Tall Tales

 

2002: Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories  - Centenary of Publication (Artist - Izhar Cohen)

 

How the Camel Got His Hump - How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin. 

The Beginning of the Armadillos - The Crab That Played With the Sea

Kipling was a prolific writer and poet and one could spend some time on the Kipling Society website where all his short stories appear both by theme and date.

1979: International Year of the Child (Design - Kass Janos)

Tom Thumb, no bigger than a thumb, seems to spend his adventurous life being swallowed by various animals, here he has encountered the hungry wolf.  But Tom has a plan and talks to the wolf from its stomach and tricks him to take him home,  All is well in the end.

The Fisher and the Goldfish but this fish is not golden in Hungary's colour scheme but is provided with a golden crown. Alexander Pushkin told the story in verse.

Sunday Stamps theme - Stories, Folk Tales - See It On A Postcard 

Take a Seat

 

1989: Royal Visit

A Queen's chair

1997: Danish Design

The Faaborg chair of 1914 design by Kaare Klint (1888-1954)

1999: Furniture

An uncomfortable chair

1996: Endre Nemes (1909-1985)

A surreal chair - "The Baroque Chair" painted by Endre Nemes.  A Hungarian Jew living in Vienna he fled to Sweden (via Finland and Norway) during WW2 and would become a Swedish citizen.

Sunday Stamps theme of - Furniture - more at See It On A Postcard 

Alphabet Soup

 

1964: 2500 Years of Bulgarian Art

A head from the 2nd Century and a 19th Century jug, one predating the Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet and the other many centuries later.

1980: Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

Percy Bysshe Kelly once said  "We are all Greeks"  Western civilization has it roots in Greece and Hungary remembers their glory. Once the the huge seated figure of Zeus (435BC) stood in his temple at Olympia,  The Hungarians have romanized the famous names of Greece on the map and

1935: Air - Mythologies (Daedalus and Icarus)

it was the Romans who first called the country Greece but to the Greeks it is  Hellas. As can be seen the word written starts with the Greek letter epsilon (originally adopted from the Phoenician letter He -)

1995: Fish - Queen Angelfish

For something different, Cambodian letters or  Khmer script,. In this script words run together in a sentence. Similar to other colonial powers one can see where the French have been in the past on stamps.

1942: Free French Issue

New Caledonia's unique flightless bird, the Kagu. This 'Free French' stamp was issued to show solidarity with the French resistance and De Gaulle's campaign from London in WW2. There were 14 values and colours produced showing the bird, not in flight, but in a jump display showing off its underwing pattern. 

Sunday Stamps is exploring stamps featuring no English words - See It On A Postcard
 

Flags Ahoy

2021: Tall Ships Race

A sailing ship at the port of Mariehamn ready for the 2021 Tall Ships Race and a stamp issued for the event.  That was the plan. Covid had other ideas and restrictions at the time meant it had to be cancelled. Undaunted the Åland islanders pivoted to a substitute and created a Maritime Folk Festival with food, drinks and entertainment.  They would have to wait until 2024 to welcome the fleet of sail ships to Mariehamn, and gain another stamp.

1989: 10th Anniversary of Home Rule in Greenland

The Greenland flag flying over land and sea

1981: 125th Anniversary of  Danube Commission

For fans of stamp on stamps these feature the Danube commission stamps from 1967 with the paddle steamers Franz I (1830) and the Arpad (1834) sailing underneath.  The latter named after a Hungarian hero, head of the confederation of Magyar tribes

1981: Historic Hungarian Flags

The 40f stamp shows the House of Arpad flag(11th Century). 60f Hunyadi Family flag (15th Century) at the time they were the most powerful nobles in the Kingdom of Hungary.

1979: OCAM Summit Meeting, Cotonou

Changing continents and a group of nations - OCAM (Organization Commune Africaine et Malgache), Founded in 1961 it was disbanded in 1985. The stamp shows the members flags at the time

Year of the Snake

 

2025:Year of the Snake (Artist - Jo Davies)

This year's Lunar New Year is one of the Wood Snake. The snake is perceived as having a dual nature representing danger but also good fortune, light and dark. Because snakes shed their skins it is also associated with transformation and rebirth.  Wood adds the elements of nurturing and growth.  The Isle of Man's FDC insert gives us Jo Davies' inspiration of the elements contained in the stamps.

Moving from the ethereal to the natural world

1989: Endangered Reptiles

and a grass snake (I'm guessing the endangered designation refers to Hungary). On the other hand Orsini's Viper are a rare species (also called Meadow Adders) which are found in France, Italy and much of Eastern Europe.  Although snakes are fascinating to me

these lizards are more endearing  - Sand Lizard and Green Lizard 

Sunday Stamps theme - Snakes and Reptiles - See It On A Postcard

The Write Stuff

 

2008: Nobel Prize Diploma

Dario Fo was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997 which was welcomed by some in Italy but condemned by others, such is the hazard of satirizing and pointing the finger at politics, religion and inequality. He said he spent his life whipping up jolly storms through "freedom of opinion and happiness of expression through rage and laughter".

1951: 15th Anniversary of the Death of Maxim Gorky (1868-1936)

Another politically active writer but who could also win a best mustache contest. Clear eyed he said

"Politics is the soil in which the nettle of poisonous enmity, evil suspicions, shameless lies, slander, morbid ambitions, and disrespect for the individual grows rapidly and luxuriantly. Name anything bad in man and it is precisely in the soil of political struggle that it grows with particular liveliness and abundance".

1998: 900th Anniversary of the Birth of Hildegard of Bingen, Prioress  (Vision of Life Cycle)

The woman who was, as the Bible encourages us to be, in the world but not of it. Hildegard, abbess and polymath. Writer, composer and mystic. The stamp shows an illuminations from 'Scivias', a book of her religious visions It is unknown if she painted them herself or oversaw their creation. 

Sunday Stamps - Authors, Poets of Composers - See It On A Postcard

Athena

 

1968: Hellenic Fight for Civilization

Athena, protector of Athens and goddess of war and wisdom attired for battle. Bronze 340-330BC, the so called Piraeus Athena, which can be seen at the Piraeus Museum near the port.

The striking bronze Athena makes another appearance on this Maxi Card with

 

1982: Europa - Historic Events

a stamp of the bust of Miltiades and shield commemorating the Battle of Marathon (490BC).  Miltiades devised the tactics that defeated the more numerous Persian force. A pivotal moment in the history of Greece and its civilization.

1961: 150th Birth and 75th Death Anniversary of Liszt

Well after all that talk of war lets have some soothing piano music from Franz Liszt. The stamp shows the statue outside the Hungarian State Opera in Budapest, not surprisingly there is more than one statue to Liszt in Budapest.

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

Music Makers

 

1998: 450th Anniversary of Saxony State Orchestra

The music is about to begin

1972: Anniversaries - Ralph Vaughan Williams (Design - A Abbott)

and quite special if you get both the composer and conductor

1996: 50th Death Anniversary of Paul Lincke

Paul Lincke, conductor and composer of light operetta who taught himself to play the violin, he also continued that with learning the bassoon and piano.

1961: 150th Anniversary and 75th Death Anniversary Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt, virtuoso pianist and composer, the  rock star of his day, who provided some technically difficult piano compositions for those who came after him

1985: European Year of Music

Something a bit different - the Langspil, an old Icelandic string instrument

1985: International Year of Music

Mezzatin, a comic character from the Italian commedia dell'arte, who is interfering and devious but in this painting by Antoine Watteau he is lovelorn so no doubt playing a melancholy tune.  Difficult to see on the stamp but the female statue in the background symbolically has her back to him.

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - Music Makers - 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

Winter Olympics

 

1980: 13th Winter Games, Lake Placid (Design Zou Jianjun)

All eyes on China who won their first medal of the games in the short track speed skating mixed relay.  Not an easy combination of words to say quickly, as the sports news broadcasters have discovered.  Time to settle down and watch everyone sliding and

1984: Winter Olympics, Sarajevo

jumping. Look out

1968: Winter Olympics, Grenoble (Design Jacques Combet ;Engraving Andre Freres)

incoming

1960: Winter Olympics, Squaw Valley (Design Jozsef Vertel)

Things will get busy

1983: Winter Olympics, Sarajevo

for the thrills and spills

especially in one of my favourite events, the bobsleigh.

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - Winter Sports - slide into See It On A Postcard

Year of the Tiger

 

2022: Year of the Tiger (Design - Ana Jaks)

For the Isle of Man born artist Ana Jaks the invitation  to create a set of stamps for the island's Year of the Tiger was 'a dream come true'.  The cancels on the FDC are actually metallic and I do love a gold cancel even though they don't scan as such.

It is the Year of the Water Tiger and Ana has incorporated that into her design as well as plum blossom. The combination of tiger and horse is because of their compatibility, a match made in heaven.  

2022 will be a lucky year for the Ox and the Goat although the Tiger is an auspicious sign for all so a good year for everyone in varying degrees.  I think we all need one of those.

2002: Just So Stories (Illustrator - Izhar Chohen)

Not an auspicious time for the tiger cub in Rudyard Kipling's Just So Story of "The Beginning of the Armadillos" where a clever hedgehog and tortoise outwit a painted leopard cub and become a new species with its scales lying  'lipparty-lapperty'. (The story here)

1975: Nature Protection (Design K Karmachurya)

Nepal has been very successful in increasing wild tiger numbers, the count in 2018 being 235.  Much nicer to prowl in the wild than

1961: Budapest Zoo (Design - Laszlo Kekesi)

behind bars but at least they will be safe from poachers.

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - Year of the Tiger - visit See It On A Postcard