Sunday Stamps: 'Y' is for ijsbeer, ijs and ijsvogel

This Sunday the theme of Sunday Stamps is the letter Y.

In Dutch we name it 'Griekse IJ', or i-grec, literally 'Greek Y', as it origins from the Greek alphabet's letter Ypsilon or upsilon.
Words in Dutch starting with a 'y' are known internationally, like yak, yoghurt and yoga. Be it that the pronounciatin of the Dutch 'g' in these words is different from the English, Spanish, French and German pronounciation (the Dutch 'g' sounds like the Spanish 'j'). The word 'year' in Dutch is 'jaar', so yearly events and anniversaries won't count for my blog post on the letter of today :-)

Of course I couldn't find stamps on yoghurt, yak, yoga. But in Dutch we can 'cheat' a little, without cheating: when naming the 'Y' in the alphabet we pronounce it like the 'IJ'. The ij is used and pronounced as a vowel, and there are several words starting with this 'ij'.
Like ijs, which means both icecream and ice.

From a Finnish postcrosser I received this snowy and icy stamp. It must be so ijskoud - cold as ice - there, that rivers freeze into ijs:



In the Netherlands there is the ijsvogel, literally 'ice bird', though in English he and she are named 'kingfisher'. Arnold Voordewind, a Dutch phographer, took this beautiful photo and turned it into this stamp:



From FinnBadger I received this wonderful stamp from the United Nations, showing an ijsbeer ('beer' pronounced as 'bear'; the English 'beer' in Dutch is 'bier').
In English this animal is named 'polar bear', though in Dutch it is simply an ijsbeer:



Despite of the name 'ijsbeer' the environment of the ijsbeer is lacking ijs / ice more and more. Climate change, global warming, these facts are a serious thing. And does not only make the ijsberen cry, but also us, humans, in the end will have to face the bad sides of our over-use of natural sources...

This beautiful stamp sheet shows the sad reality and the sadness of the ijsbeer:



I received this wonderful sheet by surprise from Virna from Indonesia - thank you so much!


More stamps on the letter 'Y' (and maybe an other 'IJ'?) you can find at and via Sunday Stamps.

Postcards for the Weekend: Bridges

This weekend's Postcards for the Weekend theme is 'Bridges'.

As some of you know, bridges are one of my favourite themes. They connect people, cities and sometimes even countries. No surprise that I posted several bridge stamps and postcards before.

First I'll take you to Asia, the continent I've never been to myself. Thanks to postcrossing and to instagram friends I 'traveled' virtually to beautiful places, by receiving and enjoying pretty postcards.

This postcard I received from a Postcrosser from China. The back of this card doesn't say where this bridge is located. The sender lives in Wuhan, so maybe this beautiful, quiet looking place might be in this area.



From my instagram friend Jael I received this postcard from Singapore. All attention, of both the artists and us, card watchers, goes to the Merlion, but looking close, you can see a bridge on the right. It's one of the bridges over the Singapore River.



This bridge I drew - as a postcard - for a mail art project in Indonesia. It is the Kahayan bridge in Palangkaraya, Borneo. I chose to draw it because the mail art project was in honour of the 60th anniversary of this Indonesian city.



From Asia to Europe.

In Venice there is a lot of water, and fortunately there are bridges, too. Most famous I think the Bridge of Sighs, but the bridge I received thanks to Rio is a more innocent one:



On the back side she added a matching stamp and postmark, showing a larger bridge from Venice:



From John I received a nice postcard showing maybe one of the most well-known bridges:



I replied by this postcard, which to my surprise was available in a local store, here in the Netherlands:



I don't know if it is a good or bad habit, but at least it made and makes me happy: when visiting familiar cities (among them Nijmegen, the city where I grew up, and Murcia in Spain, which is the home city of my brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew) I sometimes send postcards to myself. Not that many, so far maybe 7 or so, but to my surprise the majority of the postcards show bridges.

Here you can see two bridges over the Rio Segura in Murcia:



This is the Railway bridge over the river Waal in Nijmegen:



The same bridge you can see in the very back of the photo on bottom on this card:



The two other bridges are the Waalbrug (my favourite bridge as it reminds me of my former 'home'), and a pedestrian bridge, which is new to me.


