Soccer

1958: World Soccer Championship (Design - T Hultgren Engraver - S Ewert)

Last week in my Sunday Stamps the USSR team were setting off for the World Cup in Sweden and here is Sweden's stamp to welcome them.  The championships were played between 8th and 29th of June 1958 in 12 Swedish towns.

The match of the postmark date of 11th June in Göteborg was between 

1966: World Cup Football Championships (Design - David Gentlemen)

England and

2006: World Cup Winners (Design - Madelaine Bennet)

Brazil which resulted in a 0-0 draw.  This resulted in a tied second place in Group G so we played an extra match against the USSR to see who would go through to the next round and lost 1-0. The English team

1961: 10th Anniversary of Scandinavian Airline Systems (Design - Ph von Schantz;  Engraver - A Wallhorn)

were on the plane home although first they would have to travel to Stockholm because Gothenburg didn't have an international airport at the time.

Perhaps they travelled like this cover from Bromma Stockholm airport.

1970: 7th Anniversary of the Swiss Football Federation (Design - Bernard Schorderet)

Switzerland were one of the seven founding members of the international footballing association FIFA and are making their 11th appearance at a World Cup final this year and having a cracking tournament but they didn't make it to Sweden in 1958.

Lastly for those whom football leaves cold here is something we all love, the postal service

1987: 50th Anniversary of Mobile Post Offices (Design - Karl Tanner)

and a mobile post office that come to you.

CHS89-3153 Rüschegg Gambach BE Advertising Postmark 10 April 1989

The cover has a sporting connection for its advertising cancel is inviting one to spend time in Rüshegg Gambach for 'recreation and sport' and it even might be a possibility that the village of Gambach had a travelling post office.

The Sunday Stamps II prompt of the letter S - for Soccer, Sweden, Switzerland, Scandinavian and Sport - scoot over to See It On A Postcard

Riding the Rails

1958: World Cup Football in Sweden (Design - R. Zhitkov)

The centre of the the footballing world for the next month will be in Russia but in these stamps the USSR team (at the time Olympic champions) were heading for Sweden and their first world cup. For those foreign football fans in Russia at the moment their tickets for the matches include free rail travel, what a perfect combination.

1958: All-Union Industrial Exhibition (Design- E. Bulanova)

Maybe they will have time for train spotting perhaps to see freight trains which I always enjoy and wonder what they are carrying, this one looks to be hauling petroleum.  What they won't see this summer is snow and steam trains so

1985: Famous Trains (Design - Terence Cuneo)

here are Terence Cuneo's superb paintings of locos riding the rails

full steam ahead and

whizzing out of tunnels.

2013: London Underground

A trip on the Moscow metro with its chandeliers and marble will be a fans destination and although Russia has celebrated it in many stamps sadly I have none.  In an alternative lets travel to London and the opening of the Metropolitan Railway in 1863, the stamp shows an original lithograph featuring the rails near Paddington.

2011: UN Headquarters definitive (Design - Scott Soberg)

Another international venue but not as sporting is the United Nations in Vienna. Scott Soberg painted aerial and ground views of the three international buildings in New York, Geneva and Vienna for this stamp set.

Sunday Stamps II prompt this week is the letter R - for Russia, rails and railways - travel to See It On A Postcard

Quills

Umm Al-Qiwain became part of the United Arab Emirates in 1973 and at that time the UAE stamps replaced their own. The smallest of the emirates its main economic activities are fishing and dates according to the Stamp World History site.  It also seems in the 1970s the other economic activity was producing lots of stamps not many of which were meant for postage.  I'm guessing these two birds are long eared owls.  I try to link a theme to a country but with only one stamp to choose from I discovered no owl names begin with Q, grrr.  Happily moulted flight feathers of owls were used for quills

1981: 150th Anniversary of the Birth of Albert Anker

although this one being gripped by teeth looks like the more familiar goose feather.  The painting created in 1875 is called 'Der Germeindeschreiber' or The Secretary of the Commune (a person whose job would include control of finances and keeping the civil register). What a busy desk it portrays although it looks as though he may like to contemplate with a smoke of his pipe.  The artist Albert Anker painted 19th Century Swiss village life and for that reason is called Switzerland's national painter (a few of his paintings can be seen here). This painting is in the Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne but don't go there because its closed until 2019 when it will open in flash new premises (a converted locomotive shed) but more than 200 of  its paintings (including this one) have been put on their website. The cancel on the card is from the Swiss village of Ins located in the Bernese Lakeland where he was born and spent most of his life although he liked to travel to Paris for the winter. His studio is preserved as a museum.

1973: Centenary of Swiss Association of Commercial Employees (Design - Gebrüder Lenz)

I think this organisation is a trade union. I always enjoy seeing what symbols stamp designers come up with for a rather abstract concept.

1987: Russian Postal History (Design - Yury Artsimenov)

Nothing abstract about the post for here we have a 17-19th Century horse drawn sledge with a 17th Century Postman and the pen of choice for the period at the bottom - a quill. 

Sunday Stamps II prompt this week is the Letter Q - for Qiwain and Quills - move quickly to  See It On A Postcard

Palaces

1935: Sights (Design - L Sowinski; Engraving - M R Polak)

The Belweder Palace in Polish or Belvedere Palace (Italian for beautiful sight or view). In the 20th Century it was the home of the Presidents of Poland.

1931: Marshal Jósef Pilsudski

The first of whom was Jósef Pilsudski (1867-1935) although his title uniquely was more grand - Chief of State and First Marshall of Poland, it was his home from 1926 to 1935 and where he died. The neo-classical palace was one of the few structures to survive World War 2 in Warsaw.

1927: Royal Palace

This one didn't. The first palace built on the site in the 13th Century was completely destroyed when liberating Buda from the Turks and replaced

1926: Royal Palace

in the 18th Century by the baroque version above which was badly damaged in World War 2 and rebuilt in the Neo Baroque style using many original parts. It now houses the Hungarian National Gallery. 

1967: Paintings in the National Gallery, Budapest (2nd Series)

where one may gaze at Samuel Lányi (1792-1860) cartographer, water engineer and artist. This self portrait with a Jacobin or phrygian cap is one of his most famous.  By chance that revolutionary cap ties in nicely with the next stamp

1946-48: Views

Another palace that houses an art gallery is the Palais de Luxembourg although technically it is in the Orangery which they don't tell you, no wonder we spent a long time prowling around the palace to find the way in.

1961: Tourist Publicity

A place on my 'must see' list, Knossos on Crete abandoned for reasons unknown in 1380-1100 BC.

1956: Views of Peking (Designer - Shao Bolin)

Another of my 'must sees' is the Forbidden City in Beijing although possibly most unlikely I will ever get there but here is the Tai Ho Palace or as it is more commonly known the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

2010: 300th Anniversary of the Foundation of Tsarkoe Selo (Designer - A Drobyshev)

The Russians know how to build opulent palaces and here is the Alexander Palace in Tsarkoe Selo, 15 miles south of St Petersburg and today part of the town of Pushkin.  This was the last Russian imperial family's favourite palace and is where they were ultimately imprisoned.  The stamp is from an attractive miniature sheet seen here.

I will finish with a palace in London that still has a royal family in occupation

2014: Buckingham Palace (Design - Howard Brown)

   and a stamp set

that shows Buckingham Palace through the ages.

This week's Sunday Stamps II prompt is the letter P - here for Poland, Portrait, Phrygian, Pilsudski and Palaces - promenade over to See It On A Postcard