More Great Cards and a Little Correction

Hello again, time to get a last update in before the month ends. But, first I have to make a little correction . In the last update before this one , I wrote that I had 11 more countries or stamp issuing entities left to collect or to receive a stamped postcard from . Well that was an error , I actually have only 10 left to collect. My list of 11 included Djibouti, but as any avid follower of this blog will recall - I highlighted a Djibouti card way back on March 9th of 2011. It was compliments of David. So with that correction in place, I can move on and safely say I have just 10 more to collect and 10 sounds better than 11.  Now on to more current cards.

Let's start with the last 3 from David that I didn't get around to in my last update. On the first card we see Peace Avenue, in Kladikavkaz, capital of North Ossetia, in the south of Russia. It is located in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains on the Terek River.

David used a large stamp from 2015 celebrating the 500 year anniversary of the fortress Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin. It was built between 1508 and 1515.

Next is a new addition to my Aviation collection of postcards. It is a Tupolev144, a retired jet airliner and the world's first commercial supersonic air transport. It's first flight was on Dec 31, 1968, two months before the first flight of Concorde. Sixteen of the TU-144s were built and flew a total of 102 flights in total . The aircraft's nickname in the west was Concordski.

David used a souvenir sheet from 2015 on this card. It commemorates Chersonesos, an ancient Greek colony founded approximately 2,500 years ago in the southwestern part of the Crimean Peninsula. Located on the outskirts of Sevastopol , it is nicknamed  the " Ukranian Pompeii " and was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2013.

Now we have the Swallow's Nest near Yalta , Crimea, Russia. The castle was built between 1911 and 1912 on the 40 metre high Aurora Cliff. The Swallow's Nest is one of the most popular attractions in Crimea.

David's stamps this time are from a sheet of 18 showing Russian Orders and Medals. The sheet was issued this year.

Here's a card showing an aerial view of  the marina in Benalmadena, Costa del Sol, in southern Spain. The area has discos, hotels, shops, beaches, an aquarium and the above mentioned marina.

This is a card from Johan and he used a 2016 Tourism stamp . It is from a set of 2.

I think that's it for this time. Hope to be back again soon. Thanks to David and Johan for today's cards.

Hello , It's Me Again and New Stamp Issuing Entity # 263

Well, here we go with another postcard update. As I mentioned yesterday, all the cards today are either from David or Jean Pierre. So thanks to both of them.
Let's start with a card from Rakvere, Estonia. This is a town of about 15,000 people in northern Estonia , about 20 km south of the Gulf of Finland. The area dates back to the 3rd - 5th centuries AD.
 David's card gives us a look at local landscapes and at Altja boathouses.

David used a definitive on the left and a Year of The Sheep stamp from 2015, on the right.

Here's the first of Jean Pierre's cards. It comes to us from Kingstown, capital of St. Vincent. The card shows E.T. Joshua Airport, which is located near the city of Kingstown. It is a hub for Grenadine Airways, Mustique Airways and S.V.G. Air.

Jean Pierre used a nice Aviation themed stamp along with a Coat of Arms definitive. The larger stamp was issued in 2006 and celebrates the 150th Anniversary of LIAT Airlines.

Now it's another from David, sent from Sevastopol, Crimea, Russia, formally a city of Ukraine. The city is located in the southwestern region of the Crimean peninsula on the Black Sea. We are all familiar with what happened there back in March of 2014, so I don't need to go into all that, other than to say that this new status is not internationally recognized. Crimea and Sevastopol is still considered by Ukraine, the EU, most nations and the UN as part of Ukraine.  However, don't expect it to change back to Ukraine any time soon.
David's card gives us a look at The Eagle Column. This commemorates Russian ships deliberately scuppered at the mouth of the harbour in 1854 to make it impossible for enemy ships to pass.

A number of stamps on this one. The top two are from a set of 4 issued under the theme " Air Attacks " . The long vertical stamp on the left is from a set of 18 titled Decorations of the Russian Federation. The lower right stamp is 1 of 2 in a set issued in 2014 for Russian Regions - Sevastopol and Crimea. David believes this set to be the first Russian stamps showing Crimea after its takeover in 2014.

One more from Jean Pierre - this time arriving from gorgeous , sunny Barbados. It's fun in the sun on this beach, I'm sure. It's been too many years since My Lovely Teena and I spent any time in Barbados , so I'm sure it's time to go back. And right between those two trees is where I should be.

