Yippee New Bike

It is just the weather for taking a bike ride at the moment and this happy postcard invites you to hop on board. It is a 1966 advert for the junior Batavus bicycle. I love the look on the faces of the group of children, one the proud owner and his overjoyed friends. At least that is how I read it. My sender, Norbert, tells me Batavus is one of the oldest brands in the Netherlands. It is also the right weather for cycling in the Netherlands for he tells me it is 15 degrees centigrade at "clog level", with dry humour.

The card came in an envelope with lots of stamps

a combination of Euro and pre 2002 guilder stamp. On the left are the two Euro stamps by the side of the 45 guilder stamp. The one on the extreme right is from the 1979 Dutch literary series, this one for Joost Van den Vondel, a 17th Century writer and playwright "master of the lyric".  The colourful one next to it is the 1977 Child Welfare issue which at first I thought was a clown acrobat, but couldn't understand the theme of "Danger to Children". Unless it was beware of circuses.  Then I turned it around:

and realised it was a box of matches, not to be played with.  The Child Welfare stamps are issued every year with a different theme, they always seem to be one of the most attractive of the Dutch stamps.

Thank you Norbert for the stamps, card and newspaper.