Sports

 

1956: Sports (Design - Raoul Seres; Engraver Charles-Paul Dufresne)

The sevens version of rugby appeared at the Olympics (the French won gold)

and basketball is yet to be decided

but Basque pelote was only an official sport at the 1900 Paris Games where only two teams took part, France and Spain, in essence  the Basque Country.  So lets find some more small countries

2015: 15th Island Games (Photographs: Andy Le Gresley)

The first of what would become the  Island Games were first arranged as part of the Isle of Man's International Year of Sports to offer sports people the opportunity to compete against islanders of a similar standard. 700 islanders from the British Isles, Mediterranean, St Helena, Iceland and Scandinavia travelled  to take part.  It was such a success that the competition now takes place every two years with various islands playing host.  2015 was the second time Jersey had hosted the games and it welcomed 3000 competitors and 1000 officials.  Between 12 and 14 sporting events are selected by the host island. As you will notice the 14 sports chosen  all have a postcard rate to send a card home.

Handball

The Faroe Islands, who hosted in 1989, had a special combination of postcards and stamps.

Sunday Stamps theme this week - Sports - See It On A Postcard

Family Men

 

2019: 50th Anniversary Apollo 11 Moon Landings (Design - Edward Fuglø)

The artist Edward Fuglø's earliest childhood memory was of his father holding him up at the window, pointing at the sky and telling him about the men on the moon.

1974: Renoir Paintings

Auguste Renoir married his model Aline Charigot and here they are enjoying a sojourn in Guernsey, although the paintings were actually created in Paris.  Renoir had realised that he became so mesmerised by the light painting outdoors that his composition suffered so took his sketches back to the studio.  August and Aline had three sons (one of whom was the film director Jean Renoir) and he often painted his family. There are only 3 portraits of Aline but she would also appear in his other paintings, the most famous one is of her playing with a dog as part of a boating party in 'Le Dejeuner des Canotiers'

1955: Five Year Plan

A sightseeing trip for the family.  This is a bit of an outlier in a set featuring economic and industrial development although one of the results of this experiment/plan was urbanisation.

Sunday Stamps theme this week - Fatherly Men - See It On A Postcard

Sail

 See It On A Postcard's Thursday Postcard Hunt for boats or ferries takes me to the days of sail...

The Norwegian Training Ship 'Christian Radich

It says on the back "one of the last square three-masted sailing ships still crossing the oceans".  That statement is still true since this card was sent from Philex France in 1982.  The stamp shows sailors setting the sail on the Christian Radich.

In more testing conditions here we have "Making the sail fast near Cape Horn swaying on the footrope". Photographed by Alan Villiers in 1929 who first went to sea aged 15, described as writer, adventurer photographer and mariner he said  "There is little man has made that approaches anything in nature, but a sailing ship does."

The 'Iquique' by Herbert Barnard John Everett

Another lover of the sea, John Everett,  his first sea journey was working his passage on the Inquique bound for Australia in 1898, a prolific artist of seascapes.

1983: Old Ships on the Faroe Run

 From sail to steam here is the steamship Laura used as a post boat between Denmark, the Faroes and Iceland

London, Midland and Scottish (LMS) Railway Poster

To the calmer waters of Morecambe Bay a steamer heads to the port of Heysham from Northern Island painted by Norman Wilkinson in 1932.  This is the 'other side' of the bay to me.

Island Views

 

1978: Mykines (Design - Charles Gottsche)

Mykines - the westernmost of the Faroe Islands and geologically the oldest.  The only village on the island, a cluster of turf roofed houses, takes the island's name.  Although there are 40 houses  only 11 have permanent residents. For 8 months of the year the only way in or out is by helicopter, in summer a more relaxing ferry ride is available.  The thousands of birds have more freedom and arrive on the wing.  These are some of the early stamps of  Faroe's independent postal administration and their ambition was to feature all the 18 islands .

2012: Levadas

Heading a long way south and to Madeira and their Levadas, water channels created for irrigation (a waterfall can be seen to the left). There are 1864 miles (3000km) of them and today are a popular walking experience for visitors to the island.

1983: Definitive (Design - Gordon Drummond)

Alderney's first definitive stamps entice to the sunshine on Braye Bay and encourage a dusk visit

to Longis Bay to watch the sunset over Hanging Rock

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

 

Viking Voyage

 

2014: Tourism - Oslo Viking Museum (Design - Kristin Granli)

 A Viking ship setting sail

1990: Viking Life (Design - Svenolov Ehren)

Out to Sea

2002: Viking Voyages of the Atlantic (Design - Martin Morck)

 

and navigating.  Our Viking is using a sunboard. In the middle of the day the ship's course was corrected by measuring the height of the sun. If the angle of the sun had got bigger the ship had traveled too far south, less and it was sailing too far north. Thank goodness for GPS.

