A Mixed Bag of Cards to Start September

It's September 1st and time for another update. I have what I call a mixed bag of cards today. I have one airplane card, two from My Lovely Teena, three for my Towns of Newfoundland Collection, a Touchnote card and a card from Bray-Dunes.

Let's start off with the latest addition to my Aircraft/Airlines on postcards collection. It's a new Boeing 787 -8 Dreamliner. The 787 is a long-range, mid-size, wide-body, twin-engine jet airliner. The first 787 was delivered to All Nippon Airlines on Sept 25, 2011. The first commercial flight of a 787 was from Narita to Hong Kong for All Nippon. Tickets for the first flight were sold in an online auction , with the highest bidder paying $34,000 for a seat. My card shows a Japan Airlines B787, photo by Boeing Company. Thanks to Michael of cddstamps for this one. Michael used a 2007 definitive stamp, 1 of 2 in a bird set.

Next are the two cards from My Lovely Teena. Last week we went to Banff and Lake Louise for a couple of days to celebrate our 38th wedding anniversary. Teena was kind enough to drop a card in the mail to me , from each place. This first card, posted in Banff actually shows the Rocky Mountains and from looking at it, one can easily see that the mountains beat rush hour traffic any day. Teena used a 2012 Permanent stamp from the Titanic series issued on April 5th of this year.

Her second card , posted from Lake Louise Village , gives a great view of Chateau Lake Louise, the Lake and the Victoria Glacier. Her stamp here is another of the Titanic set of 4. Thanks Teena.

Now for 3 cards I have added to my Towns of Newfoundland Collection. They are from Carbonear, Flatrock and Raleigh. Let's look at the Carbonear card first. It is a picture of the old Carbonear Railway Station, built in 1918. It is now a museum and also the home of the Carbonear Heritage Society. Carbonear is a town of about 4,700 , located on the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland. The town is one of the oldest permanent settlements in Newfoundland and among the oldest settlements in North America. Thanks to Ron of the Heritage Society for this card. The definitive stamp is 1 of 4 in the Baby Wildlife issue of January 16th of this year.

Here's the second card , sent by the Town of Flatrock, with a couple of Newfoundland Ponies on it. Flatrock is another town of about 1,450 on the Avalon Peninsula, about 12 km northwest of St. John's. It was settled in 1762 by Norwegian settlers. Now let's look at the Newfoundland Pony, like those shown on the card. The Newfoundland Pony is a breed of pony originating in Newfoundland. It is North America's lone member of the Mountain and Moorland family of breeds. It is an all purpose pony, a Heritage Animal and a Rare Breed. The pony population now numbers fewer than four hundred and are considered critically endangered by Rare Breeds Canada. Dianne of Flatrock used the same stamp as on the Carbonear card, above.

The last Towns of Newfoundland card for this time is from the small town of Raleigh, located on the Great northern peninsula. Raleigh was originally named Ha Ha Bay after the bay it is located in. It has a small population of just around 300 , mostly aging , as the younger people move away for work or schooling. The picture on the card shows the picturesque community as seen from Aunt Martha's Hill. The Loon stamp shown here is the Oversized Mail rate stamp from the Baby Wildlife set of January 2012.

Two more cards to go. This next card is my first and maybe my last , who knows, Touchnote card. It is an Official Postcrossing card from Maya in Indonesia. One would never know that from the Postmark- that indicates Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Maya's card depicts a view of the Thousand Islands, at least seven of them, near Jakarta. Now, I don't know much about these touchnote cards, but I believe sending them was free for a short time. Now one must pay for this service , so we might not see many more. The card itself is of an excellent card stock, I wish all postcards were of this material. But, I want to go on the record here and say I hope that sending postcards does not end up this way- no stamps, and mailed from some strange land far removed from where you are sending from. Also, I believe the personal touch of a postcard is no longer there. That's my scoop on Touchnote.

The final card-- today's last card is from Bray-Dunes, the northernmost city or village of France. With a population of around 4,500 , Bray-Dunes is located on the Belgian border and is the northernmost point in all of France. This card is from Johan of Johan Postcards. Johan's stamp is 1 of 4 in a Joint Issue with Hong Kong issued on May 3rd.

So ends another update, thanks to Michael, My Lovely Teena, Dianne, Ron, The Raleigh Historical Society, Maya and Johan for all the cards. I am hoping to get in a few more updates this month than the 5 in each of the last 3 months. I have the cards , just finding the time is the big thing. It's a good thing I've retired. I don't know how I ever found time to work.

This past August was certainly a good month for postcards. I received a total of 67 cards, including 1 new country for the month. I mailed out 47 cards in all.

Take care, as always your comments are most welcome.