On the Road

I do like a logo and many famous car badges have been used on this sheet, each symbolising its own unique history.  The commemorative sheet was issued for the 150th Birth Anniversary of Gottlieb Daimler (1834-1900),  It was his invention of the high speed petrol engine that made the car possible. He founded the company Daimler Motern Gessellschaft with his partner Wilhelm Maybach and after experimenting with 2 wheeled vehicles, then a stagecoach and ultimately produced their first car for sale, which is the one shown on the stamp. It does not look too dissimilar to a stagecoach, how do you fancy rattling down the road in this?

The first gearbox was produced by Louis Renault (1877-1944) and the automotive industry was on its way. The early lead in production by the French has resulted in us using a lot of French expressions, such as chassis and coupé, they also knew you would need a roof  

This is a Peugeot 'Petroleur' Type 3.  It was brought to the island of Guernsey in 1894 by Major A Thom, a Guernseyman living in Switzerland.  The Major and his horseless carriage spent a couple of weeks on the island giving rides to people and racing the electric tram.  Although the first car to be resident on the island was not until 1900 the Guernsey Post Office celebrated the centenary of the appearance of the first car on the island with a set of stamps. 

The artist, Robin Ollington depicts the cars against Guernsey backgrounds of the relevant periods.  The top line of stamps are the 'Petroleur', which we have already met, and was capable of 12 mph (I can't spot the 'extra' that was available at the time of a whip for chasing away dogs).
Next is the 24p: 1903 Mercedes Simplex which looks a far racier number. The Mercedes name was first used on German-built Daimler cars in 1900.
35p: 1906 Humber.  This 14.4 hp four cylinder tourer has a top speed of 35 mph which happens to be the island's speed limit. 
Bottom row:
41p: 1936 Bentley. This 4¼ litre sports tourer had a reasonably light body and could reach 90 mph.
60p: 1948 MG TC.  During the1930s the MG Midget became Morris's most popular model and was the first quantity produced small British sports car. The TC Midget was introduced in 1943 being a slightly improved version of the pre-war TB. Its top speed was 78 mph.

An entry to Viridian Postcard's Sunday Stamps theme of - cars

The Naga

This Naga statue stands in Songkhla, Thailand and Kimberly tells me that it spits out water where the lake and the ocean meet and points out the shipping containers in the background.

The Naga or Great Serpent is a mythical snake with supernatural power and it is told that the Naga and water were at the creation of all things. The spraying water is supposed to bring health, good luck and happiness and washes away sins. This sculpture was designed by lecturers from the Thaksin University Fine Arts Faculty.

One of the episodes of The Water Margin started with the memorable quote  "Do not despise the snake for having no horns,for who is to say it will not become a dragon?"" so from this huge Naga it is appropriate that this card came with

two 2013 Year of the Snake stamps with star constellations.  The other stamps two pink lotus (Nelumbo Nucifera) which although it does not show up in the scan are coated with pearly ink. The yellow flower is the national flower of Thailand, the  wonderfully named Golden Shower Tree (Cassia fishla), a definitive stamp first issued in 2010.

Industrial Revolution

"The Workers' Tale "stamps were issued in 1999 as part of the Millennium Series  on varies themes or tales, as they were called.  I think the FDC design is a play on guild banners which in times past crafts and tradesmen would belong to.   Clockwise starting from the left is the
*19p stamp, designed by Peter Collingwood, a master weaver, and dedicated to the wool trade which was Britain's largest source of wealth in the 12th Century.
*26p is designed by the artist David Hockney and as he comes from Bradford he has painted Salts Mill built in 1853, located in Saltaire, a  model village founded by Sir Titus Salt (a woollen industrialist) for better living conditions for his workers away from the pollution and crowded industrial towns, today it is a UNESCO world heritage site. All across the north of England with its plentiful supply of water were cotton mills  this one made worsted cloth, at the time it was the largest industrial building in the world.  Closing in 1986, and in common with those mills that survive, it has been converted to another use, art galleries, shops, offices and restaurants and one of the largest collections of David Hockney's art.
*44p designed by Bill Sanderson features a ship's hull in a shipbuilding yard.   The industrial revolution saw the change in shipbuilding techniques from wood to iron and steel
*64p designed by Brendon Neiland features a details of the wonderful "inside out" building (the ducts and lifts on the outside)  designed for Lloyds  by Richard Rogers.  This stamp is symbolising the financial sector and intentional banking. A lot has changed since 1999 I don't think we would be celebrating the banking sector today.  I wonder if Isambard Kingdom Brunel had been born in a different time he would have been able to raise finance for  his ambitious schemes, shown on these stamps below?

