High and Low

 

G

1963: Landscapes of Hwagshan - Yellow Mountains

Jade Screen Peak composed of Mesozoic granite formed through intense magmatic activity, its steep cliffs later sculpted by repeated glacial action during the last 2.6 million years, known as the Quaternary Period.

1963: Czech Scenery

Taking a deep dive to the caves and stalagmites of Moravia. The Moravian Karst contains over a thousand spaces and caves decorated with stalactites and stalagmites. The five major cave systems have guided tours, one of which has a motorboat ride along the underground Punkva River

1964: Tourism Series

More stalactites and stalagmites in the Drach Cave, four great caves in the island of Majorca which are connected to each other. One can experience a music concert on the subterranean Lake Martel where classical musicians play from illuminated rowing boats. The lake is named after the 19th Century French speleologist Édouard-Alfred Martel.

1964: Stalactites of Aggtelek

The Aggteleki Cave  also known as Baradla Cave is a massive 26 kilometre long and located on the border areas of Hungary and Slovakia. Famous for its huge chambers, stalactites and underground concert hall.  It  may be chilly down there but is a constant 10c (50F) year round. A UNESCO World Heritage Site 

Sunday Stamps theme - Geology - visit - See It On A Postcard

Mounains in Monochrome

 

1983: Low Value Definitive Stamps

Seven Stars Crags are limestone karsts peaks rising out of Star Lake in Guangdong. The lake is 20k long. I believe the early morning golden hour is the ideal time to capture the peaks reflections in the lake. The area is also famous for its colourful caves, underground rivers and ancient stone inscriptions.

Mt Zhumulangma, the Chinese name for Mt Everest

Taishan Mountains. Mount Tai is one of China's five sacred mountains rising to an elevation of 5,069 ft (1545 metres) and designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There are about 7000 steps to climb to the top! Over 70 Chinese Emperors have used the stone steps,  an imperial path to ascend the mountain to perform the sacrifices to heaven and earth at the top. Emperors and their massive entourages started the ascent from the Dai Temple. While emperors walked the sacred path as a display of piety and humility they sometimes were carried in sedan chairs up the steepest sections like the 'Eighteen Bends' which lead to the mountain's summit. This single section contains contains exactly 1.633 stone steps carved directly into the mountain cliff. Pity those sedan carriers.

1979: Kluane National Park (National Park definitive series)

Kluane National Park, home of high mountains, glaziers and grizzly bears. The artist Alan C Collier travelled to southwestern Yukon to paint its rugged icy white mountain landscape. The stamp features his 'Across the Tundra'.

Sunday Stamps theme this week - Mountains - See It On A Postcard 

Ceramics

 

|1961: Pottery of the Tang Dynasty

Tang Dynasty (618-907) low temperature glazed pottery called Sancai meaning three colours, usually brown (or amber), green and off white. Easier to make than porcelain they were used as tomb figures for the journey to the afterlife. Many are camels with their bushy bearded Central Asian riders

but horses were the most popular

1981: Ceramics from Cizhou Kilns

Cizhou ware is named after one of its main centers of production in Northern China. Generally sturdy large objects, very popular and especially associated with the late Tang and Early Ming Dynasty (11th to 14th Century). 4f - Vase with two tigers (Song Dynasty) and 8f - Carved black glazed vase (Jin Dynasty)

8f - Amphora with apricot blossoms (modern) and 7f - Jar with two phoenix (Yuan Dynasty)

10f - Flat flax with dragon and phoenix (Yuan dynasty) and 60f - Vessel with tiger shaped handles (modern)

1976: Europa -Handicrafts

Changing continents to scenes of daily life in 18th Century Germany originally made by the Ludwigsburg Porcelain company. A girl selling trinkets and copperplate prints

Boy selling copperplate prints

 

Sunday Stamps A-Z - for China, Camel and Copperplate - C at  See It On A Postcard 

Old and New Cities

 See It On A Postcard's Thursday Postcard Hunt is visiting the cities of Asia

AI tells me this is Qiwang Hall in Jingshan Park a scenic area near the Forbidden city. It sits at the bottom of Jingshan Hill (also called Longevity Hill), the highest part of Beijing and from where one can have extensive views of the Forbidden City. Sent, as can be seen, on the 7th December 1908 to Belgium (via Siberia) arriving on the 26th December in Brussels with its Happy Christmas message.

I've used this view of Singapore before when we doing aerial views but needs must, I couldn't find anything else.

