Mail Adventures

20 February 2020

Working on Calligraphy Styles

Attempting Stitches Hand Lettering...

... And practising Kaitlin Style

Envelope to Lilli (Canada) and Phillip (the USA).

18 February 2020

Typewriters on Postcards

Altered postcard which arrived with an online order, drawn by the illustrator Bea Tormo.

Was ik maar een jongen… ('If I was a boy', 1933)
Written by Hellen Randers
Cover by Hans Borrebach

Postcard sent by Heleen (the Netherlands).

17 February 2020

28th Annual Gold Rush Trail Sled Dog Mail Run

How nice it is to get a letter that has been carried by dog sled? I didn't even know there was such a thing; this was a surprise by Phillip. The designer of the envelope is Christine Yaffe.

[...]
In this age of Internet communication it may be hard to appreciate just how much receiving a letter in the mail meant to the gold seekers and others who found themselves so away from family. Initially mail was carried on foot by anyone willing to stuff it in their backpack. Eventually contracts were let to established freight companies that included the mail as part of their regular cargo. At one point there were six post offices in communities along this last leg of the Cariboo Waggon (sic) Road running from Quesnellemouth to Barkerville.
[...]

You can find detailed information here.

16 February 2020

Sunday Stamps | Motorless

I have chosen some motorless boats to illustrate today's Sunday Stamps's theme: Watercraft.

Issued on 18 July 1991, this stamp belongs to the Small Craft, Pleasure Craft series.

The verchère rowboat first appeared on the St. Lawrence River in Quebec in the mid-1800's. Two families originally built this 14 to 24 foot flat-bottomed boat, which was, at first, pointed at both ends. Louis St-Pierre, a resident of Bouchard Island across from the town of Verchères, has been attributed with the design concept for this stable rowboat. (More information here)

13 March 1987, Brûlé nears Lake Superior. This Canadian stamp belongs to the Exploration of Canada series:

Born in France about 1592, Brûlé arrived at Quebec in 1608. In 1610 Samuel de Champlain sent him to live with the Huron and to learn their language. The adventurous Brûlé was more than an interpreter, though. He became the first European to shoot the Lachine rapids and to set eyes on Lakes Huron, Ontario, Superior and Erie. (Taken from here.)

Canoe Slalom. One of the stamps issued by Royal Mail for the 2012 London Summer Olympics.

18 April 2011, Triakontoros 15th to 4th Century BC. From the 2011 Greek series Sailing Ships.

And a very simple paper boat from the 2010 Greek Islands series. Among my favourite stamps ever!

Not sure if these are really motorless... Dutch stamp issued on 11 November 1987, designed by Charlotte Mutsaers.

15 February 2020

Complete Women Alphabet

Yuri Kochiyama, activist (1921-2014)
Zora Neale Hurston, writer and anthropologist (1891-1960

These are the last postcards of the alphabet of women on postcards that Phillip (the USA) has been sending me along 2019.

Virginia Apgar, doctor, 1909-1974

I knew some of the women of the series. Virginia Apgar had already been featured on this blog, for instance. But I must say that I read some of the names for the first time thanks to these series. So I have learned as much as I have enjoyed!

The X-postcard is one of my favourites and a good closing as well:

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The rest of the postcards:
Women Alphabet | 1 (A, E, M, Q, T, U)
Women Alphabet | 2 (B, D, F, J)
Women Alphabet | 3 (C, G, K, I, L, N, O, P, S)
Yellowest (H, R, W)

14 February 2020

Love(lace)

Imagination is the discovering faculty, pre-eminently.
It is that which penetrates into the unseen worlds
around us, the worlds of science.
Ada Lovelace, 1815-1852
(By Rachel Ignotofsky)

Maybe the quotation is not very valentine-related, but no doubt the name of this admirable mathematician and writer is, and the matching envelope & stamps sent by Phillip (the USA). The envelope is made out of a repurposed shopping bag.

I think I never uploaded the envelope Phillip sent last year, made out of a page of a magazine...

I really envy the amount of hearts on postage stamps you can choose from in the USA!

13 February 2020

Love Is Love

Stationery Love, by Alicia Souza

Mail sent by Laura (the UK), Julia (the USA) and Daniel (Germany).

Extra love sent to the UK. The envelope is part of a reused mobile phone packaging.

11 February 2020

Yellowest

This letter, sent by Phillip (the USA) is probably the yellowest I have ever received!

Hazel Scott, Musician, 1920-1981
Rachel Carson, Scientist, 1907-1964
Wilma Mankiller, Leader, 1945-2010

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Women Alphabet | 1 (A, E, M, Q, T, U)
Women Alphabet | 2 (B, D, F, J)
Women Alphabet | 3 (C, G, K, I, L, N, O, P, S)

09 February 2020

Sunday Stamps | My Other Country

Painting by Jacques Majorelle

This week, the them for Sunday Stamps is A country not your own. For me, that other country would probably be Morocco.

I don't get often mail from Morocco, but I have recently got these stamps from France, belonging to the French version a 2019 joint issue France-Morocco entitled Richesse de nos musées ('Richness of Our Museums').

Le golfe de Marseille vu de l'Estaque, by Paul Cézanne

The exhibition The colours of Impressionism: masterpieces of the collections of the Musée d'Orsay, organized last year at the Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMVI) in Rabat, is the first major exhibition dedicated to Impressionism on African soil and in the Arab world.

The margins of this miniature sheet represent a part of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris (left) and the main entrance of the Mohammed VI Museum, inaugurated in Rabat in 2014 (right). I visited it many times!

08 February 2020

Letterboxes in Bologna

A friend sent me these pictures of elegant letterboxes in Bologna (Italy).

07 February 2020

Places I Have Never Been To: The Netherlands

Open air museum "Ellert en Brammert"

There is a label in this blog that reads places I've been to. But, sometimes, I think I need a places-I-never-been-to-but-I-think-I-know-because-I-get-a-lot-of-postcards-from label. The Netherlands, thanks to Heleen, is one of those places!