Sunday Stamps: 'S' is for strips / stripverhaal and schaak

This weekend Sunday Stamps' theme is the letter 'S'.
In general I don't really collect postage stamps. 'What?' - I hear you say :-)
I mean, I'm not really looking for stamps or buying them to add them to my collection: as a 'passive' collector I just keep the stamps I receive, and of the Dutch stamps I buy for my outgoing mail I keep some mint ones if they show an interesting or pretty picture.
However, there are a few themes which I'm collecting in a more active way. The funny thing is that two of these themes start with an 'S' in Dutch, while both start with a 'C' in English.

A strip (plural: strips) in Dutch means comic(s) in English. Stripboek = comic book, stripverhaal = comic story.
Above you can see a stamp sheet which I was very happy to add to my strip stamps collection. The Asterix comics I already read in my childhood, and I still like to read them (and I think I've read all albums).
Although one might wonder if the stories maybe are against my non-violence principles. Strange enough I just recently realized how much assault and beating happens in the Asterix stories: not before reading a scientific article about traumatic brain injuries!..



Schaken is the other word I'd like to share today. The word 'schaken' looks plural and means 'playing chess'. The literal translation of 'schaakspel' (chess-play) refers to the board and chess pieces themselves. As a verb, 'schaken' means 'to play chess'.
In my collection there are several stamps on this theme, but due to lack of time I couldn't scan them to show you today. This first day cover from the Faroe Islands I've bought and scanned some time ago. The postmark shows my favourite chess piece: the paard. The Dutch name 'paard' literally means horse, we don't use the English translation of 'knight' which in fact means 'ridder'.

If you're into chess, I guess you immediately must have noted something peculiar in this chess stamp!


See more stamps on the letter 'S' at and via today's Sunday Stamps!

Sunday Stamps: 'K' is for krant and kasteel

Today's Sunday Stamps theme is the letter 'k'.

Inspired by Violet's post of today, I thought to share the Dutch word for 'newspaper', illustrated by stamps from Mexico, Russia and the Netherlands. In Dutch we name the newspaper 'krant'.
As far as I know, in several languages words for 'newspaper' contain some part meaning news, or time, or day, and so. For example in the German word 'Zeitung', Zeit means time. Or the French 'journal', jour = day, and in the Spanish 'periódico', 'period' has to do with time also. And 'newspaper' of course contains the word 'news'. See more translations of the word 'newspaper' via Wikipedia. The Dutch word 'krant' appears to have nothing to do with day (dag), time (tijd) or paper (papier). However, it origins from the French word 'courant' which means current, commonly, present, and the old word (plural) 'couranten' meant 'current notifications'.

I found a few stamps showing newspapers. I don't know most of these newspapers so I cannot tell which signature they have or on what 'level of quality' they are.
For example, Dutch most well-known newspaper was 'wrong' in WW2 and nowadays brings news in a sensational, not always fair way. Despite of that, and to my surprise, it alas is the best selling newspaper in the Netherlands.

Kranten (plural of krant) have been pictured on stamps from Mexico:



From Russia:



From the Netherlands:



(A newspaper and a cup of coffee to my opinion is a very pleasant combination :-) )



In contrary to the above-mentioned best selling newspaper, the 'Parool' was 'right' in WW2. It has been founded in 1940 and helped positively in the Dutch resistance against the Nazis.

The stamps above and below have been issued in 1985, 40 years after WW2 has ended.



A newspaper which is considered being of good quality (though not selling as much as the first-mentioned newspaper), is the NRC Handelsblad. When I was a child this newspaper published stories of Ollie B. Bommel and Tom Poes every day. A kind of comics, that is, pictures above and printed text below.
In 1996 the following stamp sheet was issued. I immediately had to think of the NRC newspaper. And first I thought to not post this sheet here, but then I noticed the selvage on the left, and the text, which starts saying: 'Spring had come and mister Bommel was sitting under the blooming pear tree, reading his newspaper.'



After reading the newspaper, before putting in it the recycling bin, you can make all kinds of nice things of it:



It might be clear that I have a strong preference of some of the Dutch newspapers to some other newspaper. Do you have strong opinions on the different newspapers issued in your countries?