C is for Cattle

 

1955-56: Five Year Plan

A dairy herd 

2000: Shangri-La

Grazing in green pastures somewhere below the Meri Snow Mountains, Yunnan

1946: Local Motives (Design and Engraving - Gabriel-Antoine Barlangue)

The Zebu and herdsman. A breed that will be well adapted for global warming as they were bred to be productive in hot, humid climates. Smaller than other domestic cattle they have a low metabolic rate and efficient sweat glands.

1979: Definitive - Coins 

Cow on a coin, and what better one than a chunky old 'thruppenny bit'.

Sunday Stamp's A-Z - C is for cattle, coins, China and Cameroun - See It On A Postcard 

Family Men

 

2019: 50th Anniversary Apollo 11 Moon Landings (Design - Edward Fuglø)

The artist Edward Fuglø's earliest childhood memory was of his father holding him up at the window, pointing at the sky and telling him about the men on the moon.

1974: Renoir Paintings

Auguste Renoir married his model Aline Charigot and here they are enjoying a sojourn in Guernsey, although the paintings were actually created in Paris.  Renoir had realised that he became so mesmerised by the light painting outdoors that his composition suffered so took his sketches back to the studio.  August and Aline had three sons (one of whom was the film director Jean Renoir) and he often painted his family. There are only 3 portraits of Aline but she would also appear in his other paintings, the most famous one is of her playing with a dog as part of a boating party in 'Le Dejeuner des Canotiers'

1955: Five Year Plan

A sightseeing trip for the family.  This is a bit of an outlier in a set featuring economic and industrial development although one of the results of this experiment/plan was urbanisation.

Sunday Stamps theme this week - Fatherly Men - See It On A Postcard

Here Comes the Sun

 

1996: Child Welfare Week (Design - Takashi Yanase)

A smiling sun arrives, lets jump for joy

1983: Children's Paintings

 

Bu Hua enjoys a sunny day, she calls her painting  "The sun, birds, flowers and Me" 

 

1996: Tourism

 

The golden glow of the sun sparkling on water, time to jump the waves

1980: Nature Conservation (Design - Heinz Schillinger)

 

and feel the warmth of the sun.

Sunday Stamps theme - Sun and Sunny Days - See It On A Postcard

Calligraphy

 

1981: Inscription by Chou En-lai

Chinese calligraphy is an art however some ancient scripts are difficult to read for modern Chinese people which is why I think this is regular scrip (Kai shu) for it is a message to be read with ease.  It says - "To deliver mail for 10 thousand li has bearing on arteries and veins of the country". (A li has altered in measurement over the centuries as it was orignally based on the size of a field or village but in modern times has been standardised to half a kilometre),

 

2017: 200th Anniversary of Balzers Post Office/Letter Collection Point

Mail coaches could also have taken up that mantra of delivering mail. This posthorn is surrounded by some attractive calligraphy on both stamp and cancel

When this postman, Franz Frick (1907-1975), started his career in Balzers it was an age of fine penmanship

seen on the postcards and envelopes of the era.

Sunday Stamps this week is on the theme - Calligraphy - See It On A Postcard

Health Service

Today is COP28's Health Day to discuss how climate change is impacting human health and what can be done about it but I look back to simpler times in stamps

First Anniversary of People's Communes

A Chinese health worker with her first aid kit and

1987: St John Ambulance Centenary (Design - Debbie Cook)

something more elaborate for volunteers of  St John Ambulance Service.  One can depend on the Victorians for robust design.  St John Ambulance volunteers are a familiar sight at sporting occasions on hand to provide first aid.  They do many other things and during the pandemic they helped to screen donors for the blood transfusion service

1972: 20th Anniversary of the Post Office Employees Blood Donor Association

I assumed this stamp was for France's national blood donation service but on closer examination found it was celebrating  a non-profit organisation that encourages blood donors among employees of the French Post Office

1983: The Red Cross (Design - E Krag; Engraver Cz Slania)

The more famous Red Cross

2003: Public Health 400 Years (Design - Sverre Morken)

The small beginnings of public health in Norway from July 1603 when royal patent was awarded to the physician Villads Nielson and a lifelong annual income from the public purse to provide medical services to Bergen, the largest town in Norway at the time. In 1703 the first doctor was appointed as a public servant but not until the early 18th Century were there 5 physicians in the entire country. A single qualified midwife was not in service until 1740.  Things have grown since then with a transition from a social assistance state to welfare state after World War II.

