Map stamps post!

Hello blog-world! It has been a little while and I have missed you! I have wanted to share this wonderful package that I received from  João in Brazil for ages - but it has taken me a little while to get my act into gear. First of all - let's appreciate the gorgeous envelope.

How cool is it that there is a special postmark that matches the stamps? Crazy cool!! It is sometimes hard to judge scale on these scanned images of stamps, but the animal stamps are lovely big square stamps. My favourite though, are the stamps the ones that refer to bookplates: the ex libris stamps.

Aren't these stamps wonderful?  They feature bookplates AND a world map. Two of my favourite things! Anyhow, if you think the outside of the envelope was cool... wait til you see what is inside!

I think I love little envelopes of stamps more than I love albums of stamps. I love the colours through the glassine paper of the envelopes, I love that the envelopes are mini, and I love that a little envelope of stamps makes you thumb through the stamps so that you can appreciate them in a more tactile way than if you have them stuck in the austere pages of an album.

Of course, traditional philatelists would be horrified at the thought of grubby oily hands on precious stamps, but I just can't resist the temptation of getting a little collection like this, from a little pocket, and spreading it over the table and admiring each individual stamp, picking them up one by one and examining them.

To do that in a blog sense, to spread the stamps from the above little pocket all over the desk and appreciate them one by one, I have scanned a sample for you to enjoy:

Fantastic collection of map stamps, right? And this is only a sample! Thankyou  João! I am still collecting a few little things to send to you in return.

This weekend in Melbourne it is probably the biggest weekend in philately circles for the year/decade... it is the World Stamp Expo 2013! So you know what I am going to be busy doing this weekend!! I will be sure to let you know how it goes.

Thankyou João: Sunday Stamps

Last week I received this amazing letter from João in Brazil, which was a great delight. João contacted me after I put up a post about Australia's Christmas stamps and asked whether I would like to do a stamp swap, as he collects Christmas themed stamps.

The 2012 Christmas stamps are pretty cool, as you can see - they are round (interesting) and presented with a very nice cancellation. The Christmas stamps are great, but it was the other stamp on the envelope that totally caught my attention:

How wonderful! A stamp featuring a palaeontologist. João totally has me pegged. I really love the stamp design as well - the black and white portrait sketch against the intriguing background of a cave full of fossils. Awesome. Great stamp.

Inside the envelope João also sent me a couple of extra treats as well as mint copies of the two round Christmas stamps. My favourite was this clever stamp paying homage to libraries. I love it:

Books forming the architecture of the library. Fantastic. I know I am often a little too liberal with my superlatives, but this stamp is pretty darn magnificent. To be honest, I don't know which stamp I love more: the bibliotheque or the palaeontologist. A very hard call. But I am thrilled to now have them both in my collection.

João also threw in one more little surprise, a strip of stamps featuring female aviators.

What a fantastic treat in my mailbox from  João. Thank you so much! And it is lovely to share these little gems as part of Sunday Stamps this week. Check out other stamp blogs this Sunday, here:

Despatched by Tin Can Mail

Kym bought in the coolest bit of "show and tell" to work recently - her Grandfather's cover from 6th September 1937. It was thrown overboard in a sealed tin can from the Cruise Steamer "Maunganui"to be collected by canoe from the Tongan island of Niuafoou (or Niuafo'ou) before it found its way to the faraway Victorian country town of Kerang.

This is possibly the coolest item of post I have ever seen. And I don't think I am overstating it. I had heard this story of the Tin Can Island from Meredith, when she shared her son's stamp collection with us a few months ago. But to see an actual piece of Tin Can Mail... what a treat!!

How wonderful are all the stamps on the reverse? There is even a little bit of Cyrillic thrown in!

So I am very delighted to discover that Meredith's fantastical story of the Tin Can Island is in fact true - I have seen the post to prove it! Thanks so much Kym for sharing this wonderful little treasure (I do so love "show and tell")!

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!

Guest Collection: Danni's 1990s FDCs

One of the lovely things about doing this blog is that now many people tell me about their stamp collections. "Oh, I had a stamp collection when I was young" they'll say. But the truth is, they always still have the collection, tucked away somewhere, they just haven't added to it for a while.

Now, this may surprise some of you, but not too long ago, I used to keep my stamp collecting a bit of a secret. I mean - you don't really want to shout from the rooftops that you're a giant nerd, do you? Not if you're sane.

Christmas 1993 - a better effort than Christmas 2012, Australia Post 

But since I decided to blow caution to the wind and broadcast my insane pleasure in small perforated postage stamps, I have discovered I am not alone. People more often than not want to share their collections with me, and I think they find some pleasure in having an excuse to dust them off and rediscover them.

As is so often the case with FDCs, this one features a nice postmark!

So this is exactly what happened with my new(ish) housemate Danni a couple of months ago. I was hanging out in the kitchen and Danni brought in her collection of First Day Covers for me to look at. They are from the early 90s and they are kept in a Lindt Chocolate box.

This was in the early stages of living here, so it was in many ways a nice "getting to know you" exercise:
Danni - So, you blog about stamps.
Helen - Yup. It's not as tragic as it sounds. Or at least I don't think it is. I guess it might be...
Danni - Well, guess what? I have these First Day Covers!
Helen - Wow! FDCs! Awesome!
--
Or, at least, it went something like that.

So today I share with you, fellow lovers of post, Danni's collection of First Day Covers.

And here is my pick of the lot - the Queen's Birthday 1991. Would you take a look at the Mother-Daughter outfits with the matching black satin gloves. I am almost speechless. I certainly have FDC envy.

You know how I love a bit of Royal Kitsch! And check out those dresses!!

Thanks for sharing your cool collection of 90s FDCs with me Danni. They are ace!

Swedish treats: Forstadagsbrev Part 2

Earlier this week on my blog I was sharing some Swedish First Day Covers that my parents recently brought back as souvenirs for me.  As I was going through the process of putting them up, I realised that a couple of them were perfect for this week's Sunday Stamps, which is all about folk costumes and traditions. So for that reason I held off sharing them all at once, and now bring you Forstadagsbrev Part II.

This first cover features Swedish national costumes and quite a wonderful postmark. The little brochure inside the envelope explains that "all over the country costumes with local characteristics were worn by the farmers and peasants until the middle of the 19th century".  Apparently the apparel would always signal a woman's marital status, through the type of hair style or head dress worn.

Brooches were another important element of the costume, and therefore feature separately on two of the stamps. The 90 kroner stamp features a brooch from the province of Jamtland and the 1.30 kroner stamp comes from Smaland.

The second cover I want to share features Swedish folk art, and I think you will agree it is pretty beautiful. Again the postmark is worth noting, featuring an Adam and Eve motif.

But, that is not to overshadow the stamps themselves, of course:

The art is described as "Peasant Painting" and according to the brochure in the FDC, the style emerged in the mid-18th century and its heyday lasted for about a century.

That's it from me this Sunday, folks. I hope you have enjoyed this addition of Sunday Stamps... it is the first time in a little while I have managed to escape the confines of my own Australia-biased collection. I hope that spices things up a bit!

To check out what other bloggers have found inspiring in the way of folk traditions, click on the button below:

(And if you are extra keen to find out more about national costumes, you might be interested in this post from the very early days of my blog, when I looked at Mongolian traditional dress.)