Two nice large stamps on this one. On the left is a Golden Apple stamp from the Local Fruits set of 10 issued in 2011. On the right is 1 of 14 in the Builders of Barbados set issued this year. This one shows Clement Osbourne Payne, a pioneer in the Caribbean trade union movement. His main principal was " Educate, Agitate, but do not Violate " . A good line for a union man.
This Builders of Barbados issue is replacing the Local Fruits set.

This next one is David's card from Simferopol, Crimea, Russia. The city is located in the south central part of the Crimean Peninsula.  This card shows us Holy Trinity Monastery , a Ukrainian Orthodox Church, in which are kept the relics of St Luke the Doctor and Archbishop of Crimea.

On this one David used a couple of Kremlin definitives from 2009 along with the second Crimea Region stamp from 2014, a set of 2 which I mentioned earlier.

Now it's the last one from Jean Pierre for this time. It arrived from Soufriere, Saint Lucia, a town of about 8,000 located on the west coast of the island. His card shows the Pitons, 2 giant volcanic plugs located south of Soufriere . They were cited as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005.

The insect stamp on the left is 1 of 8 Dragonflies in a set issued in 2014, even though they carry a 2013 date.  Then on the right is a definitive from a 2014 set of 14 Fruits.

Okay, this next card is from stamp issuing entity # 263 of my collection. It is South Ossetia, a partially recognized state in the South Caucasus. It is south of Russia and lies within the former Georgian SSR. South Ossetia declared its Independence from Georgia in 1990 , declaring itself the Republic of South Ossetia. It is only recognized  by Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Nauru. Not the kind of recognition one would like for one's country.   Guess DPRK was busy that day.
David's card shows a lady doing a traditional Ossetian dance and was posted in Tskhinval.

The card arrived with only South Ossetia stamps, and no Russian , no Georgian, so that's why it's  #263.
These are my first South Ossetia stamps and as such, I have limited information on them. On the left is a 2014 stamp with the title - Joining to Russia. The other two, the  flag stamps were also issued in 2014. On the left stamp is the White/Red/Yellow South Ossetia Flag. On the other flag stamp is the Coat of Arms and Flag of South Ossetia.
I'm not sure of the red/green/red flag on each stamp, but I might take a guess and say , it's the flag of Transnistria. Anyone who knows for sure , please leave a comment , Transnistria or not ?
 Surely all the vexillologists out there will jump at this chance to shine.

Anyway, here are the stamps.

Now of course with # 263 in hand, I just need a card from 11 more to have received at least 1 card mailed from every country and stamp issuing entity out there  ( at least according to my list ).
I know there are some others that do issue their own stamps and the mail does seem to get through - I guess I'll start that list after I get those missing 11 cards.  The 11 are - Australian Antarctic Territory, Central African Republic, Congo ( Dem Republic ) , Djibouti, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Niuafo'ou, Sierre Leone, South Sudan , Tokelau Islands and Transniestria.
So, anyone out there or anyone know anyone going to any of these hot tourist destinations , remember me and send a card, you'll sure be in my good book.

That's 7 cards for today, more than enough I think. I save the other 3 from David for next time.
Thanks for the cards, Jean Pierre and David. You guys make my day.
Now I have just one more request, for any of my American readers out there. I would really like to receive a Donald J Trump postcard. I don't even know if they exist, but I'm pretty sure they do. There are buttons, pins, bumper stickers, and ball caps, so there must be postcards. Whether he wins or loses, I think it would be a good collectible.  So come on America, help out a Canadian, there's no Wall between us, it's the longest undefended border in the world.

There , that's it for today. Drop by again soon. Take care.

It's About Time - The Big Return

Hello again, well it's been a while , three weeks or so. I was on a road trip to northern Alberta, northern British Columbia, The Yukon and Alaska. I put 5500 kilometers on the car, along with a lot of dust. The road may be paved but there are many sections in the north under reconstructon and very dusty. A few years ago I sailed in to Skagway , Alaska on a cruise ship and thought - it would be great to return sometime via road and drive the Alaska Highway. Along the way we visited Grande Prairie, Fort Nelson, Fort St John, Watson Lake, Whitehorse, Haines Junction, Carcross, Teslin, Dawson Creek, Mayerthorpe, and Destruction Bay. All great places to send postcards from.
Since my last blog update 3 weeks ago, I have received lots of great cards, from great place all sent by great people, like Johan, Ravindra, Jean Pierre, David, Jobbo, My Lovely Teena, Evan and Ryann, Dominique, Carla, Barbara and Kim-Newfie Girl. There are a few others , too. Over 50 cards , so there's not much excuse for not getting a few blogs out over the next few days. So let's get started.

