The Whole Belfast in My Mailbox!

Sent from Laura (the UK), from Belfast and after her trip.

I'm Real

Another letter sent to Mr Eduardo Munez (the UK).

Would you like your letter to appear in a film about snail mail? You still have two weeks to send mail to this mysterious man!

Mermaid of Paper

The latest mermaid I have got by mail is this one: entirely made of paper and... living on the land?

Sent by Heleen (the Netherlands).

Mailartphages

Sent to Christophe (France), for his mail art call about teeth. You can see here that the envelope arrived safe and sound.

Myanmar!

It is a great pleasure to add a new country to the list of places I have received mail from!

This postcard was sent from Myanmar by Jobbo (whose postal address I still do not know...). It took a month to arrive to Morocco, which does not seem a lot. The Shwedagon Pagoda is a gilded stupa located in Yangon.

The stamp was issued on 27 September 2913, and belongs to a set that celebrates the 27th South East Asian Games.

PS This is the post number 1500 on this blog!

Dutch Women

Letter form Heleen (the Netherlands) with tree stamps of the set Women issued on 25 March 2013 (and a bonus tulip).

The set of six stamps picture the following women:
-the explorer Alexandrine Tinne (I had previously received this one)
-the writer Belle van Zuylen (top right on the envelope),
-the theologian Anne Zernike (the blue stamp),
-the Utrecht heroine Trijn van Leemput,
-the painter Maria van Oosterwijck,
-and the sovereign Maria van Bourgondië (the red stamp on the envelope).

More information about this issue, and the complete set, here.

See more women on stamps following the links of Sunday Stamps-II.

Alternative Stamps

Some funny artistamps coming form the Netherlands and the UK:

Letter from the Netherlands

Sent by Heleen (the Netherlands). Sometimes it is difficult to decide if you love more the envelope or the letter in itself.

Leap Year's Day

I have received this envelope from Phillip (the USA) last Friday. Just in time! Because it is a letter to the future (Cf. the MA Dictionary). See what is stamped on the back:

Actually, this is also a post to the future, an scheduled one. That means that I am writing this before the due date. I have not opened the letter yet, and therefore I have not seen the content yet.

I wonder how Mr Munez can wait to open more of 200 letters...!

(Also published here)

Philathelic Diplomacy

This is an entry for Sunday Stamps - II. Today's theme is Oddities. Friendship between countries is neither an odd nor unusual theme for stamps. But it was somehow odd to find a stamp from 1987 in my mailbox three weeks ago. Of course, from the USA.

It was issued on July 1987 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Treaty of Friendship and Peace with the Kingdom of Morocco, the first diplomatic agreement between the United States and an Arab, Muslim or African state. Known also as the Treaty of Marrakesh, the accord is still the longest unbroken contract of its kind between the United States and any nation.

Actually, two stamps, with a similar design, were issued on in each nation's capital, Washington, D. C. and Rabat. The central design is part of an ornate painted door in the Dar Batha Palace in Fez, Morocco. The Moroccan stamp includes in French "Two Centuries of Friendship with the United States'' and in Arabic ''Morocco and the United States - Uninterrupted Friendship.''

More information about these stamps.I would like to receive the Moroccan as well!

Mail Is a Bridge between Us

Segura river in Murcia (Spain)
Sent by Heleen

Waalbrug bridge in Nijmegen (the Netherlands)
Sent by Heleen

Bruges (Belgium)
Sent by Catherine (France)

HSL-bridge Moerdijk (2006)
Almen bridge over Twentekanaal (1946)
(The Netherlands)

(More bridges)

Caféterras bij avond

This  postcard was sent by Heleen (the Netherlands), with no one but two matched stamps:

Maybe this painting by Van Gogh is one of his best known. But still it is one of my favourites! By the way, on both the stamps the title is written as Caféterras bij nacht. However, on the postcard is written Caféterras bij avond (?).

I really cannot complain about the Van Gogh stamps that PostNL has issued in 2015. I received these as part of a present. Correos stuck an ugly label on them, but happily I could remove it without any damage for the stamps.

Postcard from Mexico

The first postcard I have received ever from Mexico, sent by Phillip. Actually, I scarcely get mail from American countries other than the USA and Canada. It put a big smile on my face.

It took exactly two months to arrive, from 25 November to 25 January. And... yes: another month to be uploaded here.

Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

Thanks to Heleen, I discovered that Joe (Malaysia) collects a certain sentence in all languages: Why did the chicken cross the road?, in order to add to his 17 x 10.8 cm sketchbook. He had already beautiful pages for Swedish, Japanese, Esperanto, Dutch, Balinese, Torajan...

Honestly, at first I thought that this is a sort of weird collection. But I have a penchant for weird projects, you know... So I decided to draw the Catalan version (a female chicken: gallina), and to send it along with some happy Moroccan chickens on the beach.

Air Letter

Air Letter sent by Alan (the UK).

An Aerogram or Air Letter is a thin lightweight piece of foldable and gummed paper for writing a letter for transit via airmail, in which the letter and envelope are one and the same. Most aerograms have an imprinted stamp indicating the prepayment of postage.

There have been long time since the postage rates in Spain depends only on the weight of items (and to  measures, to certain extent). They do not sell official aerograms any more. If you send one of them (which I do sometimes), it is the same rate as for a normalized letter or postcard up to 20g. Royal Mail is not selling these neither, but they allow them to travel.

Do you know if air letters are common in your country?