11 Monday May 2020
Posted in animals, postcrossing
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Three cards featuring owls for today, all from Postcrossers across Europe.
From Bonn, Germany, sent in March 2013.
From Great Britain, sent in February 2013.
From Ukraine, sent in July 2013.
We are still under a stay at home order here in Oregon, but there are plans to open up slowly starting a week from today. I don’t know how to feel about it, the only thing worse than being cooped up inside so long would be lots of people getting sick needlessly.
10 Sunday May 2020
Posted in forum swaps, UNESCO World Heritage
09 Saturday May 2020
Posted in forum swaps, royalty, Stamps
Tags
It seems very fitting to follow yesterday’s cards, with their Diamond Jubilee stamps, with these cards also celebrating Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee through… more stamps!
These were all received via private swap from Laura in Canada in the summer of 2014. The cards show various Canadian stamps depicting the queen during ten-year spans of her reign. These postcards were part of a six-part series of collectibles released by Canada Post to celebrate the jubilee.
08 Friday May 2020
Posted in forum swaps, Stamps, state & province maps
Tags
Two more map cards for my US maps collection, and by my count, I am nearly finished collecting a map card for every US state. I believe I am only missing Rhode Island.
Both of these cards actually came from Glenn in Canada, a fellow postcard collector and blogger.
Glenn always uses awesome stamps on the cards he sends, and these were no exception. On each card is a stamp showing a marine mammal – the sea otter and harbor porpoise – and one stamp from a set celebrating Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee (which occurred in 2012).
Well, readers, we have survived another week – or at least, since I am writing this in advance to post later, I assume we have. I’ll be back with more postcards tomorrow, so hang in there and be kind to yourselves and your loved ones.
07 Thursday May 2020
Posted in forum swaps, Stamps, UNESCO World Heritage
Welcome back, today I have two UNESCO cards to share, from sites in Denmark and Iceland. Both sent by Svea via private swap, from Denmark and Iceland, in June 2014.
Þingvellir, or Thingvellir, is the site of Iceland’s original parliament, or thing, which met here from 930 BCE to 1798. The site has been on the UNESCO list since 2004. The name literally means “assembly fields,” as in, the fields where people would assemble and make decisions. Christianity was adopted by the parliament here in the year 1000.
The stamp shows the Kviarjokull glacier.
Second is the Roskilde Cathedral in Denmark. This cathedral is the royal burial place for the Danish monarchs since the 15th century. It was built in the 12th and 13th centuries and is notable for being built of bricks. This is one of the earliest examples of Scandinavian Gothic architecture built in brick, and encouraged the spread of the brick Gothic style.
This card was sent from Denmark with some neat Danish stamps.
06 Wednesday May 2020
Posted in forum swaps, postcrossing, Stamps
Tags
Today we have some high-up city views. First is this Postcrossing card from Brazil, sent in June 2014. It shows the famous Rio landmark, the statue of Christ the Redeemer.
And the stamp shows the trophy for the FIFA World Cup.
Second is a mystery city that comes from Malaysia via a private swap. I assumed it was a city in Malaysia, but a Google image search seems to point to it actually being an aerial view of Dubai. The only text on the back is “Laverton,” which Google tells me is a town in West Australia, population 340. I suspect that this is not the identity of the city on the card.
That’s all for today, see you again tomorrow for another installment of postcards from quarantine.
05 Tuesday May 2020
Posted in postcrossing, Stamps
Hello again readers, today I have two Postcrossing postcards to share with you.
The first comes from China in July 2013, and shows the headquarters of the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, the HSBC Building. The sender writes that this building was built a few hundred years ago, but was in fact built in the 1920s. With how slow time has been passing while our social distancing/stay at home order has been in place, the 1920s certainly feels like it could be a few hundred years ago.
The second card comes from India in October, 2013, and shows Gol Gumbaz, the mausoleum of Muhammad Adil Shah II, who ruled the Sultanate of Bijapur in the 17th century. Somehow, this postcard arrived to me without any stamps, but I don’t think it was sent in an envelope, because there are postmarks and a barcode printed on the card. Just, no stamps. Did they fall off in transit? Or were there never stamps on it and it got here anyway?
04 Monday May 2020
Posted in country & other flags, forum swaps, Stamps
Today I have some flags from Poland and Taiwan to share. First is the state flag of Poland with coat of arms, sent by Marta in July 2014.
Second is a card from Hsun in Taiwan, sent in August 2014. The card shows the flag of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Wikipedia says another name for this flag is the “Blue Sky, White Sun, and a Wholly Red Earth,” or as Hsun writes, “blue sky, white sun, and blood all over the floor.” The red part was added to symbolize the blood of the revolutionaries who overthrew the Qing dynasty in 1912.
The stamps on the card:
That’s all for today, see you again tomorrow!
03 Sunday May 2020
Posted in forum swaps, Stamps, vintage posters
Happy Sunday, readers! Today let’s take a little journey through some vintage travel poster cards. All of these are from private Postcrossing forum swaps in June 2014.
First a Finnish poster advertising Baltic Sea cruises, from Leila in Turku, Finland.
Second, an early twentieth century bicycle ad card from Jennifer in Indonesia. Google Translate doesn’t want to help me out with what it says at the bottom, except that it has something to do with bikes.
The stamps on this card are great:
A poster advertising British Railways, showing Windsor Castle above the Thames river. Not sure where this one is from, I can’t make out the sender’s name and it was sent in an envelope (now lost).
And finally, back home for some tea and hot chocolate. This card was sent by Hanna in Ukraine.
02 Saturday May 2020
Posted in ancient Egypt, forum swaps, Stamps
Another day, another card (or two). Today I have two cards from private Postcrossing swaps, received in June/July 2014 from Hungary (I think) and Finland, showing some ancient Egyptian artworks.
First, from Finland, a wall painting depicting hieroglyphs and I-don’t-know-what, because there is no description on the card of what is happening or where this painting is from. Not even a hint. Certainly does not seem to be a good time they are having.
The stamp on the card is ridiculously cute, though:
And second, a mummy mask from the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, Hungary.
This card was sent by Karo, who writes that they visit the museum several times a year, so I can make a good guess that they sent the card from Hungary, though I no longer have the envelope it was sent in.
I was very interested in ancient Egyptian culture growing up, mostly because as a very young kid, I was obsessed with cats. Cats were the greatest and most important thing to preschool-age me, and obviously any culture that worshipped cats also deserved my full attention. But, I didn’t learn my favorite ancient Egyptian fact until well into adulthood, when we visited an exhibit on mummies that came to our local science museum a few years ago (the Mummies of the World exhibit, which hilariously has a trademark on the word “Mummyology”).
So, back in the day, Egyptian pilgrims would buy mummified animals as offerings when they visited temples. This spawned a huge industry devoted to raising, killing, and mummifying the sacred animals, and apparently, the actual raising, killing, and mummifying part was too much work. We’ve discovered that lots of these didn’t actually have mummified remains in them at all. We don’t know whether people knew that they were getting and it was really about the symbolism, or if this was just a huge ancient scam, but I find the idea that it was someone’s job in ancient Egypt to make and sell real fake mummies to be very amusing.