First is a card sent by two of my grandkids. Evan and Ryann recently travelled to Ontario for 9 or 10 days. So I got a card from Niagara Falls, showing the Canadian Horseshoe Falls. Evan wrote that he got soaked from the mist. I know that feeling, it happened to me years ago when I took Evan's Dad and Uncle to Niagara falls, when they were young boys.

Here's a few facts about The Falls. Approximately 90 % of the Niagara River flows over Horseshoe Falls. The falls is 52 Metres in height and one-fifth of all the fresh water in the world cascades over Niagara Falls. Roughly 750,000 gallons of water go over the falls every second.

     
Evan used a World Heritage Site stamp from 2014. It shows Old Town Lunenburg in Nova Scotia. Thanks Evan and Ryann, Love you both. It was great having you out for the sleepover a couple nights ago.

Now on to my second card. It arrived from Sri Lanka, and shows the Seven Maidens Mountain Range. Not to be confused with The Three Sisters in Canmore, near here.
Sri Lanka issued a great stamp back on May 22, 2003 for World Diversity Day showing the Seven Maidens.

Ravindra used another of the Solar System set from 2014. This one shows the ringed planet , Saturn. I now have 7 of the 10 in the set. Only Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune are missing.

This next card is from The Rock - not The Rock that I originally came from, but Gibraltar, between Europe and Africa. You can easily see the Strait of Gibraltar between the two on Johan's card.

Johan used a 2015 definitive featuring Queen Elizabeth. It is from
 a set of 5.

Here's a Maximum card from Australia, showing Tasman Bridge. The bridge was constructed between 1960 and 1964. It is 1,396 metres long and 60.5 metres high. It crosses the Derwent River.

This maxi-card was issued March 15th of this year. The stamp , 1 of 3 in the Bridges set, had it's First Day of Issue in Gladesville.   Kim  or Newfie Girl sent this card along.


Thailand is up next. Here's the Marble Temple, in Bangkok. Wat Benchamabophit is a Buddhist Temple , one of Bangkok's most beautiful temples and a major tourist attraction. Construction of the temple started in 1899. It contains 52 Buddha statues. The temple was featured in the Amazing Race 9 as the 10th and final pit-stop.

A nice selection of stamps on this one, as always with any card from Jobbo. On the left is 1 of 4 in a 1997 set celebrating the Centennial of Cinema in Thailand. In the middle , from 2012, is 1 of 4 stamps celebrating the 150th Anniversary  of the Birthday of Prince Damrong Rajanubhab. On the right , from 2002, is a stamp honouring 100 Years of Thai Banknotes.

My Thailand stamp collection continues to grow thanks to Jobbo.


These two next cards, most likely the last for today, arrived from Castine, Maine, USA. Castine is one of the oldest towns in New England and even North America. It predates the Plymouth Colony by seven years. The Castine Post Office , from where these 2 came from, was built in 1814 and is the oldest Post Office in continuous operation in the United States.
Here's a common sight along the Maine coast. A lobster shack , Russell's Lobster Shack in fact, with lobster pots and buoys.

Three wonderful stamps on this one. All from a 2014 sheet of 16 in the Vintage Circus Posters set. In my opinion the best and most attractive set of stamps put out by the United States in a long, long time. Just my opinion of course.

Here's the complete sheet, what do you think ? Yes or no, like or dislike, let's do a poll.

Now for the last card, another one from Castine, Maine. This one shows a typical foggy day along the Maine coast.

Doug from the Castine Post Office used 3 of 5 stamps in the March 2015 issue celebrating the works of Mexican artist Martin Ramirez.

There you have it, the first update in a while, I hope it was worth waiting for . More to the point of course, I hope somebody decided to revisit this site after such a long time of no activity.
Today, thanks for cards go out to Doug, Jobbo, Kim, Johan, Ravindra and of course Evan and Ryan , my grandkids.

