Sunday Stamps | Some Beards and Moustaches

A couple of bearded and/or moustachioed men on this envelope sent by Fabienne (France), arrived exactly a month ago.

Stamp issued in 1963, dedicated to Giusseppe Mazzini, belonging to the series Great Men of the EEC. Rome in the background of the stamp: the Via Appia and the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius.

Henri Rouart, was a French engineer, industrialist, painter and collector. He invented, among other things, the tubes of the Paris pneumatic post network, a system for the rapid delivery of mail in Paris in cylindrical boxes propelled by compressed air in an underground network of pipes. His friend Edgar Degas painted him in 1871. The stamp was issued ion 11 April 2022. 

Inside of the envelope I found a third man who could fit in this post: Gustave Geffroy, a French journalist, art critic, historian and novelist, painted by Paul Cézanne in 1895.

Visit Sunday Stamps to see more Beards and Moustaches on stamps.

Mail in Pink

Mail sent by Fabienne (France).

Alphabet 2023 | G Is for Good Hope

How many G can you count on this postcard mailed from Good Hope, Georgia?

On the matching stamps: Galaxy NGC 1316, Lou Gehrig, Judy Garland, Geronimo, and the state bird (Brown Thrasher) and flower (Cherokee Rose) of Georgia.

Another great postcard from Bryon's mail project!

A Letter Is a Message in a Bottle...

Alphabet 2023 | D Is for Dagsboro

And finally D arrived! Sent from Dagsboro, Delaware. 

Bryon wrote in the back the project is proving more difficult than he thought. But probably it is even more delightful. 

The stamps are full of D. Do you think this 1970 Dodge Challenger is old? So... what about the rest of stamps featuring Dinosaurs?

All the Royal Flowers!

So I eventually got, thanks to John (the UK), all the stamps from the Flowers series, issued by Royal Mail on 9 March 2023. This is the first issue that features the silhouette of King Charles III. This is the first change of silhouette in the UK stamps since 1968.

Which one is your favourite?

Alphabet 2023 | F Is for Flagler Beach

With the E still missing, the F postcard of Bryon's project (Alphabet2023) landed in my mailbox. And full of F, of course!

It got a beautiful round postmark from Flagler Beach, in Florida. And it bears stamps featuring author Edna Ferber, a Fox and a Flower -- with a big F too!

Sunday Stamps | Backpacking

For today's theme on Sunday Stamps, Mountains and Hills, I found this Chinese stamp issued in 2015. It belongs to a series about Vacation Activities.

There Is No Planet B

A couple of Protest Stamps received/sent* to wish you a Happy Earth Day:

I Don't Want To Be the Next Dinosaur

There Is No Planet B

Eco, No Ego

Error 404 - Poles Not Found
Act Now or Swim Later

*To Phillip: see here and here.

The Stuff of Life

«If it’s not doing something to further the narrative, goes the traditional novel-writing wisdom, cut it out. But I wanted to put in the things that didn’t further the narrative: the ephemeral things, apparently unimportant, that are actually the stuff of life.

Letter-writing allows this stuff to be present. Perhaps it’s the only traditional writing form that does, and it gave me a credible reason for putting the trivial, the small, the fleeting into my story. And when I did, to my surprise, my character came to life: she became spontaneous and real and began to speak in a language and voice that seemed authentic.»

Edwina Preston, Friday essay: a lament for the lost art of letter-writing – a radical art form reflecting ‘the full catastrophe of life

Postworld Postcards

Postbox in Scotland
(No EQII cipher, only the Crown of St. Andrew)

The Original Bath Mail Coach of 1784
Reproduced from a stamp designed by Keith Bassford
and Stanley Paine, engraved by Csezlaw Slania, 
and issued by the Post Office on 31 July 1984

Postcards sent by John (the UK).

Alphabet 2023 | E Is for Eva

The next postcard from Bryon's project (Alphabet2023) is E (Where is D, by the way?). For some easily understandable reason, a favourite letter. 

On the back, some famous E: Ethel Waters, Ethel Merman, Elvis, Erroll Garner and Eubie Blake.

But that is not all. The postmark was sent from Eva, Tennessee. I did not know such place existed! Well, according to the Wikipedia, there are some places named Eva around the world. Now I feel I should visit:

Greece

• Eva (Cynuria), a town of ancient Cynuria
• Eva, Arcadia

United States

• Eva, Alabama
• Eva, Florida
• Eva, Louisiana
• Eva, Oklahoma
• Eva, Tennessee
  • Eva (archaeological site), near Eva, Tennessee
• Eva, West Virginia

Elsewhere

• Eva, Durango, Mexico
• Eva, Samoa

Iron Maiden

Bruce Dickinson sword fighting with Eddie
Birmingham, August 2018

Stamps issued by Royal Mail on 12 January 2023. And a theme I would never have expected on stamps as a teenager!

Iron Maiden at Twickenham Stadium
London, July 2008

Fancy a Hot Beverage? (2)

Letter in drawn envelope, sent to Fabienne (France).

Sunday Stamps | Yellow Flowers

Yellow Flowers for today's Sunday Stamps!

Help for Ukraine
Canada, 2022

Yellow Gentan
Welfare: Alpine flowers
Berlin, 1975

Winter Aconite (Eranthis hyemalis)
Flowers Definitives
Germany, 2018

Bukhara iris (Iris bucharica)
Flowers
Hungary, 2015

Vase with Sunflowers
150th Birth Anniversary of Vincent Van Gogh
Netherlands, 2003

Lesser Celandine (Ficaria verna)
Experience Nature (IV) - Garden Flowers (2019)
Netherlands, 2019

Golden Rain (Laburnum anagyroides)
Pro Juventute: Poisonous plants of the forest
Switzerland, 1974

Harvest Fayre
9th World Congress of Roses, Belfast
United Kingdom, 1991

Sunflower
Flowers
United Kingdom, 2023

Yellow Moth orchid (Phalaenopsis)
Garden Flowers (2021)
United States of America, 2021

A Spring Letter

A spring letter sent by Laura (the UK).

Alphabet 2023 | B Is for Barrière

This is the third postcard I have got from Bryon's project (Alphabet2023). It should have been the second, shouldn't it? But the first one was C and the second one was A... Actually, the alphabet not arriving on the right order adds some fun.

The postmark was applied by some flickering hand or postal machine, but you can still notice that it was posted in Barrière, British Columbia. Balfour Mount and Bruce Chown are featured on the stamps. And you can count one more B for bilingual stamps!

Fancy a Hot Beverage? (1)

Letter sent to Heleen (the Netherlands).

(Original designs by Merle Goll. Just trying to learn how to draw by imitating great illustrators.)

Royal Flowers

I have got two stamps from the Flowers series, issued by Royal Mail on 9 March 2023. This is the first issue that features the silhouette of King Charles III. This is the first change of silhouette in the UK stamps since 1968.

A Simple Woman

«[...] your other grandmother is a simple woman, my mother would tell us, and because she was a simple woman she was desperate to receive letters;»

Birgit Vanderbeke, The Mussel Feast

Alphabet 2023 | A Is for Atka

As the first letter-postcard I got was C, I did not grasp immediately Bryon's project: sending the whole alphabet during 2023. That would make a lot of postcards!

This was supposed to be the first. Mailed from Atka (Alaska), it got an extra postmark from Alaskan frontier. 

One of the stamps belongs to the 1982 State Birds & Flowers issue and depicts the state bird of Alaska, Willow ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus) and the official flower of Alaska, forget-me-not (Myosotis alpestris). The other two stamps depicts a porcupinefish and Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary.