Christmas

 

2012: Christmas (Design - Inga-Karin Eriksson)

Gather around the Christmas tree.  Santa has delivered his presents

1998: Greeting Stamps

and now he is off to ski.

2021: Christmas Nativity (Design - Jorges Cocco)

The heavenly host as imagined by the Argentinian artist  Jorges Cocco, now in hi 80s,  who calls this his sacrocubist style "illustrating sacred events with the styling of the post cubist movement"

Each stamp of the set has a distinct colour. This is a booklet stamp the sheet stamps have a bar code on the side which reportedly has confused some people who have been tearing it off😂

Merry Christmas Wishes to Everyone

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - Christmas - celebrate at See It On A Postcard

Winter

 

1989: Europa: Children's Play (Design  S Morken)

If there is snow there has to be a snowman and this one even gets a hat.

2006: Winter in Art

• Prince Eugene of Sweden bought Bourdelles's sculpture of Hercules preparing to shoot the vicious Stymphalian birds for his palace in 1918.  Once he decided where to install it in the grounds the prince painted it many times.
  

• Lelle Kalle by Sven Ljungbergs. Lungbergs lived in Ljungby where Lelle Kalle was a well known local personality and here he is at the train station.

• Modification  Over Winter Landscapes by Philip von Schantz
  

• Hoarfrost on Ice by Gustaf Fjaestad 

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - Winter - Wrap up warm and travel to See It On A Postcard

Head for the Hills

 

2001: Active Spare Time

 Rope up we are heading to the mountains.

1937: World Ski Championships - Chamonix

Swoop and jump down slopes.  Or perhaps just

1960: Tourist Publicity (Design Charles Mazelin; Engraver Jean Pheulpin)

take the slow lane through the Kerrata Gorge in Algeria

1992: Mount Arguille

Those ropes I mentioned will be needed here, a mountain with no weak sides or paths.  Perhaps I will just admire the geology, the remains of a limestone plateau that has been eroded to leave a single pillar of rock.

1972:Swiss Alps

Something more pointy in the snowy Swiss Alps

or travel to warmer climes and the The Grand Benard.  Get up early because mid morning the clouds cover the interior of the Reunion, as can be seen on the stamp. The church is Notre-Dame-des-Neiges with a unique carillon .  The master carillonneur gives concerts from classical to contemporary from his cabin in the clock tower. How wonderful it must be to hear the sound of 48 bells rise in the mountain air.  

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - Mountains - ascend the heights at See It On A Postcard

Space

 

1973: Moon Flight of Apollo 16

Who imagined that when Liberia issued this mini sheet, the year after Apollo 16 landed on the Moon, that the footprints Schmitt made and challenged the next generation to step into would be the last made on the Moon.  The stamp shows the mission badge with the Greek sun god Apollo, American eagle touching the moon. Saturn and a galaxy are in the background.

1972: 500th Birth Anniversary of Copernicus

Liberia  imagining the next step to Mars and why not for the USSR had put Mars 2 and 3 into orbit around the planet and the USA was orbiting with Mariner 9 in 1971. Today there are eight objects orbiting Mars. The next step?

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - 'Your Choice' -  See It On A Postcard 
 

Cartoons

 

1998: Sports

Here is the hapless FC Knudde goalkeeper saving the boot but not the ball. From John Le Noble's comic strip 'Jaap and Joop' recording the ups and downs of FC Knudde which has been published since 1973.

2011: Animated Films by Loriot

If you don't like football how-about a day at the races.  The 4 stamps of the set are of  Lariot's most famous short cartoons.

1999: Erich Kastner - Birth Centenary

On his way to Berlin Emil has his money sewn in his pocket but when he arrived it is stolen. Emil and the detectives are following the robber on the stamp. Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kastner was published in 1931 and has never been out of print. The illustrations were by Walter Trier.

2012: Comics

Lastly here is Desperate Dan, the world's strongest man with a beard so tough he shaves with a blowtorch. He appeared in the first issue of the Dandy in 1937. The print addition ran for 75 years.

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - Comics or Illustrations - See It On A Postcard

Trees

 

2018: Hampton Court Palace

Highly manicured trees in the Great Fountain Garden at Hampton Court

2019: Forests

and autumn at the National Arboretum Acer Glade

2003 and 2002: Holidays in Austria

The Calvary trees at Heiligenkreuz Abbey brings us

2012: Winter (Design - Ditte Rosenorn Holm)

to winter and one of Denmark's favourite winter songs ' The Snow Lies Heavy' which tells the story of a little bird perched on a frozen branch as it song ushers in Spring,  Ditte Holm's 3 stamp set illustrate the song (I only have this one of a cold winter night).

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

Music

 

2014: Carl Michael Bellman (Design Beata Bouch and Gustav Martensson Engraver Lars Sjooblomm)

One of my favourite stamp designs despite knowing nothing about this Swedish composer, musician and poet, Carl Michael Bellman (1740-1795) who also is famous for writing drinking songs.