An other word starting with the letter 'k', and probably immediately understood by all of you, is 'kasteel'.
In 2017, the Europe stamps theme is 'castles', and I am so lucky to have received some of these stamps.

From Turkey, Belarus, Russia, Estonia, and of course one of the two Dutch castle stamps:



From Greece:



From Spain, with a funny postmark:



From Spain, with a modest postmark - thus showing more of the stamp:



From Serbia:



And the other of the two Dutch stamps:



By the way, thanks to Eva, recently a postcard arrived which happens to show an other Spanish castle, the Almodovar Castle:



Worth a stamp, too, don't you think so?!

Find more stamps on the letter 'k' at and via today's Sunday Stamps!

In: from Morocco and Cadiz

Camels in Morocco and Kuifje and Captain Haddock visiting Cadis/Cádiz.



I was happy to receive both postcards, along with beautiful stamps, sent from different countries. Thank you very much, moltes gràcies, Eva!

Sunday Stamps: Cartoon characters

This Sunday Stamps theme is one of my very most favourite themes: cartoon characters.
Which I freely translated into 'cartoon and comics characters'. No need to say that I am delighted with VioletSky's choice!

Before this Sunday I thought I didn't really 'collect' postage stamps - just 'keep' them when nice stamps accidentally come into my home. However, now I realize this theme I really am collecting. That is: buy, in order to keep them in a special cartoon / comics stamp album.

Although I won't search the whole world to find them, like 'real collectors' do. Not all comic/cartoon stamps are on my wish list. For instance classic Disney stamps I won't collect. They cause a happy smile on my face, but as these are abundantly issued worldwide I prefer other people to collect them. The cartoon stamps I consciously will take home are in fact the following ones:
- Asterix and Obelix
- Smurfs
- Dutch comic/cartoon character stamps (see for instance Eva's blog post) and 'foreign' characters issued by Dutch post (see for instance the stamp sheet on top).

To my opinion many comics and animation movies aren't just meant for children.
Many animation movies contain messages for grown-ups, too. For instance 'Up' (about getting old, family and friendship) and 'Ratatouille' (also about friendship and family, and about loyalty, and Paris), are all-time favourites for that.
Stamps on these great Disney/Pixar movies were sent to me by a kind lady from the USA.



Oh, and Wall-e (the stamp on the right, the story also is about friendship) learns us about waste and shows the dangers of a sedential life!


Dutch Post recently issued regular stamps and an extra stamp set on the Dutch comic character Tom Poes and his fellow Ollie B. Bommel, for their 75th anniversary.
The stories go without text balloons but are shown as illustrations, accompanied by text printed under the comic drawings.
Dutch Post has issued Tom Poes stamps before, in 1996 this mini stamp sheet:




Finally Asterix!
As you already might have seen on the main Sunday Stamps blog, Germany has issued nice stamps on Asterix and Obelic recently.
Unfortunately I couldn't order the complete sheet via German Post, but suddenly I was lucky to be able to buy the complete stamp sheet via 'marktplaats' (Dutch ebay). Here it is:



Do you notice the mailman in the back?

Asterix (also about friendship and loyalty) learns us a little about history. Although there are some negative issues in it too, which I neglected as a child, but for which my eyes are opened now. Besides the sad destination of many swines, there are a lot of other injured, as this medical article on traumatic brain injuries proofs. Fortunately these wounded get well immediately, as is usance in comic books like these.

The Asterix albums are a 'must' for language lovers, too. Besides Asterix stamps I'm collecting also one specific album in various languages: Asterix in Corsica. The fun thing about that is that there's a meeting in which characters from previous albums gather. So I learned that the small hispanic boy, Pepe Paella y Peseta in Dutch, is named Pepe Costa y Bravo in German. And the main Corsican character, Ocatarinetabellatchitchix (in French), in the Dutch album has been named after a Dutch song: Ozewiezewozewiezewallakristallix!
Now we can get information like this via the internet, but in the eighties, when I got my first Asterix in Corsica album in an other language (Spanish, at that time) it was so special!

Find more great cartoon stamps on/via the Sunday Stamps blog post of 19th of June.