 For the centenary of Brunel's birth in 2006 royal mail featured some of his famous engineering achievements; the SS Great Britain shown bottom left is now moored as a museum ship in Bristol but the FDC

 insert card used the iconic photograph of him standing in front of the launching chains of the Great Eastern which was six times the tonnage of any ship built at the time.  Two of his steamships were afloat at the time but the Great Eastern proved an unsuccessful passenger ship and was ultimately used to lay telegraphic cables.  The photograph is by Robert Howell depicting the engineer as hero.

An entry to Viridian Postcard's Sunday Stamp theme of - Industrial

You Lookin' At Me

Unlike reindeer the European Elk is a truly wild creature and in this postcard it roams the Finnish forests. In the Finnish language it is called - hirvi.  Don't those antlers look wonderfully velvety.  The Wiki Brain tells me that elk or moose are distinguished by their palmate antlers. Palmate was a word I had not come across before and I learn that it means hand shaped with lobes radiating from one centre.

Eeva tells me Finland "has a good population of these handsome animals"  I looked up what the numbers might be and learnt in the summer there can be as many as 115,000.  That is whole lot of handsomeness.

National Costumes

At the height of the cold war the USSR issued a series of stamps on Provincial Costumes.  It is interesting to see from today's perspective that most of the costumes featured are now from independent countries issuing their own stamps. This one shows costumes from Lithuania where the aprons are always a geometric design.

Next comes Georgia and Byelorussia (today's Belarus).  I like how the designer, Valeri Pimenov,  has decorated the wording to look like a piece of ethnic embroidery or sash.

Here we move east to Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan and unfortunately  the last of the stamps I possess.  I'm now wondering why I have never pursued the others to create a whole. I feel a project coming on.

An entry to Viridian Postcard's Sunday Stamps theme of - Ethnic and National Costumes

Sunny Days

When I came across this gem of a card in a second hand book shop (randomly amongst a box of train postcards), I assumed from the German stamp and message it was from somewhere in, yes, Germany. But no, on closer inspection I discovered all those jolly people are holidaying in Denmark. To be precise, East Jutland, a hilly land of expansive forests, lakes and sandy shorelines.  Not that the latter are on the card although  it is something I always associate with Jutland.  Now I can see that a lot would be missed if one did not head inland.  This is just the card to get out in the approaching dark days of winter and be reminded of sunny summer days.  

Sand and Sea

1988: The Sea

I won't be around for next week's se-tenant theme so thought I'd take the opportunity to  include this delightful example. The mermaid label says "Keep the Sea Clean".  The artist, Oscar Bonnevalle, takes us on a trip along the Belgium coast. Bonnevalle, a philatelic enthusiast, produced 155 stamps over his lifetime and was commemorated on a Belgium stamp in 1996.

The first stamp shows the Ostend registered 0.148 'Snipe' trawler heading out to sea and and the horse is interesting for Belgium must be the only place in the world where fishermen trawl for shrimp on horseback. Next the Zeebrugge registered trawler Asannot passes those things familiar on northern European beaches, the windbreak. The third stamp shows a cross-channel ferry, the last far out in the distance a container ship passes by while spotted redshank and oyster-catchers patrol the beach

All the familiar objects of beach life also appear on the 2007 GB set 'Beside the Seaside'.

The beach huts shown on the stamp are rather plain but possibly the most famous in England are those in Southwold, Suffolk with their little verandas that rarely come up for sale but when they do can cost as much as a house.

Lets  take it easy and watch the children being taken for a ride on the donkeys unfortunately there is a stamp missing from my set which is the ice cream cone so I can't offer you one of those.

And lastly one of the most famous beaches in the world, Bondi, where sunshine is guaranteed maybe that is why the group on the left is sheltering under a very small umberalla. The stamp is from the 2007  'Nostalgic Tourism' series showing tourist posters from the 1930s. The one shown is "At the Beach" by the prolific Percy Trompf who designed and painted thousands of posters and won many prizes.

An entry to Viridian Postcard's Sunday Stamps