Queen

1990: Greeting Stamps - Smiles

Queen of Hearts by Colin Elgie.

1991: Europa - Europe in Space

In August 1846 Queen Victoria was the first monarch to visit Guernsey. The attention of European astronomers, and no doubt Price Albert, was on the hunt for a previously unknown eighth planet, in fact this planet, later named Neptune, was seen twice in August but mistaken for a star and was not identified as a planet until September 1846.

2020: Queen

Queen Live - Freddy Mercury at Wembley Stadium, 1986; Roger Taylor at Queen's free London concert, 1976; The full band photographed at Primrose Hill, 1974; John Deacon at the Hammersmith Odeon, 1975 and Brian May at Nepstadion,Budapest, 1986

Sunday Stamps A-Z and here at Q for Queen - See It On A Postcard  

Children of Men

 

1995: 50th Anniversary of the United Nations

"We, the people of the United Nations ... together for a better world"

2024: The Who - Album Covers

The Who - My Generation, their breakthrough single (1965); Tommy the rock opera double album (1969); Who Are You (1978), the drummer Keith Moon died weeks after this was issued aged 32, and the sentiment of My Generation came true,  "I hope to die before I get old". Lastly, Face Dances (1981). their 9th studio album now featuring Kenny Jones on drums. Decades later and led by the band's surviving members Pete Townsend and Roger Daltrey  The Who are on their final North American run 'The Song is Over Tour' this year.

Sunday Stamps theme - Men Who Might Be Fathers at work and play - See It On A Postcard. 

Athena

 

1968: Hellenic Fight for Civilization

Athena, protector of Athens and goddess of war and wisdom attired for battle. Bronze 340-330BC, the so called Piraeus Athena, which can be seen at the Piraeus Museum near the port.

The striking bronze Athena makes another appearance on this Maxi Card with

 

1982: Europa - Historic Events

a stamp of the bust of Miltiades and shield commemorating the Battle of Marathon (490BC).  Miltiades devised the tactics that defeated the more numerous Persian force. A pivotal moment in the history of Greece and its civilization.

1961: 150th Birth and 75th Death Anniversary of Liszt

Well after all that talk of war lets have some soothing piano music from Franz Liszt. The stamp shows the statue outside the Hungarian State Opera in Budapest, not surprisingly there is more than one statue to Liszt in Budapest.

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

Women of the World

 

2014: 15th Anniversary of the Birth of Alice Tegnér (Design Eva Wilsson; Engraver Lars Sjööblom)

Alice Tegnér was considered musical at an early age and took piano and organ lessons but her family could not afford to let her train as a musician so she trained as a teacher. When she married her lawyer husband, who she met while working as a governess, they moved to Djurshom where she became involved with the musical community. At home the songs she composed were sung by her children and then her children's playmates sang the same songs. This eventually led to them being published as  'Sing with us Mamma' and between 1892 and 1934 nine booklets were issued. Not only did she compose many children's songs still sung today in Sweden but classical and sacred music as well. In her busy life she also taught, played the organ and was a choir leader.

2005: Greta Garbo - Sweden/USA Joint Issue

Someone who needs no introduction - Greta Garbo, or her given name Greta Lovisa Gustafson.  The stamps are from a photograph taken by Clarence Sinclair Bull during filming of 'As You Desire Me' (1932).  The drawing is by Einar Nerman. Two famous names did the engraving Piotr Naszarkowski for the film photo and Lars Sjööblom, the drawing. I think it would what she would have demanded! The FDC shows a scene from 'The Temptress' (1926) with Antonio Moreno

1986: Costumes

The women of Mongolia.  Would you like to wear the pink or

black and gold?  No need to choose now, there seems to be an endless variety of traditional costumes in Mongolia.

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

Music Makers

 

1998: 450th Anniversary of Saxony State Orchestra

The music is about to begin

1972: Anniversaries - Ralph Vaughan Williams (Design - A Abbott)

and quite special if you get both the composer and conductor

1996: 50th Death Anniversary of Paul Lincke

Paul Lincke, conductor and composer of light operetta who taught himself to play the violin, he also continued that with learning the bassoon and piano.

1961: 150th Anniversary and 75th Death Anniversary Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt, virtuoso pianist and composer, the  rock star of his day, who provided some technically difficult piano compositions for those who came after him

1985: European Year of Music

Something a bit different - the Langspil, an old Icelandic string instrument

1985: International Year of Music

Mezzatin, a comic character from the Italian commedia dell'arte, who is interfering and devious but in this painting by Antoine Watteau he is lovelorn so no doubt playing a melancholy tune.  Difficult to see on the stamp but the female statue in the background symbolically has her back to him.