1988: Health for All in 2000

Worldwide "Health for All" was a global strategy by the World Health Organisation launched in 1978 for extending health care coverage as a basic human right.  There has progress since then but still lots to do so now we have "Health for All in the 21st Century", things were a lot more optimistic in 1978.

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - Health or Medicine - hosted by the date prescient See It On A Postcard

Mail Transport

 

1980: Norwex 80 (Design - F Matheson)

This mini sheet fits the Sunday Stamps theme of 'planes, trains and automobiles' with the added bonus of a paddle-steamer, the 'Bergen'.  All modes of transport carrying mail with the Norwegian stamps of their era.

1949: 7th Anniversary Opening of the Communist PO in Sha Tung

On another continent a post runner goes to meet a train.  An East China stamp, one of liberated areas who issued their own stamps until the formation of the Republic of China replaced all the regional issues.

1979: Europa: Post and Telecommunications

A busy postal hub on the FDC with a 1.70 stamps showing Boule de Moulins which were floating containers used to carry mail during the Siege of Paris.  They were not a success unlike the balloons which were used in the siege which successfully got to their destinations.  The 1.20 stamp shows a monoplane, the Caudron Simoun, used in the 1930s as a mail plane by Air Bleu,  The address of the Bushbury on the FDC has a tenuous aeronautical link for in the 1920s aircraft factories were established in this area.  Who knows Mr Jones might even have worked in one.

2013: Europa - Postman's Van (Design - Alexandra Ubukata)

 Lastly a jolly Polish postman sets off in his van ready to deliver mail

Sunday Stamps theme this week - Trains, planes and automobiles - See It On A Postcard

Take the High Road

 

1956: Opening of Sichuan-Tibet and Chinghai-Tibet Highways

Take a spectacular drive though the mountains, canyons and valleys of China and Tibet. This is the most precipitous road in China which opened in 1954. A truck convoy makes its way slowly to its destination.

1949: Landscapes

Not a lot of leeway for this truck coming out of a tunnel on the Val d'Anniviers Alpine road (considered one of the most beautiful valleys in Switzerland).  The road initially runs parallel to the mountains before starting to climb, winding along cliffs and passing through avalanche tunnels dug into the rock.  In the distance is a bus which perhaps is one of the yellow Swiss post buses.  A cyclist commented on the road "Thrills are guaranteed as you scale your way up the first hairpin bends from the valley and on the road cut into the rock at Niouc"

1937: Opening of Col de L'Iseran Road

The high mountain pass of Col de L'Iseran is Europe's highest paved road, 2764m (9068ft) and opened in 1937.  An irresistible opportunity to the Tour de France organisers as they made it part of the tour in 1938. It has been part of the Le Tour eight times, most recently in 2019 when thing did not go to plan.  Egan Bernal crested the top Of Col d'Iseran first but on the descent freak weather conditions of snow and hailstorms and news of a landslide blocking the route further on meant the rest of the stage was cancelled.

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - Roads - travel  to See It On A Postcard

 

Education for All

1999: Millennium - The Citizens' Tale

The Right to Learn

1953: People's Education Plan

brought into law

1955: Five Year Plan

and maybe a five year plan.  Books required and

1936: Tercentenary of Utrecht University

knowledge will be gained.  Here is Athene, personification of wisdom, and how appropriate that all these years later than the stamp Utrecht University today run a digital data portal to encourage interdisciplinary research into biodiversity called ATHENE. It is open to everyone both academic and citizen scientists.

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - Education - learn more at See It On A Postcard

Flying In

 

2016: Endangered Species (Design - Petteri Mattila)

A hot summer's day and all is right with the world when these two pygmy damselflies fly in. A species that likes swamps and freshwater marshes but is very sensitive to the slightest change in the environment so is a species under threat.

1994: Flora and Fauna

Unlike the Blue-tailed damselfly which only requires ponds or still water and is prolific, no summer passes without seeing lots of these.

Meanwhile a male and female Common Blue butterfly flutter around a Pyramidal orchid

1963: Butterflies (Design - Liu Shuoren)

Something more exotic, the swallowtail Great Jay and a Hainan violet beak. The island of Hainan is sometimes called the Kingdom of Butterflies for the large number of species found there (approx 650)

1957: Insects (Design - HansFischer)

I'll finish with The Magpie moth, those crazy Victorians used to breed it to obtain pattern and colour variations.  The artist has portrayed it with a gooseberry in the background for the Magpie caterpillar likes to feed on gooseberry and current bushes, I'm partial to those  too.

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - Dragonflies and Butterflies - fly to See It On A Postcard