September's First on September First

Hello to September. As I wrote yesterday, I have a beautiful cork postcard to start this month. My first cork card. It shows the Portuguese Navy school ship Sagres as it sails under The 25th of April Bridge. The Sagres has quite the history. It was launched in Germany in 1937 as the Albert Leo Schlageter. On 14 November 1944 she hit a Soviet mine in the Baltic. She ended up in Flensburg, Germany where she was taken over by the Allies when the war ended. She was then seized by the U.S. as war reparations. The U.S. then sold her to the Brazilian Navy in 1948. The Brazilians then sold her to the Portuguese Navy in 1961, to be used as a training ship, and that continues today.
Now the bridge. The 25th of April Bridge is a suspension bridge connecting Lisbon to Almada across the Tejo river. It opened on 6 August 1966. Because it is a suspension bridge and has similar coloring, it is often compared to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, US. It was built by the  American Bridge Company which constructed the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, but not the Golden Gate. With a total length of 2,277 m,  400 meters shorter.than the Golden Gate,  the bridge was named Salazar Bridge until 1974. The name " 25th of April " commemorates the Carnation Revolution of 1974. 

This is another card from my brother Dale. He recently was in Germany and now Portugal. Dale used a recent stamp from this year. It is 1 of a set of 2 stamps  commemorating the 150th Anniversary of  the International Telecommunication Union. It is the oldest of the intergovernmental organizations which have become specialized agencies of the United Nations. 

As I mentioned , Dale was in Germany and sent a wooden postcard and now it's a cork card from Portugal. 

Next is a card from Belgium. Here we see the Daltons , fictional outlaws who regularly appear in the Lucky Luke comic book series. 

Johan used 2 stamps of the Lucky Luke booklet of 10 and secured a First Day of Issue cancellation . 

A masterpiece to close out today's update. It's called Gare Saint - lazare and is an 1877 oil on canvas by Claude Monet. The painting shows the gigantic iron and glass construction of the roof, with its apex, placed symmetrically at the top of the picture on the vertical axis. 

Jeff used three stamps from 2008, 2010 and 2014. The often seen Tiffany Lamp is the oldest of the 3. The Butterfly stamp shows the Great Spangled Fritillary and the 44 cent snowboader stamp was issued for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. 

  

Well, that's it for today. A rather short update this time. Thanks for cards go out to Dale, johan and Jeff. Take care, drop by again soon.