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

D is for Denmark

 

2013: Rock Music (Design - Kasper Eistrup)

I thought at first the DK was for Denmark however this is possibly not the full story. The guitar belongs to Kasper Eistrop who is also the lead singer of the Indie Alt Rock band Kashmir and the designer of the stamp. For all those David Bowie fans out there he performed a duet with Eistrop on one of their albums.

1998: Post and Tele Museum (Design L Skovbo Carlsen)

Maybe one could listen to music while waiting for a postal delivery. What was the Post and Telecommunications Museum holds thousands of portraits of postal employees and this is a postman from 1922.  The museum also holds Denmark's largest stamp collection. Don't head there yet because there has been a relocation and rebranding to become 'Enigma - Museum of Communication' and it will reopen in February 2023.  Seems a certain lack of stamps on their website.

1989\: Centenary of the Danish FA (Design - M Sturup)

Dansk Boldspil-Union (DBU) the Danish Football Association will be willing their country on in the World Cup but things are not going to plan

1994: Save Water and Energy (Design - T Skov)

No need to save water here on the west coast as we have had weeks of Atlantic weather systems rolling in with days of rain. Good weather for ducks. Not completely all gloom for between the storms, like weather punctuation marks, have been, a day at a time, amazingly clear blue skies.

This is a picture puzzle stamp saying 'Save Water'  but of course in Danish so - 'Spara på vand' . Two clues  - Duck in Danish is 'And' so + V would make water. What we call the club card is 'Spar' in Danish 

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - The Letter D - See It On A Postcard

Follow the Band

2001: Centenary of School Orchestras (Design - A Booth)

Leading out with a tuba and a drum major

1982: Centenary Salvation Army (Design - Theo Dimson)

followed by a tambourine.  The stamp shows an urban street scene of the 1880s.

1997: 175th Anniversary Cologne Carnival (Design - Harry Scheuner)

Cologne Carnival is one of Europe's biggest and costumes are essential often with wigs and makeup.  Music is as an integral part with lots of  carnival bands and singalongs. It is described as being six crazy days.

1978: Fairytales (Design - Günter Jacki)

 But whatever you do be careful who you follow as the Pied Piper of Hamelin plays his mesmerising tune.

Pan Pipes in York

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

Sing Out

1988: Youth Welfare - Pop Music (Design - Antonia Graschberger)

Time for a music concert.  Who would headline?   Would it be John Lennon

2017: David Bowie

David Bowie

2000: The Millennium Issue 3, 1970-1999 (Design - Olöf Baldursdottir)
Ungdomskultur = Youth Culture

or Abba?  Always a joy to sing along to Abba perhaps you could do it with others

1987: 125th Anniversary of German Choir Assn (Design - Peter Steiner)

in a choir.

1996: Four Decades (Design - Lasse Åberg; Engraver - Lars Sjööblom)

Can't make the venue?  Well put on a record like this Zoot suiter.  The Zoot suit culture arrived in Sweden from America via London in 1941 influenced by Cab Callaway, black style and swing jazz. It is considered Sweden's first working class subculture, in Swedish called Swingpjatt. As can be seen on the stamp  they wore their hair long with wide brimmed hats and padded shoulder jackets. 

A Gibson Les Paul Zoot Suit guitar

Sunday Stamps II theme this week is - Singers and Musicians - play along at See It On A Postcard 

Guitar

1969: British Post Office Technology (Design - David Gentleman)

This week Sunday Stamps II has reached the letter G so how could I resist this stamp featuring the Post Office National Giro Bank and their G logo, not only that but for a double G this letter was sent from Glasgow. The cancel "Dial Carefully All figure Telephone Numbers Dial Correctly" refers to the roll out from 1966-1970 of all figure telephone numbers from the previous combination of letters and numbers (the letters signifying the local telephone exchange).  Dialing the wrong number might make one

2016: Mr Men and Little Misses

grumpy.  A celebration of Roger Hargreaves many characters and Mr Grumpy is the grouchiest person in the whole world.  Mr Happy sends Mr Tickle to tickle him if he is mean to someone but perhaps he just needs some music to cheer him up

2018: Popular Culture - The 1960s

maybe a bit of psychedelia or he could learn to play the guitar. Each of the stamps in this Jersey set were designed by different illustrators and the 63p is by Malcolm English (b1946), award winning illustrator and designer  who is famous for his illustrations in the Carnaby Street book.

1965: Musical Instruments

Maybe Mr Grumpy can learn to play this Chadian guitar

2013: Extreme Sports (Design - Bruno Maximus)

or just enjoy playing air guitar.

1983: Music in Sweden (Photo Anders Hanser; Engraver - Czeslaw Slania)

or sing along with ABBA.  I think I will take this option - take it away on your guitar Björn.

