Postage is up again

 As of yesterday:

Domestic 1oz letters: forever stamps up 4c to 82c 

Domestic postcards: postcard stamps up 4c to 65c

International postcards and 1oz letters: global forever stamps up 5c to $1.75

First class postage 25 years ago was 34c

X is for Xixón, Y is for Yacimiento, and Z is for Zoriontsuak

 Xixón (in Asturian), Gijón (in Spanish) is the largest city and municipality of the autonomous community of Asturias in northwest Spain.

This stamp celebrates the Gijón/Xixón International Film Festival, which originated in 1963. Link to the whole stamp sheet, which was issued. in 2019.

Yacimiento can be a deposit, as in natural resources (oil, gold, etc), or, as in this case, a site, referring to archeological finds. This stamp, issued in 2024, shows 2500-year-old sculptures of Tartessian faces found at Casas del Turuñuelo, located in Guareña in the Spanish province of Barajoz. You can read more at the wikipedia entry.

Zoriontsuak translates to happiness, as seen on this 2025 Christmas stamp. Eguberri zoriontsuak is Basque for merry Christmas (happy Christmas in also common in the UK and Commonwealth nations). 

I think this is the first A-Z I managed to complete! As Eva guessed earlier in this run, I was aiming for all the letters to represent Spanish words - I didn't quite manage that, with a few coming from other languages spoken in Spain. There was also the Flemish koning - not many words begin with k in Spanish, and I didn't find any stamps celebrating the metric system's kilometers or kilograms :)

In the end the common thread of this A-Z was stamps sent by Eva, with 26 non-English words. Huge thanks to Eva for all the interesting stamps she sends me!

For more X, Y, Z stamps, explore the links at See it on a Postcard

W is for Wolframio

 W is an uncommonly used letter in Spanish. Luckily, wolframio (tungsten in English), was discovered by Spanish brothers José and Fausto Elhuyar in 1783, and celebrated on this stamp. Tungsten (from Swedish meaning hard stone) is an exceptionally hard metal, with the highest known boiling point of the known metallic elements at 3,422°C (6,192°F).

Thanks again to Eva for sending this one.

For more W stamps, explore the links at See it on a Postcard

Happy 250th birthday, America!

I received a postcard yesterday with a Freedom 250 postmark.  The stamp issued last year shows a revolutionary battlefield scene.

The postcard shows Manistique East Breakwater Light, a lighthouse on Lake Michigan in the Upper Peninsula of the state of Michigan.

Happy Fourth of July!

Sunday Stamps: V is for Valencia

 The majority of Eva's mail is postmarked from Valencia.

And she also sent me a stamp featuring this beautiful city by the sea, founded as a Roman colony in 138 BC. It was issued in 2004, the year the World Philatelic Exhibition was held in Valencia.

For links to more V stamps, visit See it on a Postcard

U is for unión and universal

 We're up to the letter U, and here's a stamp from Spain commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Universal Postal Union in 2024. Founded in 1874, the UPU is based in Berne, Switzerland, and since 1948 has been part of the UN. If you're interested, the website for the UPU is here. 

Thanks to Eva for sending the stamp.

For more U stamps, explore the links at See it on a Postcard

And happy solstice!

T is for Tierra

 Tierra is Spanish for earth (terra) as featured on this great stamp from 2008 celebrating International Year of Planet Earth sent by Eva.

For more T stamps, visit the links at See it on a Stamp