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - At Sea - set sail at See It On A Postcard

Children's Art

 

1979: International Year of the Child

The traditional dress of the Faroe Islands

 

a man fishing, although the fish wisely are not being tempted by the line. Two friends; does the blue face indicate it was a cold day? I didn't realise the engraver of these children's paintings was Czeslaw Slania until I scanned them. He did lots of stamps for the Faroes including the first ones they issued as a independent postal administration in 1975. This must have been one of his most whimsical assignments in his long career.

2022: Heroes of the Covid Pandemic

Children from 4-14 from across the UK were invited to enter the competition to design the Covid Heroes postage stamps, 606,049 took part and eventually 8 were chosen for the stamps. I'll always remember all the rainbow children's drawings that appeared in house windows at the time, guess there were even more of those.

1988: Christmas

An unseasonable but cheery Koala Father Christmas

Sunday Stamps theme this week is Children's Art - See It On A Postcard

Polyglotism

 

1971: International Letter Writing Week - Paintings by Durer

I start with French although this stamp has connections to other languages. Durer's German and his painting of a Venetian Girl who would have spoken Venetian or Veneto, which I read evolved from Vulgar or Colloquial Latin.

1930: 2000th Anniversary of the Birth of Virgil (Design Corrado Mezzana)

1930 and everybody is speaking Italian. But wait. Head back into classical times, no such thing.  The Roman poet Virgil gets 13 stamps featuring scenes from his 'Aeneid' and 'Georgics', this a harvesting scene from the latter.  Now I move from Latin to Runic

1953-1956: The Millennial (Design V Bang; Engraving B Jacobsen)

 and the Runic inscriptions on the 10th Century Jelling Stone from Jutland

1981: Historical Writings (Design K Oberli; Engraving M Muller)

 and one from the Faroe Islands, the 9th Century Kirkjubøur stone.  Then we have the international language of music (a folk song from 1846) and a page from a 1298 code of laws.

 Seal with a ram and the title page of a book of 1673 with a library room as background

1953: Old Manuscripts (Design T Jonsson

 Lastly, a book translated into a myriad languages,. Here the  Stjórn interpretation of the Bible, a collection of Old Norse translations of the Old Testament

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - A Different Language - read more on See It On A Postcard

Into the Dark

 

2012: Nordic Contemporary Art (Edward Fuglø)

This is entitled 'Egg Procession for Jan'.  Who are the dark hooded figures carrying a bird's egg and torches? Are they warming it to hatch and importantly, what is inside?  

One could make an attractive mini collection of all Edward Fuglø's Faroe Island stamps he has created over the last decades

2000: EXPO 2000 (Marianne Heske)

Another dark mystery, I thought it was the cosmos but no it is - 'Det stille rom' (the still room) though it can be anything imagination can see. The artist Marianne Heske is fascinated by light and sound contained on video tape. She videos and then freezes selected sequences, photographing them with a film camera then scanning the slides into a computer before transferring them onto other types of material.  Something we cannot see becomes visible

1999: The Ørsted Satellite

like the magnetic field of the earth which the Ørsted satellite measures as it orbits our planet.

1998: Definitive - Tourism

or mountain air and invisible water vapour that will form clouds.

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - Dark (colour of theme) - See It On A Postcard

Scandinavian Kings

 

2017: 450th Anniversary - City of Fredrikstad (Design Magnus Rakeng)

 

The statue of Frederik II of Denmark and Norway (1534-1588) stands in the city he founded - Fredrikstad.

2017: Maximum Card 1 of 1. (Card Illustration - Annikan Riiser)

I  acquired this Maxi Card when buying something else and at first sight had an irresistible urge to add to my basket. So we have the city of Fredrikstad personified and named after Frederik II'  Like father like son

2000: Oslo 1000 Years

Christian IV of Denmark and Norway (1577-1648) rebuilt the town of Oslo after a fire and renamed it Christiana. He came to the throne aged only 11 and is considered a renaissance king who brought prosperity to his nations.  The statue was erected in 1888 and the city reclaimed its name of Oslo in 1925.

Lastly is a king that lives on through the sagas. This is King Olaf II or Olaf Haralsson, King of Norway (the Faroe Islands were part of the Kingdom of Norway at this time).

1995: St Olaf (Design and Engraver - Martin Morck)

King Olaf died at the battle of Stiklestad in 1030.  He was later canonised and became St Olaf and is the patron saint of Norway.  The Faroe Islands National Day of 29th July is his saints day although they celebrate for 2 days, and why not it is high summer.  The stamp shows the wooden sculpture from Sund Chuch, Aland with a map of 1570. This was a joint issue between Aland and the Faroes on the Millinery of his birth. 

There are many churches today that bear his name and indeed we have one locally in the valley of Wasdale where the Vikings settled.. St Olaf is England's smallest church, near its deepest lake and its highest mountain.  There have been earlier churches on the site but the present one is though to date from the 16th Century.