Sunday Stamps II prompt of the Letter G - for Great Britain, Giro, Guitar and Grumpy - See It On A Postcard
 

Making Music

Time to party. Here we are at the wonderfully named 'I Never Went South' music festival in Ísafjörður, a small fishing town in Iceland.  The name is a wry reflection on the dwindling population of the settlement and is from a song which tells of people moving away. The festival is free and held in an engineering workshop cleared of its machinery and with an eclectic line up of musical styles, but the musicians only have a 20 minutes set so there is something for everyone.

The stamp is from the 2013 'Town Festivals' series celebrating the many small festivals held in Iceland (there must be lots to choose from because there was another set issued in 2014 which I do not have).  Here is the FDC whose postal cancel shows the location of all the venues on a map of Iceland. 

The festivals all  involve food and music which must be quite perfect in those long days of summer in the north.

• Top left Gay Pride's six day festival first held in Reykjavik in 2000, concerts, events and a Pride Parade. 

• Top right is 'The Great Fish Day' held in the tiny village of Dalvik in the north of Iceland when thousands of people turn up on the harbour in August and visit the local houses for free fish soup but not only the soup is free so are the rides, live music and folk dancing.

• Bottom left - Smelter Music Festival, so called because it takes place in an old fish smelting plant (called in Icelandic a "Bræðsla") in Borgarfjörður Eystri on the south west of Iceland.

• Bottom right - unlike the other festivals on the stamps this is not one is of recent origin but dates back to 1874 and the proud boast is that it has "never been cancelled due to weather or natural disasters";  a hardy lot these Icelanders.  Held at the beginning of August when the Monday is a national holiday this is a long weekender in the Westman Islands and is described as "the most epic outdoor festival in the country". It sounds a bit like Glastonbury (but hopefully without the mud), everyone stays in tents and sings along to the music on the stage, the huge bonfire shown on the stamp is lit on the Friday night. The festival site and history here

The stamps were designed by the illustrator Linda Olafsdottir and not only does she have some lovely art on her blog here she also might be a fun companion for a music festival.  On release of her stamps in May 2013 she enjoined the reader to "forget email and start writing letters". Something that mail lovers everywhere would agree.

An entry to Sunday Stamps II theme of - Making Music - more music makers here

Musical Instruments

2014: Europa - National Musical Instruments

I can never make up my mind which is my favourite stamp in the Europa stamps issued each year so never vote on the Post Europ site.  I think this year might be the exception as this set of Cyprus stamps designed by Ioanna Kalli  for the National Musical Instrument theme are so beautiful.

They show the pithkiavlin (Cyprus flute) which are made from reeds, each one has its own sound depending on the diameter and length.  It is the most ancient of Cypriot wind instruments and they have been found in archaelogical excavations such as at the Sanctuary of Aphrodite in Paphos, linking it in ancient times with celebrations and feasts in honour of Aphrodite and Apollo. The other stamp shows the laouton (lute) the principal musical instrument of Cyprus which is often accompanied by the violin in Cypriot dance melodies.

1966: Krishna Anniversary 

Next is the most famous flute player, the Hindu god Lord Krishna who is often portrayed as an infant or young boy playing the flute.  The stamp description in catalogues is "flute player and dancer" but perhaps it is Krishna and his consort Radha.  The stamp is for his birth anniversary which is one of the most important festivals for Hindus of the year.

1968: Polish Paintings

Marching around the corner is this 'Children's Band', a painting by Tadeusz Makowski (1882-1932) which hangs in the National Museum, Warsaw. Makowski was a painter, illustrator, graphic artist and friend of Pablo Picasso.  He originally travelled to Paris intending to spend a year there but never returned home to Poland.  This painting of 1922 was made  in Brittany when he started to visit the French countryside and would lead to a series of painting with musical subjects in the late 1920s. Although he painted French landscapes there was always a feel of Polish villages.  (I apologise for the quality of the pictures but after a fight with my scanner I have had to take photos with my ipad which I need more practice at lining up).  From the fifes and drums to

1965: Musical Instruments

  the beat of Africa.  Here you can take your preference sit down and play the drum (left) or  put the strap on your shoulder (right) and beat out a rhythm.

Chad has an amazing variety of musical instruments and Northern Chad is known for its drums and stringed instruments.  As can be seen from the stamps these instruments portrayed are from the Chad National History Museum which was established in 1962 and has/had a notable collection of musical instruments. Unfortunately due to the instability of the country many of its artefacts have been lost or looted.  Despite this it has moved to new premises recently and someone on Trip Advisor has written  "If you have nothing to do in N'Djamena and want to take some pictures in a city where outdoor photography is forbidden, this museum is the place to go".

An entry to Viridian Postcard's Sunday Stamps theme of  - Music and Musical Instruments here