As a 'dessert' here are some stamps:

A bridge in a winter scene in Finland:



And bridges from Singapore, Hong Kong, Russia and the Netherlands, gathered in one chaincard about this theme:



The stamp bottom left shows a newly built bridge over the forementioined river Waal.

See more bridges at and via this weekend's Postcards for the Weekend!

Postcards for the weekend: Coffee, tea

This weekend's theme for 'Postcards for the weekend' is 'Coffee, tea, pastries'.

I love to drink coffee on my own, while doing some home or work tasks, or read a book or something like that. Enjoying the relaxed moment and the fact that I'm drinking coffee. With milk, no sugar.

But also coffee and tea can connect people. Not only by drinking together, but even from a distance, by a postcard!

Eva and I have exchanged a lot of postcards about tea or coffee.
Among them this one, a Finnish postcard, sent by Eva to the Netherlands:



More postcards which I received from Eva, showing coffee, you can see here, and here, and here. And see this one! And this, and see this one!.

On my turn I've sent a Finnish postcard from the Netherlands to Eva. I think many of you will know this two happy old ladies, drawn by Inge Löök. Drinking tea in a rather unusual, but surely cosy place:



See more postcards on tea, coffee and/or pastries via Postcards for the Weekend!

Sunday stamps: Odd shaped stamps

Today's Sunday Stamps theme is 'Odd shaped stamps'.

A nice theme! It shows the creativity of postal companies, and fortunately the present stamp printing machines are able to vary the shape of stamps.

Recently I received two wonderful shaped stamps from two different countries, which I posted on this blog before: a dragonfly from Eva from Spain, and a bat from John from the United Kingdom.

Eva also sent me a bat on a shaped stamp, this one from Spain:



Sometimes animals simply are too large for a stamp, especially prehistoric reptiles. Not only United Kingdom's Royal Mail but also Canadian Post knew how to solve the problem: just provide a little more room, and the dino's would be satisfied.
(click to enlarge)



The fourth dino on this envelope was so happy by the purposed enlarged room that he even decided to stay within the normal shape!




Finnish Post has issued many amazingly shaped stamps, and today I'm sharing this stamp showing more than one hexagonals:



'Hexagonal' is also known as honeycumb shape, and Japanese Post issued this matching stamp:




As far as I know Dutch PostNL has issued a few triangular stamps in the past, and apart from that, only one stamp sheet showing two really special shaped stamp designs.

One of the triangular stamps has been issued already in 1933, to be used for airmail between the former Dutch Indies and Holland:



The more recent stamps were issued as a stamp stickers on one sheet, for youth philately.
The names written on the stamps form a nice wordplay: 'postzegel' means stamp, but leaving the 'z' it becomes 'post-egel, which means 'mail hedgehog'. And 'postduif' means 'mail pigeon'.



Here you can see what the stamp stickers leave behind when used.



The disadvantage of odd shaped stamps is the fact that Dutch Post not always recognizes these as real postage! I once got a letter from PostNL in which I was told to pay 'missing postage'. Fortunately they included a code, and via this code I could find a scan of my outgoing mail, which proofed sufficient stamps had been sticked. Among them this Postduif, which apparently had been new to the controling employee!..




See more extraordinarily shaped stamps on and via today's Sunday Stamps post.

Sunday Stamps: Flags

This Sunday Stamps' theme is 'Maps or Flags'.

Although I have some nice map stamps, today I chose for the flags. Because, how coincidental, I happened to have joined a 'flag stamp' chain-something recently, and a week ago my own card returned, provided with three more flag stamps!

This was the front side of my card:



No flag to be seen! But on the back I've put one, so the card was ready to send:


* before it's long journey *

After 6 or 7 weeks of traveling, the card returned home this way:


* after traveling via Estonia, Finland and Malaysia back to the Netherlands *

So, flags from four countries, united in one postcard!

Meanwhile two of the three other cards (from the other participants) arrived at my place. Which I passed on to the next receiver. Before sending out I scanned the back sides so you can enjoy them, too!

This was the first card I received:



The card arrived from Malaysia. Besides the flag image, there is an other interesting thing on this stamp: the postage rate (#60 Sen) has been printed in Braille!



