Recent Acquisitions

It is perhaps clear that although I have titled this post "recent acquisitions" some of the stamps I am featuring are not that recent, given that I am beginning this post with the Australian Olympics stamps, which are obviously several months old by now. Although I am not really a sporting sort of girl, I was really impressed with Australia Post's offering this Olympics, as I really like the watercolour splattered effect and the bright colours used.

The "enrol to vote" stamp, another one that I really like, was actually issued all the way back in March. But the reason that I still think of these stamps as "recent" is that I tend to buy my stamps only once every few months. All the stamps that I am featuring in this post I bought recently (in a sense) but they also feel new to me, because they haven't made it into my album yet. Until I got them out to scan they were still sitting in their packets.

The above stamps are portraits of Australian Nobel Laureates. I bought the above set because it had a cool illustration in the gutter. And I love a good gutter strip. But I also really like the portraits, which are painted by some very highly-regarded Australian artists (Brett Whiteley and Clifton Pugh among them).  I just think they are a lovely set of stamps. So lovely, in fact, that I accidentally went a little crazy and purchased the First Day Cover as well!

Okay, fancy Gutter Strip set AND First Day Cover? Uh-oh... this could be a sign that I am turning into a crazy cat lady. Without a cat, but with a stamp collection. But checkout how the postmark on the FDC matches the gutter strip image. Cool, huh?

Anyhow, in the latest edition of the "Stamp Bulletin" published by Australia Post (damn, I can hear those crazy-cat-lady alarm-bells ringing again) the results of a public poll on the favourite Australian stamp issue of 2012 were released, and it was the following:

It is quite a fun series, but I don't think it is my favourite issue of the year. Maybe this issue beats it for me:

These little fellows are "nudibranchs" which are tiny (25mm - 120mm) marine molluscs. Aren't they trippy? Like strange little aliens. According to my edition of the Stamp Bulletin from May (from when they were issued... yep it really has been a while since I sorted through my stamps), nudibranchs...

can be found in all habitats from the deepest ocean to the shorelines of every continent.  They come in many sizes are beautiful to behold and have developed survival strategies which defy the imagination.

I still don't quite want to commit to the tiny nudibranchs as my favourite stamp issue of the year. I like them much better than the road trip stamps, but perhaps the Nobel Laureates are my favourite stamps of the year. Perhaps. As always, I find it hard to pick a favourite!

Pretty things in the gutter

2008 Megafauna Stamp Issue

I haven't done a regular Wednesday post for two whole weeks due to life kinda getting in the way. I wasn't sure what to write about today, so I was flicking through my stamp album and decided to share these megafauna stamps. I thought I would share them because, basically, they are totally awesome.

The stamps were released in 2008 for 'stamp collecting month' and as such these stamps are clearly designed to appeal to the primary-school-aged demographic... so I am not sure what it says about me, that I think they are so cool!

My favourite megafauna stamp is the one with the giant goose-like thing; the genyornis. According to Melbourne Museum the Genyornis Newtoni lived between 1.8 million and 40,000 years ago (in the Pleistocene) and stood a decent two metres tall (now I feel like a primary school kid doing a school project, standing at the front of the class... "It was a very big bird, bigger than an emu, and was sometimes called a 'thunder bird'. The end.")

Perhaps the most famous of the animals included on the stamp set is the Thylacine, better known as the Tasmanian Tiger. I didn't know that the Tasmanian Tiger counted as a megafauna, but maybe it had bigger relatives that were megafauna? The poor old Tasmanian Tiger became officially extinct in 1936. It was extinct on the mainland prior to European contact, but had survived in Tasmania. However, growing up in Gippsland, in south-eastern Victoria, there were  rumours circulating about Thylacine sightings. I am not sure of the likelihood of the rumours proving true, but I certainly enjoy the idea of the Tasmanian Tiger surviving.

The thing that you will have noticed about these stamps is that they have bonus illustrations in the gutter! I love it when Australia Post has special "gutter strip" releases. I have two other gutter strips that are pretty cool... nothing at all to do with megafauna, and everything to do with just being pretty.

2010 Stamp Issue commemorating the Bicentenary of Governor Macquarie

2004 Issue featuring Landmark Bridges

I am not going to rabbit on too much about these last two sets - I will just let you admire how pretty they are!

I just love the images chosen for the gutters of all three sets... I love the fossils drawn on graph paper for the mega-fauna series; I love the panorama of Sydney Cove for the release about Governor Macquarie; and I love the design drawings for the bridges stamps.

How about that... there is just so much fun to be had in the gutter!