Thursday postcard hunt - Spring colors: yellow

Most of the postboxes on this postcard from Heleen are yellow.

Explore the links for more yellow postcards at See it on a Postcard

Thursday postcard hunt: Animals - On the farm

 Well, these animals have taken a moment to step away from the farm to get to the mailing box.

This is a Postcrossing meetup card sent and designed by Heleen! And it has a matching personal stamp :)

Head over to See it on a Postcard for links to more postcards on this theme.

It's still Christmas - Merry and Bright

These great 3D penguins arrived from. the Netherlands in the past few days - thanks, Heleen!

Love these guys!

Jaar van die slang

 This great internationaal stamp from Nederland arrived, courtesy of Heleen, accompanied with nice selvage to celebrate jaar van die slang. Included are the Chinese characters for snake.

In contrast, the postcard is all in English, the language of Postcrossing.

For links to more stamps with no English words on them, head over to See it on a Postcard.

Flags

 The theme for Sunday Stamps is flags.

A couple of Dutch stamps sent by Heleen.

The German and US flags vs the Dutch lion on Football/Soccer World cup stamps:

And a stamp featuring the flag of Gelderland, one of the provinces of the Netherlands.

You can see the blue, yellow and black flag at wikipedia. The words of the Gelderland anthem 'Ons Gelderland'(Our Gelderland) are featured on the stamp.

 Explore the links at See it on a Postcard for more philatelic flags.

Favorites

 The prompt for Sunday Stamps is a favorite. These are from the 2023 Decemberzegels designed by Norwegian designer Linde Faas. The colors and designs are magical - thanks to Heleen for sending them!

Update - I just noticed that the last one received a US postmark in addition to the PostNL Christmas tree - 'Secure your dog', with an image of a dog somewhat obscuring the cat and dog on the red stamp.

 To see more of people's favorite stamps explore the links at See it on a Postcard.

Thursday postcard hunt

 I'm a *very* infrequent participant in the weekly postcard hunt. Today's theme is Christmas, and I found a few from the last few years that I haven't posted. 

Two from Heleen

and one via postcrossing.

I haven't been very active in postcrossing this year, however I received a note from the site letting me know it was my 5 year anniversary yesterday.

For links to more Christmas postcards had over to See it on a Postcard.

Happy Boxing Day to those who celebrate! 

Industry

 Today's Sunday Stamps theme is industry. On this Dutch stamp celebrating Tilburg you can see a textile industry, the woman at a loom (I think, or maybe a spinning wheel), representative of Tilsburg being known as the wool capital of the Netherlands from the 1600s until its decline in the 1960s. The entertainment industry is also represented - 'Grootste kermis' is the largest summer fair held in the Netherlands, in the city of Tilburg. And from the construction industry, the building is the Stadstheer, built between 2005 and 2007. Each apartment has a cuboid sunroom that sticks out from the main structure. In Dutch they are colloquially called 'vogelkooikes' - bird cages. Tilburg is located in the southern province of North Brabant.

This stamp was issued in 2209 as part of the Mooi Nederland series (beautiful Netherlands). Thanks for the stamp, Heleen!

For links to more stamps with the theme of industry, head over to See it on a Postcard

A green leap

 An excellent frog stamp from the Netherlands, part of the beautiful 'Experience Nature' series

Sent on this leap year postcard

With a 29 Feb postmark!

Thanks to Heleen!

Explore the links for today's Sunday Stamps theme of green, snakes, or Irish stamps at See it on a Postcard

Lighthouse

 Today's theme for Sunday Stamps is lighthouses, and look what landed just yesterday from Heleen! And check out the date on the postmark.

For more links to lighthouse stamps visit See it on a Postcard

De Hef Railway Bridge

 Today's Sunday Stamps theme is bridges.

Heleen sent me this stamp featuring De Hef railway bridge in Rotterdam. Built in 1927, De Hef means 'the lift', and its official name is Koningshaven Bridge. There were plans to demolish the bridge in 1993, however the protest against it by local residents was heeded. The bridge gained international notoriety in 2022 when there was a proposal to dismantle it to allow Jeff Bezos' (billionaire owner of Amazon) yacht to reach open water via the Koningshaven channel. Protests once again won the day, and the bridge was untouched.

This stamp was issued in 2014 as part of a series that celebrated 175 years of Dutch railways.

For more links to bridges on stamps, check out the links at SeeItOnAPostcard.

Decemberzegels and more

 Every year the Dutch post office issues a set of stamps in December for holiday mail, the much anticipated Decemberzegels (December stamps).

Heleen is kind enough to send me some of them - here are stamps from 2022. I like the color palette used, and the decorative lettering is fun - the first time words have appeared on a December stamps issue.

The designer is Miriam Bos, and she has not one but two blog posts about the design process and stories behind the stamps. I really enjoyed seeing some of the early sketches of designs that didn't make the final set.

Fabienne sent me a card last Christmas with these fun stamps. Having a hard time deciding how to describe them - modern, semi-abstract? I'm always a fan of se-tenant stamps that can be used separately, then create a bigger picture when used together. The moons and stars hanging like ornaments in the sky on the top stamp are fantastic.

For more Christmas stamps go to https://seeitonapostcard.blogspot.com

Caturday II

 Today is the last day of the year of the tiger, so here are a some small tigers.

One via postcrossing

One from Fabienne

And a few from Heleen

Caturday I

 A cat from Heleen

and one via postcrossing

Cat and mice

 Another festive postcard from Heleen... a blue cat and two mice in a tree... in a tree :)

A Dutch Christmas Postcrossing Meet Up

 With many thanks to Heleen!

Catmail

 Christmas mail continues to arrive, this time from Heleen. 

Look at these fantastic December stamps!

And the card which, I think, gave Heleen inspiration for her fun envelope.

Thanks, Heleen, I'm really enjoying an extended Christmas card season.

Hot Cocoa

When better than to have hot cocoa than in December?

Sent to Heleen last Christmas. It was a bit slow to arrive and did not make it in time for Santa Claus.

Skyrider

More wine today. I sent this envelope to Heleen incorporating a wine label and adding the Celebrate stamps with their metallic accents.

It traveled well. Unusually for a wine label it doesn't have the name on it, so I went back to the store to find that it is perfectly named Skyrider.

Heleen took much more atmospheric photos after it arrived:

The 200th anniversary of Maine's admission to the Union

Maine achieved statehood 200 years ago on March 15th, 1820. In modern times, USPS has typically celebrated each sate joining the Union by issuing a stamp on anniversary years divisible by 50.

The bicentennial stamp features a painting by Edward Hopper titled 'Sea at Ogunquit' (1914) showing a part of Maine's rugged coastline.

I sent some envelopes to receive a pictorial postmark, and here are the very nice results:

From Eva's blog

From Heleen's blog

To see more anniversaries on stamps, explore the links at Sunday Stamps.

There's a bonus anniversary stamp on my blog post from yesterday - 60 years of Asterix the Gaul.