1983: Music in Sweden

On slightly firmer ground with this FDC. Playing the piano is the composer and conductor Wilhelm Stenhammer, on baritone sax,  -Lars Gulliton, a fiddler in the middle, the composer Karl-Birger  Biomdahl's space opera Aniara and lastly of course ABBA back in the limelight this year with their new album.

1987: 125th Anniversary of the Choral Society

Everyone gets a chance to sing along with this pretty stamp

2020: Queen

Royal Mai's continuing series of pop legends and Queen's first albums.  Queen II was released in 1974 and contained their first Top Ten hit, Seven Seas of Rhye. (Today the picture is more associated with Bohemian Rhapsody but that would not be issued until 1975)  Next is Sheer Heart Attack from 1974 with their breakthrough global hit 'Killer Queen'

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - Music - hear it in your head and See It On A Postcard

By Road and Rail

 

1965: Opening of Mont Blanc Road Tunnel (Design Rene Cottet)

A winding road with, I imagine, spectacular views or

1977: Europa - Landscapes (Design - Schilliger)

 

for something faster with changing views perhaps the Rhon autobahn. The longest motorway in Germany, starting near the Danish border and finishing at the Austrian border.

2010: Great British Railway

Or let the train take the strain, even better if it is steam. The stamps show BR Class 9F and the Evening Star, the last steam train built by British Rail and the GWR King Class - King William IV. This may not be a bridge but perhaps be the sea wall or the River Teing estuary. I've never ridden the rails on this part of south western England so my knowledge is zero. My full knowledge is when there are winter storms then the news often shows big waves coming up and over this coastal line in south Devon.  

2006: Brunel 1806-1859

This is definitely a bridge - the Maidenhead Railway Bridge crossing the Thames on the London Paddington to Bristol route of the Brunel's Great Western Railway nicknamed God's Wonderful Railway or later because it was often a holiday route - the Great Way Round.

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - Roads, train tracks or bridges - See It On A Postcard

Dark Forces

 

c1974: Definitive

The sun has gone down. Beware of the things that go bump in the night like a Tentoki Demon

1997: 100th Anniversary of Bram Stoker's Dracula

or the flutter of bat wings at the window "ah the children of the night they make such beautiful music"

1977: Eskimo Mask

Who is out there looking in?

1961: Hansel and Gretel (Design - Bert Jager)

And don't forget be careful of accepting invitations from witches.

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - Halloween, witches or scary - See It On A Postcard

Cats

 

1971: Cats and Dogs

 

Cats have got the ball this week.

1978: Korean Animal Paintings

 

Oh no another dog is muscling in, and a bird too

1999: Cats and Dogs (Design Verèt Lemarinier)

 

Surely there is only room for cats here

1994: Greetings Stamps

I'm going to write a letter asking for some more felines said Orlando the Marmalade Cat.

2011: 50th Anniversary of the WWF

Hello.  Looking for me?

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

Dogs

 

1960: Postal History (15th Century Schwyz Cantonal Messenger)

Tiny dog and postman. Is it wanting to play and think he is going to throw the stick? If the messenger gets lost in the mountains

1989: St Bernard Pass 2000 Years (Design - Jules-Olivier Bercher)

then here is a sight that would warm the heart, both dog or brandy.

2001: Dogs (Design - I Jacobson)

In Sweden it looks like one would be rescued by Alsatians, not quite as cute.

1993: Definitive Series (Design Celistino Piatti; Engraver M Muller)

 Meanwhile by the light of a full moon this dog is not howling at the moon but perhaps

1964: Forest Animals

listening to the wolves.

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

Autumn Harvest

 

1966: Harvest Festival (Design - H Matoszewska)

A pretty harvest festival in Poland 

1993: Four Seasons - Autumn fruits and leaves (Design - Charlotte Knox)

and a festival in the hedgerows and woods. Worcestershire is a fruit growing area so presume that is the reason for the Worcester cancel. It is most famous for its early season apple the Worcester Permain which coincidentally is the same colour as the desert pear on the stamp - a Doyenne du Comice.  I like apples much more than pears, unless they are in a perry cider.

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - Autumn/Harvest/Food - See It On A Postcard

Denmark Celebrates

 

A celebration of Denmark's 1000 years as a nation.  The cover features a stamp from the millennial issue

1953-56: Millennial (Design - V Bang)

featuring a Jelling stone, a Jutland runestone from the 10th Century which is associated with the creation of Denmark. Today the stones are under a glass cover to protect them from the elements.

Another piece of Danish history. The cover celebrates the 200th anniversary of the abolition of villeinage, or serfdom, in Denmark

1988: Abolition of Villeinage

Serfdom had ended in 1702 but the landlords imposed a new system which obliged the Danish peasants to remain in their place of birth until the age of 40  which was called adscription (a word I had to look up the meaning - "the quality or state of being added, annexed or bound")  Happily this oppressive condition was repealed in 1788.  (Serfdom: Tied to the Land of Their Birth). The stamp shows Christian VII riding past the Liberty Memorial from a painting by CW Eckersberg for the 50th Anniversary of adscription.

Liberty Memorial Copenhagen

I couldn't resist showing this 1863 view of the Liberty Memorial, my eyes taken with the tram riders.

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - Celebration of a Historic Event - See It On A Postcard