illustrator and artist Cyril Bouda (1901-1984) whose own postal design life was celebrated on a stamp in 1989.  To cheat a little bit with a stamp I do not own here is a piece of Bouda's art

and who would not want to sit outside the Sans-Souci Bar in Nimes and enjoy a coffee or something stronger.

1961: Centenary of the City of Setúbal (Design - Candido da Costa Pinto)

If one wanted to combine the pleasure of city within reach of sandy beaches and a harbour front then travel to Setúbal on the Sado River Estuary and perhaps watch a pod of dolphins play nearby. The stamp features the city's coat of arms.

1994: The 1200th Anniversary of Frankfurt (Design - Ernst Kößlinger)

 Here the designer gets to combine old and new with both towers and skyscrapers in Frankfurt.

2003: German Cities (Design - Fiedler)

The beautiful facades of Görlitz town houses in Altstadt make an appearance on this German stamp.  In 1945 Görlitz had survived the destruction of the war but the redrawing of boundaries divided the city resulting in the left bank of the river being in Germany and the right bank in Poland so one can combine two countries united within the European Union in one visit.  The city has provided many film directors with locations including Wes Anderson's visual delight The Grand Budapest Hotel.

1997: Definitives - Hong Kong Skyline (Design - Kan, Tai-keung)

The lights are coming on so it is time to go out on the town.

Sunday Stamps II prompt this week is the Letter C - for Czechoslovakia, cities and centenary - See It On A Postcard

Canoe

1947: Definitive (Design J. Lhuer Engraver J Jacquin)

Time to take a paddle around Soldier's Cove, Langlade. Someone who had taken a trip to Saint Pierre et Miquelon described Langlade (connected by a long sand spit to Miquelon) as "water that goes from emerald to jade to blue, people playing pétanque on the beach, cranberry bogs and tall grasses bending in the breeze". These islands, the last French territory left in North America sound a delight with their brightly coloured houses although it does have a subarctic climate.  St Pierre or Peter is of course the patron saint of fishermen so I hope he is looking after these two anglers

1957: Outdoor Recreation

paddling their Canadian Canoe. Of course when I think 'canoe' this following stamp is what I might think of first

1966: Centenary of Naprstek's Ethnographic Museum, Prague (Design: L Sindelak - Engraver; Josef Hercik)

although I might have 

1971: Death Centenary of Paul Kane ("Indian Encampment on Lake Huron")

a more romantic view in mind.   Paul Kane (1810-1871) sketched and recorded the first nation people when he often travelled in one of the Hudson's Bay Company canoes and his sketches and drawings are considered an important record of the people although his studio paintings are a more artistic interpretation.   I am always fascinated by the artists and photographers that travelled the wild places of North America in the 19th century recording what they saw.

2004: Europa - Holidays

There are still wild places to explore such as paddling a Norwegian fjord or perhaps

2012: Gold Medal Winners - Tim Baillie and Etienne Stott

testing ones skills in white water like Baillie and Stott in the Double Canoe Slalom

Sunday Stamps II prompt of the Letter C - for Cove, canoe, centenary, Canada and Czechoslovakia- See It On A Postcard.

Castles in the Air

1932: Definitive 'Coffee Plantation'

We've got a busy day ahead, time to get buzzing with a fine cup of coffee from Colombia

1939: Definitive

on the way out perhaps passing by these workers on the coffee plantation.  Lets head to the teleporter which will beam us across the seas to the city of Prague

1918-1919: Definitives

and Hradcany Castle. This was the design of Czechoslovakia's first stamp which appeared in December 1918 just after the first world war as the country emerged from provinces of the collapsing Austro-Hungarian empire. The limited technical equipment available at the time meant that there are many plate flaws and varieties so it can be a popular subject for a specialist collection, with the added attraction that the stamps were designed by the great art nouveau artist Alphonse Mucha.  He chose the ancient Hradcany Castle (also known as Prague Castle) which dates from the 9th Century as the subject because "the palladium embodys the past and future history" of the country.  In this ancient home of kings, emperors and presidents somewhere, in a hidden room, are the Bohemian Crown Jewels.

There are a lot more castles to explore

The Castles of Trencin, Bezdez and Kost

there seem to be hundreds in the country, so no wonder it was a popular subject for Czechoslovakia Post

The Castles of - Pernstejn and Kremnica

and indeed is still a popular subject for what are two countries today.

The Castles of Karestejn, Smolenice and Kokorin

This is an incomplete set of the 1960s definitives, the one missing is Krivoklat Castle which today is a museum.

Feel like doing something more sporty? 

1950: Tatra Cup Ski Championship

Lets zoom down a mountainside and the Tatra Mountains would be a beautiful destination although I think my preferred option might be to watch this championship competition

although I'll miss out on the efficiency badge.

2006: Christmas Cards from 1931 'Painters of Canada'

This skier is enjoying the view and a sun bathed landscape, illustrated by Edwin Holgate he called it  'Contemplation' so lets contemplate another natural wonder and

1957: National Wild Life Week

this beautiful waterbird, the Common Loon whose eerie call I would love to hear for real across a northern lake.  The designer is Lawrence Hyde (1914-1987) and one can see why he was famous for his wood engravings in this attractive stamp.

1970:

The Grand Cayman thrush that once flew over mangrove swamps but became extinct in the 20th Century due,it is thought, to habitat loss which was a mix of deforestation and storm damage from hurricanes in 1932 and 1944.  A creature that once was also once found in the Cayman Islands was

1982: Reptiles

a small species of crocodile now only found in Cuba so yes is called the Cuban Crocodile but only found in two swamps and is described as 'critically endangered' due to human hunting but captive breeding programmes are in place to  help the species recover.

An entry to the Sunday Stamps II -  this week's prompt is the letter C - so welcome to the countries of Colombia, Czechoslovakia, Canada, Cayman Islands and Cuba - drink the coffee, see the castles, watch the championships, contemplate a skiing Christmas, hear the Common Loon, mourn the Cayman Thrush and beware the small but feisty Cuban Crocodile.
C more at See It On A Postcard.
  

Aerial Views

2008: Gorgeous Australia

The spectacular Grose River Gorge in the Blue Mountains of Australia, a labyrinths of gorges and and canyons which the Grose River has carved out over the millennia leaving these sheer sandstone cliffs.

2013: National Parks

A different terrain on one of Finland's attractive series of National Parks stamps, in this case a beautiful aerial view of Nuuksion National Park whose green forests and rocky crags are within easy access of those wanting to walk through nature from Helsinki.

1935/6- George V Definitives - Landscapes

I love a port so would enjoy sailing into this one because Colombo is one of the busiest ports in the world.

1963: 40th Anniversary of Sabina Airline

An aerial view requires an aircraft (or a drone) so here is an aeroplane  from what was Belgium's national airline flying over Brussels in a stamp celebrating its 40th anniversary.   Sabena went into liquidation in 2001 so didn't reach its centenary. 

1962|: Space Research (2nd Series)

For an even better aerial view lets take a rocket into space

An entry to Sunday Stamps II theme - Aerial Views - for the overview See It On A Postcard