St Olaf surrounded by Yew trees with the appropriately named Kirk Fell in the background.   

Sunday Stamps II theme this week is statues or monuments - See It On A Postcard.

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Night Skies

1986: Appearance of Halley's Comet

Halley's Comet streaking over the night skies of Athens.  I don't know why Laos chose Athens although the Ancient Greeks were among the first to produced a mathematical model of the universe. Aristotle mentioned the comet that appeared in 466BC, the earliest recorded sighting.  His work 'Meteorology' (which he wrote a hundred years later) also talks of the meteorite that struck northern Greece in the same year, which was 'the size of a cartload'.

1986: Appearance of Halley's Comet

Chinese astronomers reported the comet in 240BC but here it is in a modern setting lighting up the skies of Hong Kong.  I wonder what the scene will look like in 2061 when it makes its next appearance?  I turn next to our natural satellite that brings light and wonder to the night.

2019: 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11 Mission to the Moon (Design - Edward Fuglø)

There is a rather cute story about this stamp.  The artist, Edward Fuglø, was 4 years old in 1969 and living in the town of Klaksvik in the northern Faroe Islands and had listened to radio reports all day and evening, although he didn't really understand what they were about.  His father Jens lifted him up in his arms walked to the window and pointed up at the sky and told him about the men on the moon.  It is his earliest childhood memory.

2019: First Day Cover - Apollo 11 Moon Landing

Sunday Stamps II theme this week is - Night Views - See It On A Postcard

Wooden

2019: SEPAC - Old Residential Houses (Photograph - Ólavur Frederiksen)

The turf roofed house in Kirkjubøur dates to the 11th Century and is one of the oldest still inhabited wooden houses in the world.  A home to bishops in the middle ages until the reformation and since then 17 generations of the Paturssons have lived here.  The medieval parts of the building are open to the public.  The church on the postcard is St Olav, the oldest church in the Faroes dating to 1111.  This southernmost village on Stremoy was once the ecclesiastical and cultural centre of the Faroes.  Legend has it that the wood for the farmhouse came as driftwood from Norway (there are no forests in the Faroes).  Norway has lots of wooden building

1987: Centenary of the Sadvig Collection (Designer and Engraver - S Morken)

including those at Mainhaugen near Lillehammer home to the Sadvig open air museum.  There are 200 building from different eras including traditional 18th and 19th Century wooden buildings and a Stave church.  The collection was started by Anders Sadvig and the stamp shows a horse and rider cut into wood by Kristen Erland Listad (1726-1802) a carver known for his wooden figures, the toy horse is in the Maihaugen Museum

1966: Greek Folk Art

For something both practical and  beautiful these wooden knitting needle boxes would take some beating

1984: World Heritage

and  for pure decoration who could resist a spotted leopard from the coast of Guinea.

Detail of Carved Chinese Wooden Chest, Lever Art Gallery

Sunday Stamps II theme this week is - Things Made from Wood - carve out a path to See It On A Postcard
  

Country Roads

2016: Maximum Card 109 "Red barn"

Time to take a walk in the countryside

2016: Finnish Barns (Design - Satu Lusa)

 and there will be barns of all shapes and sizes.

1990: Centenary Rural Postal Service and Rural Address Reform (Design - P Huovinen)

Perhaps postie will pass by on his delivery round.  The stamp shows a rural postman on a country lane with the village of Larsmo and its church in the background.  The address and number sign are written according to the reformed system.

1990: Europa - Post Office Buildings (Design - Bardur Jakupsson)

Lets call into a post office, in particular the old post office at Gjógv in the Faroe Islands, which is a private home but opens as a post office 5 days a week for 30 minuets each morning and afternoon. You will be able to spot the road on this stamp however it is always pleasant to walk by water.

1996: Landscapes (Design - Heinz Schillinger)

The stamp on the left features the Saale River where one might also prefer to cycle beside it on part of the path from Bavaria to Saxony (400k/250 miles). The website eulogies it as passing through 'beautiful nature, majestic castles and enchanted forests'. In fact this German series of stamps could almost be called - 'are you wondering where to go on holiday'!  The stamp on the right is Spreewald Canal which is actually 200 small canals, part of a traditional irrigation system which has a UNESCO designation of a biosphere reserve.  

The Eifel National Park is described as a place of woods, water and wilderness. There are 240k of signposted paths and it is part of a much larger cross-border park with Belgium called the High Fens-Eifel National Park.  There is a serpent in this paradise because several parts of the park will not be open to the public for a long time because of mine fields from the second world war but perhaps because of that nature will remain undisturbed.

2016: Maximum Card 111 - "Barns at Twilight"

Our walk is over and the sun is setting, time to return home

with a glance back at the Finnish Barns which you can see from the postmark in Finnish are Ladot.

Old Barn, Suffolk, England

Sunday Stamps II theme this week is - Rural or Countryside - more bucolic views on See It On A Postcard