Mail Adventures

19 August 2020

18 August 2020

The World Need More Engineers

Lilian Gilbreth (1878-1992)
Psychologist and industrial engineer

"We considered our time too valuable to be devoted
to actual labor, in the home. We were executives."

Edith Clarke (1883-1959)
Electrical Engineer

"There is no demand for women engineers,a s such,
as there are for women doctors; but there's always
a demand for anyone who can do a good piece of work."

Postcards sent by Phillip (the USA). Illustrations by Rachel Ignotofsky.

17 August 2020

Invasion

Envelope sent to Phillip (the USA), made of a brochure from an art exhibition: Time of Upheaval.

16 August 2020

Sunday Stamps | Austral Animals

This week's theme in Sunday Stamps is The Southern Hemisphere.

I get really few stamps from the southern countries. Except, from time to time, Australia. So here you have some beautiful animals from that country:

Wombat

Golden Damsel

Spotted Sweetlips

Red-backed Kingfisher
Todiramphus pyrrhopygius

Asian Elephant

15 August 2020

The Group of Seven | Jackson

This is the second postcard of the group of seven. It depicts an A. Y. Jakson's work: Skeena Crossing, B. C. (Gitsegyukla), 1926. The matching stamp features another painting from the artist: Labrador Coast (1930), and belongs to this set.

The sending of this postcards is a postal experiment by Bryon, with the collaboration of Canadian postal employees. With the borders closed, this was the only way from him to sent Canadian postcards while being in the USA.

Postcards are a way of travelling, both for the sender and the recipient!

--------

The Group of Seven:

-MacDonald

14 August 2020

First Responders

This envelope was made by Phillip (the USA) long ago, but perfect, along with the stamps, for the New Normal time.

It contained a letter and another of Rachel Ignotofky's postcards about female scientists. It is always nice to learn about these people. And scientists are, in a way, also first responders, aren't they?

Gertrude Elion (1918-1999)
Pharmacologist & Biochemist

"Don't let others discourage you or tell you that you
can't do it. In my day I was told women didn't go into
chemistry. I saw no reason why we couldn't."

Grace Hopper (1906-1992)
Navy Admiral & Computer Scientist

"People are allergic to change. You have to get out
and sell the idea."

The following one arrived with a wonderful First Day pictorial postmark:

Gerty Cori (1896-1957)
Biochemist

"As a researcher the unforgotten moments of my life are the
rare ones... When the veil over nature's secrets seems to
suddenly lift."

The quotation of Rachel Carson describes the current global situation very well!

Rachel Carson (1907-1964)
Marine Biologist, Conservationist & Author

"The human race is challenged more than ever
before to demonstrate our mastery, not over
nature but of ourselves."

13 August 2020

The Tortoise & the Hare & the Bike

Illustrated envelopes sent to Heleen (the Netherlands), replying to this postcard and to this one.

12 August 2020

The Group of Seven | MacDonald

Church by the Sea (1924),

by J.E.H. MacDonald

Canada Post commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Group of Seven’s first art exhibition with a set of stamps issued on the May 7, anniversary date of that exhibition held in 1920 in Toronto, Ontario. Each stamp depicts a painting by one of the artists.

Bryon sent one of them on the back of a postcard depicting another MacDonald's work:

Artist's Home and Orchard (1927),

by J.E.H. MacDonald

It even get a big round cancellation from Tornhill, Ontario, where the artist lived since 1911:

I must say that I didn't know about the Group of Seven until last year, when I received this postcard from Rosemary:

Falls, Montreal River, 1920
by J.E.H. MacDonald

11 August 2020

Machins & More

John's sending of stamps are always wonderful!

And now this is curious: almost the same stamps on two envelopes sent from the same place; however, very different cancellations!

10 August 2020

Notes on Early Stamp Collecting

«Women, it seems, were the earliest stamp collectors, using them to decorate walls, ceilings and furniture. In 1842 Punch magazine quipped that ladies of England 'betray more anxiety to treasure up Queens's Head than King Henry VIII did to get rid of them'.

[...]

By 1860 people of all ages, ranks and genders were to be found exchanging stamps, albums in hand, down Birchin Lane near London Bridge. The barterers of Birchin Lane attracted police attention. Surely such a peculiar mix of people swapping worthless scraps of paper down a back alley suggested involvement in something spurious or, at the very least, was evidence of alarming signs of mania?

[...]

Finding timbromanie a somewhat pejorative term, George Herpin, a French collector, coined the word 'philately' around 1862. Herpin put two Greek words together (philos + atelia) which combined meant a love of not being taxed, a reference to the innovation of pre-payment.

[...]

The first stamp catalogue appeared in France in 1861 −Alfred Potiquet's Catalogue des Timbres-Poste Crées dans les Divers États du Globe, listing about 1,080 stamps.»

Helen Morgan, Blue Mauritius: The Hunt for the World's Most Valuable Stamps

09 August 2020

Sunday Stamps | Archdruid

Today's theme in Sunday Stamps is Yellow. I was looking for other stamps when I bumped into this one:

Stamp from 1976 that belongs to a 4-stamps set about British Cultural Traditions. It features the Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Frenhinol Cymru or Royal National Eisteddfod of Wales: the most important festival held annually in wales. Its eight days of competitions and performances are considered the largest music and poetry festival in Europe. The Archdruid presides over the most important ceremonies at the festival.

The Ammgueddfa Cymru or National Museum of Wales says:

Although the history of the Eisteddfod may traced back to a bardic competition held by the Lord Rhys in Cardigan Castle in 1176, the roots of the modern National Eisteddfod as we know it today lie in the latter part of the 18th century.