Frothing salty waters make an appearance in all the stamps of the 1998 Lighthouse set designed by Dick Davis. Lets set off to sea and start at the top left in Ireland with
St John's Point lighthouse in County Down, which dates back to 1839. Then on to Wales and
The Smalls Lighthouse and then perhaps sail down the country heading for Portsmouth and up the Solent passing by
The Needles Rocks with their accompanying lighthouse which today is painted red and white but the stamp shows it at the turn of the century about 1900 in blue and white.
On the bottom is
Bell Rock lighthouse off Arbroath, Scotland, built at the beginning of the 19th Century. Lastly appears The Eddystone Light which the FDC celebrates its 300th Anniversary and the stamp shows the first of the lighthouses to stand on the Eddystone Rocks erected in 1698 and built of wood. Yes you know that is not going to end well, it was wrecked in a storm 5 years later. The FDC came with an insert which tells the story of the four lighthouses which have stood on this point warning seafarers of danger.
The painting on the cover is by the wonderfully named Isaac Sailmaker (1633-1721) and called 'Men-o-War and other Vessels before the Eddystone Lighthouse'.
Next is a set of Lighthouse stamps which Åland issued in a booklet of eight stamps which showed four lights.
Two are photographed by Kjell Söderlund and are:
Marhällen in the Bothic Gulf and
Gustaf Dahlen a light which was named after the Swedish Nobel Laureate of the same name and was the inventor of the Dahlen light. If the light name is not familiar his company will be, AGA. The other two stamps of the set are taken from old sketches of lighthouses, the first is
Bogskär which was damaged by winter storms in 1889 and destroyed by German bombardment in 1915. The replacement station some years later was painted in the Finnish national colours of blue and white and can be seen when arriving by boat into Mariehamn. The stamp was engraved by Martin Mörck. The other stamp was engraved by Lars Sjööblom and is of Kökarsören but unfortunately I can find no other information so unlike the other lighthouse I can provide no link. As can be seen the exact position of each light is shown on the bottom of the stamps.
6 comments:
I had not seen that Eddystone anniversary set before. Super stamps.
Your link on SSII 76 did not work, I had to access your blog via SSII 75.
I have received some of both sets. They are among my ever favourites.
I love the top set - I think the way they incorporated nautical maps is genius, and enhances the stamp. The (mostly) black and white Aland ones are unusual as well. Great stamps this week.
Two beautiful stamp sets.
I like the 'helicopter' view of the lighthouses surrounded by the wild sea. (and I was a lucky receiver of a few of the Royal mail stamps - so pretty!)
Thank you for sharing!
Poor, foolish Winstanley! His lighthouse was certainly the most fanciful of the four.
I, too, like the aerial view on this FDC.
The inclusion of the co-ordinates is a nice touch to the Aland stamps.
I don't think I've ever seen a lighthouse I didn't like.
that FDC is stunning! I love the dark tone of the stamps - add to the overall mystery that is related to lighthouses.
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