The second card is from Estonia:



With the complete Estonian flag on the front side:



See more stamps on the 'flags and maps' theme at today's blog post, and via the links mentioned, at Sunday Stamps!

Sunday stamps: post boxes / postal themed

This Sunday Stamps theme is 'post boxes or postal themed'. A very favourite theme for mail lovers, of course!

First I have to confess that it is confusing, for me as a native Dutch speaker, concerning the boxes in which the mail is thrown: which English word means what?! A Dutch 'Postbus' is P.O. Box in English.
The Dutch word 'brievenbus' literally means 'letters can/tin/drum', and is used for both the public boxes for outgoing mail and the private boxes for incoming mail. So I would think the English word for these boxes is 'letter box'...? No way!
I had heard that in English the word for the outgoing-mail-box differs from the one for incoming mail.
Besides that, the names in the United Kingdom, United States, Australia and other English-speaking countries may differ as well!



Fortunately John helped me by sending me this great drawing, in which he explained at least the names of these dear boxes in the United Kingdom. Thank you very much, John!

Back to Stamps.
This red pillar box I received from Sri Lanka:



Also the post boxes in the Netherlands have a warm colour. For ages the Dutch post boxes have been red: at the time when the Dutch mail company was part of the national PTT (Post, Telephone, Telegraph), and later when it became TPG Post. Then TNT Post became the owner of the national mail company and the post boxes turned orange.
The present company, PostNL, has kept the boxes orange.

On this stamp sheet from the PTT era you can see red ones:



And this December stamp from 2014, the present PostNL era, shows an orange post box (be it that the shape of this box isn't that common):



I looked up which colour this uncoloured post box in Korea would be, and found out that in real it usually is red, too:



John has sent me several beautiful stamps of English post boxes (and mail carreers!). Among them this one:



About the history of the British (pillar) box, you can read at Joy's The Postal Picture blog. This stamp is on that blog too, together with many more great post box stamps!



Who would think all English post boxes are red? Well, this stamp proves there also are green ones:



Also in other countries the colour of the post boxes differ.
These stamps come from the Nederlandse Antillen, the Dutch Antilles:



The final stamp for me for today shows a green mailbox for incoming mail. An other stamp from this Finnish mailbox serie you can find on the website where we started today: Violet's Sunday Stamps II!

Sunday stamps: fruits of the forest

We have been away this weekend, so I wasn't able to scan and post my contribution to Viridian's Sunday Stamps on Sunday. Fortunately - possibly thanks to the time zone differences - I still could post, now that in our part of the world Monday has begun.
This Sunday's theme is 'Fruits of the Forest: Nuts and Berries'.

The first stamp I love to share is this one from Finland. The berry is called 'kruisbes' in Dutch, or 'kroezel' as my friends from the very south of the Netherlands say, in the dialect of Limburg. The Finnish name sounds intruiging to me: 'Karviainen', while in English this berry appears to be 'Gooseberry'.



And lucky me, a colleague happened to have several stamps from Turkey and gave them to me.
There is a serie about berries, of which Viridian already showed my favourite one: the Blackberry, 'Braam' in Dutch.



I think the berries of the 'Pyracantha' or 'firethorn' ('vuurdoorn' in Dutch) are not suitable to be eaten by us, humans, but they're a welcome meal to birds like the blackbird:

Sunday stamps: Public Transport

I just added my belated contribution to last week's Sunday stamps, # 163: Farm animals, showing Dutch cow stamps.

Hopefully I'm not too late for this Sunday's Sunday Stamps # 164, themed 'Buses and Public Transportation', as I like a lot to travel by bus, train and tram and 'thus' love to see - and share - stamps showing public transport.

Here are some train (respectively train station) stamps which I received by postcrossing:

From Finland:



From Brazil:



From Taiwan:



From Ukraine:



From Latvia:



And one I've sent out some time ago, from the Netherlands:



By the way, the last shown I've sent to Ravindra in Sri Lanka. He is collecting postcards showing trains. And besides train postcards, he receives a lot of train stamps, too. You can enjoy marvellous stamps on his blog 'Discover the World on Trains'.