Sunday stamps: Se-tenant stamps

This Sunday Viridian choose for 'se-tenant stamps' as the Sunday Stamps' theme.

Nice topic!
However first I had to look up what 'se-tenant' means. This term is used in philately for stamps printed from the same plate and sheet, adjoining one another, unsevered in a strip or block. They differ from each other by design, color, denomination or overprint.

According to the English wikipedia, se-tenants may have a continuous design, but this is not necessarily so (see also the example showed in wikipedia).
In contrary, according to the Dutch wikipedia continuation of design is a main characteristic of 'se-tenants'. 'Se-tenant' is translated into Dutch as 'doorloper', which literally means that the picture is continuing one in the other.

So I thought this one, according to the Dutch word 'doorloper' is not a real se-tenant:



Although according to the English description they are. Furthermore these two stamps form a continuing part of the story (and of course I love to show you these characters: the bear Ollie B. Bommel and the cat Tom Poes).

Via Postcrossing I received this beautiful se-tenant from China:



According to the sheet edge on bottom of the card (how I love it when people add these parts, too!), this Czech stamp must be part of a se-tenant sheet, too:



In the Netherlands, every now and then continuing stamps are issued.
Several of the so-called 'children's stamps' are se-tenants. I posted one here already.

The following stamp sheet obviously is a continuing picture (alas the sheet isn't complete anymore as I've used two of the stamps):



The se-tenant of the maps and 'Bos Atlas' I showed in January (see here).

Some other Dutch se-tenants:
'Day of the Stamp' (2012), showing former queen Juliana:



Stamp sheet commemorating 150 years of Blijdorp, the Rotterdam Zoo (in 2006). The sheet shows threatened species:



Six (from ten) stamps issued due to the 100 years celebration of the Royal Dutch Forestry Association:



Stamp sheet issued for the 100th anniversary of the Dutch Open Air Museum (in 2012), subtitled '100 years tribute to the daily life':

Sunday Stamps: Pets

This Sunday Stamps' theme is 'pets'.
Searching in my stamps, there appeared to be a few stamps on this theme. Mostly cats and dogs, and three rodents.
The Dutch post company also offers the possibility to create your own personalized stamp sheet. At some higher costs you can have your own design printed. The stamps then can be used as a real postage stamp.

The stamp above was part of a serie of three, named 'Ten for your best friends' and showing cats, a dog and rabbits. Alas the last I've used, with no copy, but fortunately you can see it here.



This is the December stamps sheet of 2003. The stamp in the middle on top is showing a cat and dog, peacefully together.



Jip and Janneke, Annie M.G. Schmidt's creation, drawn by Fiep Westendorp, have two pets: the dog Takkie, and the cat Siepie, who you see here.



Nijntje, in English known as Miffy, has been created in 1955 by the Dutch illustrator Dick Bruna.
It's funny to see that this rabbit has a pet: the little she-dog Snuffie.



An other pet, or rather the main character in the stories created by the Dutch illustrator/writer Marten Toonder, is Tom Poes, a cat. He is a close friend of the gentleman Ollie B. Bommel, a bear who has a dog, named Joost. Not as a pet, but, as you can see on the left, as his butler.



An other famous pet is Tom, the cat from the couple Tom and Jerry. While we would think the predator always wins, in these stories it's always the rodent who survives, more than well.



Talking about rodents, a Dutch supermarket company has a hamster in it's advertisement campaigns. In 2012 the Dutch post company issued a stamp because of the 125th anniversary of this supermarket. And the hamster is part of it! That is, his gold coloured shadow, while jumping happpily on three of the stamps.



Finally the personalized stamp of Snuitje, one of the two guinea pigs (cavias) who live in my place. On this picture she's less than 2 months old. Since they're in our house, I (1) prefer vegetarian pets (so our herbivores will have nothing to fear), and (2) I am wondering why we, humans, are keeping pets, animals, as a kind of prisoner at all. I imagine that our pets would prefer to live with a large, large family somewhere in the wild, instead of being dependent of our care and time. But it is as it is, and both Snuitje and her roommate Cato seem to be happy with us.