Thanks for coming by today, hope you'll come back soon. My next update will be a good one, I'm going to try and get through all the cards from David and Jean Pierre. And, you know that'll be a lot of cards. It'll also contain a new stamp- issuing entity for me. number 263. But you'll have to come back to find out where that is. Take care, Cheers.

A New Update, Finally

Well I'm finally back here with a new update with cards, this time. June is gone, Canada Day is past and all my troubles with the new computer, printer and scanner are all behind me. Now it's onward with new postcards and stamps. First up is a card from Greece. Strange thing, I've been at this card business for 10 years or so and this is just my 5th card from that country. Compare that to Belarus at 35, Finland at 92 and Poland at 32. I mean, I've got 4 from Antarctica and 3 each from St. Helena and South Georgia. Maybe the scarcity of cards from Greece has something to do with the economics of the country the last few years. Perhaps the cost of mailing a postcard is right up there with the cost of feeding a family. Maybe it's just too expensive. I'm sure someone will let me know. Comments ? My card wasn't sent by resident of the country but by a visitor. It's an interesting card in that just about everything one needs to know about the country of Greece is on the face of the card. Who needs Google ? From the card I learn the area, population, the capital , a list of famous Greeks and some history of Greece. Have a look.

Ana of the blog " My Wold of Postcards " visited Athens and sent this card . Hopefully she made it back home by now, as the trains were on strike in Greece apparently. You can check out her fine postcard blog right  here . Ana used 3 great water themed stamps from 2012 and 2015. The middle stamp is one of 10 in a Marine Life set issued in 2012. The other 2 , from 2015 are from a set 6 entitled Diving.

Next up is typical housing in Kaysersberg, Alsace-Lorraine, France. Kaysersberg is located in the north-eastern part of France and is the birthplace of Dr. Albert Schweitzer. A local specialty of the area is Pinot gris wine.

Dominique used a stamp from 2015. It is 1 of 6 in a set showcasing The Sixties. On it we see The France, an ocean liner / cruise ship which was launched on May 11, 1960.

Next up is a card from Phoenix, Arizonia, U.S.A. It's a great look at the Flag of Arizona. The flag represents the copper star of Arizona rising from a blue field in the face of a setting sun. It was designed by Charles Harris and was adopted on 1917.

A Postcrosser named Jaimee living in Phoenix sent this card . She used one of the 2016 Global Forever Moon stamps.

Now here's a card that arrived from Munich.   It shows one of  Kirk Reinert's illustrations called          " Dance of Joy " .  He is one of the leading illustrators in the themes of fantasy, horror and science fiction.

Finja used 2 self-adhesive, se-tenant stamps from 2014 showing Dresden.

One more card from Germany - this one gives a look at the Ruhr valley.

Jorg used a number of stamps on this card. On the left is a 8 cent additional value stamp from 2015. Then there are 2 Flower definitives, which we've all seen before. Finally on the right is a stamp celebrating Ernst Litfass , from this year . He was a German printer and publisher, and inventor of the free-standing cylindrical adverting column which bears his name in German. His columns gained some fame in a few movies - The Third Man, Gremlins 2 and Men In Black II , as escape routes to elsewhere. Litfass was tired of the unsystematic and careless posting of pamphlets, notices, and other materials on walls, doors, fences and trees and designed his columns to help clean areas up. I know of a few places this side of the pond that could use a few of his columns.

 

Just 2 more cards to go, so stick around.
This one is from Patrycja, a young Postcrossser in Nowy Sacz, in the south of Poland. The city of just over 83,000 , was founded by the Duke of Krakow on 8 November 1292. The town is one of the oldest in the region.

Patrycja used an Easter stamp from this year. It is 1 of the set of 3.

The last card today is a great Aviation related card. It's RA-07875, an Antonov AN-2. This was a Soviet mass-produced single engine biplane. It's also the largest single engine biplane ever built. The AN-2 was in production from 1947-2001 with over 18,000 built.

Ekaterina from Moscow used 2 stamps on her card. On the left is a definitive from 2015 , while the stamp on the right was issued in 2013 for the 18th IAP ( International  Association of Prosecutors )  Conference.

There you have it , today's update. Thanks going out to Ana, Dominique, Jaimee, Frinja, Jorg, Patrycja and Ekaterina for all these great cards.Big Thanks to you all.