G is for Gabriel García Márquez

Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez, to give him his full name, was a Colombian writer, born in 1927 and died in 2014.

His life is celebrated on this Spanish stamp, issued in 2015, that Eva sent me.

You can read about his many accomplishments on his wikipedia page. He was awarded the Nobel prize in Literature in 1982 for his body of work to that point that have themes of conflict and solitude, largely as they reflect life in the South American subcontinent, and are often written in the style known as magical realism. 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' is considered to be his masterpiece, which was published in 1967.

I have to confess I have never read any of his works.

For more great G-related blog posts, check out the links at Sunday Stamps.

F is for Frozen Treats

USPS issued a set of 10 stamps celebrated ice pops (ice lollies in some countries).

These are also the first scratch and sniff stamps issued by the USPS.

I used some of them on envelopes 925 and 928 sent out for one of Jean's envelope exchanges.

This is not one of the envelopes, and unfortunately the scanner was malfunctioning a bit, hence the grey lines.

I also used some on this envelope and minimal mail art to MomKat in Greece. I called this one 'Is it pink, or is it lime?'

For more fabulous F posts, head over to the links at Sunday Stamps.

E is for El bullying, Espana, Europa, Euro, and Eva

I think this had a postal adventure of the delayed kind, because it arrived 2 days ago, and I think it was sent a while ago.

Regardless of that fact, the are a lot of Es on this postcard.

The stamp in question, issued in 2016, is foiled, so hopefully the photo does it justice. Showing the silhouette of a person, the translation of the message is: “You can stop bullying, don’t ignore it at your school”.

Thanks, Eva, for this unique sending. 

For more excellent E postage, check the links at Sunday Stamps.

D is for Dragons

USPS issued a set of dragon stamps in August, and the first day of issue ceremony was here in town. I couldn't attend that day, however I did stop by, and this was the USPS area:

There's one person I know who loves dragon-related mail as she is a dragon in the lunar zodiac, so who better to send envelope 847 to than Heleen?

You can't appreciate it in online or flat scans, but the stamps have flecks of orange foil as highlights. I tried to take some photos, but they really don't do it justice.

For more postage with a D theme, delve into the links at Sunday Stamps.

C is for Contest

Eva sent me a nice envelope with this lovely stamp of a mandrill on.

The stamp is the winning design in the youth category of an annual contest run by Correos. 

Mandrills are native to Cameroon, Congo, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.

Eva's letter was written on intriguing paper with a great travel-related design on the back, and the envelope had an encounter with a mail monster - which took a tiny little bite out of the edge. Just enough to get a taste, not enough to injure the insides. Basically a flesh wound :)

For more postage with a C connection, visit the links at Sunday Stamps.