Archeological Survey Of India

A wonderful mini-sheet on matching envelope, set issued in december 2011. Thanks so much Sauj :)

YOTS- USA

Another Year Of The Snake cover, this time from Patrick - thank you :)

Shadow Play, Thailand

A set of stamps from the edition 'Amazing Thailand' 1998-1999

This beautiful set presents the Thai shadow theatre called Nang yai (Thai: หนังใหญ่), i.e. the puppets used while creating the shadow play. The main components of Nang Yai are a 6 by 16 white screen held by four bamboo or wood poles on each side. The screen is trimmed by red strip. Behind the screen strands a tinder or a bonfire lit up to reflect the shadows of the puppet. During the course of the show there is a Thai music band that plays music in accordance with each episode of the performance.



The puppet figures are made from perforated cow or buffalo hide, each weighing about three or fourkilograms. The biggest puppet is one which characterizes a place, weighing around five to seven kilograms. This is what the practical side of this would look like:



I have chosen this cover for today's Sunday Stamps, as we can choose anything we like for the theme - and this is one of the covers I really wanted to show for a while. Thank you Nina for yet another beautiful Thai cover :) What have others posted? Click here:

                                                        

YOTS - Serbia

Another fantastic cover from Serbia - simply love the design of the 'Year Of The Snake' stamps! Once again huge thanks goes to Ana :)) (I wonder if they thought it was a shame to cancel the pretty stamps...)

German Locomotives

At the end of last year I've persuaded my sister to send me this cool set of stamps showing the historical German steam locomotives, vielen dank ;)

Calgary Stampede, Canada

This was an absolute surprise in my mailbox from dear Bryon! Amazing mini-sheet, thanks so much :)) This issue from 2012 celebrates the 100th anniversary of Calgary Stampede, an annual rodeo, exhibition and festival held every July and lasting 10 days. Must be a fun event :)

Cayman Islands

One of the many great covers from Patrick's exotic travels ;) The stamp on the right is pretty obvious i think heh. I am especially thankful for the lizard stamp, which is from the gorgeous set of 5 'Darwin Initiative' issued in 2008 and showing the Little Cayman's Green Anole. Thanks so much Pat!

Art Cover From Czech Republic

This gorgeous cover features a set 'Works of art on Postage Stamps' representing works of painters Joža Uprka, Jaroslav Vožniak and August Bedřich Piepenhagen. The special cancellation commemorates the great personality of Czech public life, the late president Václav Havel.

Many thanks to Radim, who always puts so much thought into the covers he sends :))

Sunday Stamps #119 - Earth Day And Other April Celebrations.

At first this week's Sunday Stamps theme sounded tough...but in fact there are so many celebrations throughout April (or any other month!) its just that we are not aware of most of them..! I am now very thankful for the theme because I have already learnt a lot from other participants' posts :) However, I have been aware of Earth Day (April 22) since primary school, as our biology teacher was very keen to teach her pupils to treat Mother Earth kindly and thoughtfully. To celebrate this day, Croatian Mail has issued a lovely wolf stamp in 1994.

The back of the maxi card explains: The wolf (Canis Lupus) is a symbol of human's mindless destruction and negative influence upon nature. At this moment there are only 50 representatives of this species in Croatia, which points out the urgent necessity to protect them.

According to wikipedia, in the meantime this number has approximately quadrupled! I have never seen a wolf in my country, but then again I never ventured to their habitat...If you wonder about the postage, no its not 3800 kunas - back in those days we used trasition money called Croatian Dinar :)

And how does this FDC relate to April? Its a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) cover - I believe this international non-governmental organisation is well- known to all nature lovers out there :) Its the world's largest independent conservation organization with over 5 million supporters worldwide, working in more than 100 countries, supporting around 1300 conservation and environmental projects. The official date of its fundation (or we could say its birthday) is April 29, 1961. The cover shows eland antelope (Taurotragus Oryx), a savannah and plains antelope found in East and Southern Africa. As I am not yet a full-blooded cover collector, when I buy FDC i mainly look for the year 1977 (you may guess - the year of my birth) and preferably december. And then again preferably animals :)

 And what would be the most numerable celebration (in April)? Birthdays! April (until the 20th) is the month of Aries, first of the twelve zodiac signs who is adventurous, energetic and quick-witted. It relates to the (relatively small) constellation in the Northern Hemisphere with brightest star Alpha Ari. I have found this singular stamp in my random philatelic collection...The set was issued in 1970. I love Zodiac stamps, i wish I had more!

And now you can click here and learn many new things about April celebrations..!

 

Sunday Stamps #118 - Lighthouses

Very glad that today's theme for Sunday Stamps are Lighthouses :)) Why? For a few reasons - I do love lighthouses, esp in my country where they are regularly situated on islands and look like a perfect place to relax and get away from the stress of everyday life. I havent visited any of them yet but it remains a big wish! Also, Croatian Mail has been issuing sets of lighthouse stamps each year since 2007, so I have a lot to show!

Ok ok I wont overflow my blog heh, but here is one FDC with the 2007 set, showing three lighthouses of the northern Adriatic - Savudrija, Sveti Ivan and omnipresent-on-postcards Porer.  The FDC even displays their locations relative to each other :)

What else is there? More than you think, have a look!

Year Of The Snake - Liechtenstein

 

This year I havent been able to swap much for Year Of The Snake stamps, but this is one of the few treasures that I have received and am overwhelmed by its beauty - the stamp has the pattern of the chinese paper cut art, love it! Croatian Mail didnt issue Chinese Zodiac stamps this year, I suppose that the last year's dragon issue was just an exception, sadly. Snakes are disliked (to say the least) by many but I admire some aspects of these creatures...hope to get a few more different covers :) 

Many thanks to Ruedi of Switzerland!

Belgium - The Smurfs!

This is one of my favourite covers so far - The Smurfs is THE cartoon of my childhood <3

2008, the year of the issue, was Smurfs 50th anniversary. The Belgian Post celebrated by issuing a set of 10 self-adhesive stamps (also featuring Gargamel, would love to get it!) and a mini-sheet with 5 stamps showing a full-blooded smurf-party - these three stamps are part of the latter. Many many thanks to Gerda for swapping with me and sending these now-rare stamps!!