After Storm Report

I'm back - yes we got our snow - 36 cm in fact. Now everything looks quite wintery and beautiful.  A real postcard scene indeed.
The mail continued to arrive, even during the snowfall so I have 4 or 5 cards to showcase today.

First is one from the Netherlands. This one pretty well covers all the themes - Postcrossing, postboxes and stamps. I imagine that it even contains postcards. I see stamps from the Netherlands, Russia, Spain and the DDR or the old East Germany, The United Nations ,also Bulgaria , Switzerland and Czechoslovakia. Anyone see any country I have missed ?  I see a couple more but I'll leave them just to see if anyone is paying attention . This is a great card and I thank Barbara for it.

Not to be outdone by all the stamps on the front of the card, Barbara used 4 stamps on the reverse.  The small stamp on the left was issued in a set of 20 for Christmas 2003. They are classed as  heat sensitive .  The long stamp on the bottom was issued in 2007 and is classed as a Standard Letter Business Stamp. The other two stamps constitute a Souvenir Sheet issued in 2001 for AMPHILEX 2002 - the major stamp exhibition held in Amsterdam from 30 August to 3 September 2002, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the introduction of the first postage stamps in the Netherlands.

That's a fine addition to my stamp collection.


Eighteen different Belgian Beers are featured on my next card. I know many people enjoy beer or a beer and they sure look like they are enjoying it,  but not me. I have never had a cold one - I have tried a number of times over the years but it wasn't for me. I'll just stick to my rum , thank you. But I still like the card.

Johan secured a special cancellation of Belgian Beer Culture on this card with 1 of 5 stamps issued this past January , celebrating the Belgian Beer Culture.

From Belgium we're off to Germany with a card showing one of the infamous half-timbered houses. Possibly the greatest number of half-timbered houses in the world are to be found in Germany, along the so called German Half-Timbered Route, leading from the river Elbe in northern Germany to Lake Constance in the south. Along this route , 98 towns have united to protect these half-timbered towns.

A Postcrosser named Uschi sent this card and used a couple of the seemingly forever issue of the German Flower definitives.

Now it's back to the Netherlands for one more card. This time the subject is the Basilica of Saints Agatha and Barbara, a Roman Catholic basilica in the Dutch village of Oudenbosch. The basilica is a replica of the famous St. Peter's Basilica in Rome and was opened in 1892 and is  "only" 16 times smaller than the one in Rome.

This is another card from Barbara and as such is loaded with stamps again. On the top left is 1 of 6 stamps issued in 2017 as Children's Stamps. The stamp on the right was issued in 2009 and celebrates the 200th Anniversary of the Birth of Louis Braille. The other 2 stamps are from the NL Definitive issue.

I think with that , I'll call it a day. I had another card but I'll hold it for a later time. Today I have to thank Barbara , Johan and Uschi for their cards. It's great to receive them and I love showing them all here.
  Now I have one more bit of business before signing off today. I would like to conduct a little survey with my reader's help. I want to know your opinion on which size you think best for the postcards I put on here. I have changed the size format a couple of times and want to make a final decision.
Here are your choices .

Size "A "

Or   Size " B "

So what do you like best - A or B ?
Leave a comment with your choice.  I'll appreciate each and every comment as it will help me make that final decision on the postcard size. Thanks to all .