Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Andorra, Japan, Japan Cover, U.S.A. and Wales

Hey today is Tuesday. Time for another update, although cards have been rather sketchy arriving. They seem to be dribbling in one or two every day or two. With that , I have a few cards and a cover for today. As the title says, cards are from Andorra, Japan USA and Wales.

First up , let's have a look at the card from Andorra. Even though it's quite small , I think Andorra is definitely on the list of places I would like to visit. One day I should put that list on the blog just for the record. Now at least you know Andorra will be there. On Jean Pierre's card we see an old bridge and an old tower. He used 2 Coat of Arms definitives from 2010 along with 1 of 2 stamps in a 2010 souvenir sheet, a joint issue with Spanish Andorra.

My next card is from Japan. I can't tell you anything about the front of the card, who he might be or anything . The card was sent by a Postcrosser in Yokohama City. She used a stamp released on the day she wrote the card, June 21st, a special stamp , a semi-postal, with a contribution for the Japan earthquake of march 11, 2011. A worthy cause indeed. Also notice the special postmark on the stamp.

Now, as I mentioned at the start, it was indeed Tuesday when I started this update. Needless to say I didn't get it finished. It's now Saturday, I took a few days off for a little R & R in the mountain parks. We spent time in Banff National park and Yoho national Park. It was great being in the outdoors , hiking, walking and cooking up. Of course I bought a few postcards , posted a few in Banff , so if you feel lucky, look in your mailbox in a little while.

Once again, it's Saturday, so time to get this update finished. I don't know what date will appear on the blog, but no matter. Ten cards awaited me on arrival home, last evening, so I have a few great cards for the next update.

Now, back to the cards at hand.
An interesting thing about the card from Japan above, is that it was posted way back in June and then returned to the sender, because of the postal lockout in Canada. Then it was put in an envelope and posted again on 10 July, after the lockout was over. So I got great stamps both times. A real bonus. One more thing, have a look at the sticker the sender sealed the envelope with, it matches the front of the postcard exactly. Pretty neat, I have to say.

My next card comes from Anchorage, Alaska, USA. It is a view of Marathon Mountain in Seward, Alaska, from around 1946, from the look of the cars on the street. The stamps on this one include a 2003 American Clock definitive , a Forever Love stamp from 2011 and one other that I find the most interesting. Another 2011 Forever stamp showing the Messenger spacecraft. Messenger was launched on August 03, 2004. It entered orbit around Mercury on March 18, 2011, the first spacecraft ever to do so. It is 1 of 2 stamps issued for the Mercury mission, the other one shows Alan Shepard, one of the original Mercury astronauts.
Nice stamp.

The final card for this long overdue update comes from Wales and was sent on Postcrossing's 6th anniversary. The picture is a reproduction of an old British Railways poster advocating Travel By Train. The beach at Aberystwyth is the subject and it's where Holiday Fun Begins according to the poster. A 76p Machin definitive was used on this card.

Well, that does it for this update. It took quite the time to finish up but I hope it was worth it. Leave a comment and let me know. My next update will have some of the 10 cards that arrived while I was away and for sure, there's good stuff there. Tune in soon .

Thanks to one and all who sent these cards.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Glenn,

May I reveal a secret of the Japanese postcard picture for you?

Look here.

Collection: Brooklyn Museum

Author: Toshusai Sharaku

Caption: Ichikawa Ebizo as Takemura Sadanoshin, 1794/5

And if you google it, you can learn even more.