Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Singapore: Haw Par Villa

On Saturday I got two postcards: one from Singapore and one from France.

The card from Singapore shows Haw Par Villa. Haw Par Villa is a theme park about Chinese mythology and Confucianism. It was opened in 1937.


Stamp:
Pulau Ubin (from set of four) (issued 18-07-2014)


Thank You very much Jobbo!

France: Boulogne-sur-Mer

On Saturday I got two postcards: one from France and one from Singapore.

The card from France shows various views of Boulogne-sur-Mer. Boulogne-sur-Mer is a city in northern France and France's leading fishing port. The city was used for the conquest of Britain during the Roman period. 


Stamps:
Marianne 0,01€, 0,05€ and 0,10€
Father Victor Dillard (issued 06-10-2017)
with a special postmark about a philatelic congress in Boulogne-sur-Mer


Thank You very much William!

Sunday, October 29, 2017

Israel: Masada

On Wednesday I got a postcard from Israel.

It shows Masada. Masada is a former fortress in the Judean Dessert. It was built by King Herod the Great and is best known for the Siege of Masada at the end of the Jewish-Roman War in 73. Today it is one of the most visited tourist attractions in Israel. In 2001 Masada was one of the first two sites in Israel to be added to the UNESCO World Heritage List.


Stamps:
Shimon Peres (issued 12-09-2017)
Mosaics in Eretz Israel (from set of three) (issued 17-11-2016)


Thank You very much Olga!

cover from Bulgaria

On Wednesday I got not only a postcard but also a cover from Bulgaria.

Stamp:
200th birthday of Ivan Aivazovsky (issued 26-07-2017)


Inside was a Bulgarian souvenir sheet about the Centenary of the Battle of Doiran (issued 09-05-2017).

Bulgaria entered World War I on 14th October 1915 alongside the Central Powers. With the entry into World War I Bulgaria hoped to reclaim territories lost during the Balkan Wars. Although it was the smallest member of the Central Powers in area and in population, Bulgaria made vital contributions to their common war effort. After Bulgaria's entry the Balkan theatre saw successful campaigns of rapid movement in 1915 and 1916, but soon the conflict degraded into a state of trench warfare and Bulgaria was forced to seek peace in 1918. An armistice with the Entente was signed on 30th September 1918.

The Second Battle of Doiran was fought between Bulgaria and the United Kingdom in April and May 1917. The battle ended with a Bulgarian victory and thus thwarted an Allied breakthrough at the Balkan front.


Thank You very much Ganka!

Friday, October 27, 2017

India: Atlas Moth

On Monday I got a postcard from India.

It shows an Atlas Moth. The Atlas Moth is found in the tropical and subtropical forests of Southeast Asia, Southern China and India. It is one of the largest moths in the World. In India Atlas Moths are cultivated in a non-commercial capacity for their silk, which is said to have greater durability than normal silk.


Stamps:
500 years of contacts with Portugal (from set of two) (issued 07-01-2017)
It is a joint issue with Portugal.
Nature of India (two from set of six) (issued 25-01-2017)
with a postmark from the World's highest post office in Hikkim


Thank You very much Dwaipayan!

cover from Germany

On Monday I got not only a postcard but also a cover from Germany.

Stamps:
Supplemental Stamp 8c (issued 03-12-2015)
25 years German Unity (issued 01-10-2015)
with a special postmark about this year's German Unity Day


Monday, October 23, 2017

Australia: Heard Island

On Friday I got a postcard from Australia.

It shows King Penguins on Heard Island. Heard Island is a subantarctic island in the Southern Ocean. Since 1947 it belongs to Australia and is a part of the Australian external territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands. It is unhabited and there are no alien plants and animals, making it one of the World’s rare pristine island ecosystems. It provides the opportunity to observe ongoing geomorphic processes and glacial dynamics, as the only volcanically active subantarctic islands are all located within this Australian territory. Heard and McDonald Islands are since 1997 on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The card is a maxicard. The stamp is from a set of four and was issued on 5th September 2017.


The card is prepaid.


Thank You very much Xue!

Germany: Ducal Palace Museum in Braunschweig

On Friday I visited once again the Ducal Palace Museum in Braunschweig to see their new special exhibition and was very happy to see that they finally printed some nice new postcards. 

The Ducal Palace Museum is a history museum in the Brunswick Palace and shows the original furniture of the palace. Other themes of the museum are the history of the palace and of the Duchy of Brunswick. The Ducal Palace Museum was inaugurated in 2011.



Sunday, October 22, 2017

Germany: Stendal

On Thursday I got two postcards from Germany. They both show various views of Stendal.

Stendal is a town in the German State of Saxony-Anhalt. It is a former member of the Hanseatic League and is known as unofficial capital of the Altmark Region. It preserves a picturesque old town. The Altmark Museum (left column middle) shows exhibits about the history of Stendal and the Altmark Region. Stendal Station is the most important interchange and rail hub in the north of Saxony-Anhalt.
I got both cards a few weeks ago in a cover.


With a related stamp:
300th birthday of Johann Joachim Winckelmann (issued 12-10-2017)
with a special postmark showing the Apollo Belvedere


Johann Joachim Winckelmann, the father of the modern archaeology and the discipline of art history, was born in Stendal in 1717. In Stendal there are today a Winckelmann Statue (lower right corner) and the only Winckelmann Museum in the World (upper right corner), which was opened in 1955.


With a matching stamp:
300th birthday of Johann Joachim Winckelmann (issued 12-10-2017)
with a matching special postmark


Thank You very much Anke for sending me the cards in an envelope!

Saturday, October 21, 2017

Germany: Fix and Foxi

Fix and Foxi are the protagonists of one of Germany's most famous, popular and successful comics. They were created by Rolf Kauka in 1953 and their stories were published in weekly comics until 1994. In the comic's heyday it was published with a circulation up to 400000 per week and allegedly a total of over 750 million comic books were sold internationally. In 2000, 2005 and 2010 the series was relaunched and in 2000 they also appeared in a TV series. Apart from the foxes Fix and Foxi other main characters of the series include the wolf Lupo, his grandma Eusebia and Fix and Foxi's uncle Fax.

To commemorate Stamp Day and the 100th birthday of Rolf Kauka a special stamp showing Fix and Foxi was issued on 7th September 2017. For the issue the German Post also issued a set of three Fix and Foxi postcards. I bought this set and got the three cards cancelled with different special postmarks. The two cards with First Day Special Postmarks from Berlin and Bonn arrived a few weeks ago. The third card with a special postmark from Wittenberg just arrived on Wednesday, as I sent it later to the postmarking unit than the other two cards.







Earlier this year the Wilhelm Busch Museum in Hanover organised a special exhibition about Rolf Kauka and Fix and Foxi. I visited it and bought two more cards for my collection.


On Wednesday I also got a cover with the Fix and Foxi stamp and a special postmark from Königslutter, which shows Lupo.


Friday, October 20, 2017

Germany: Brake Castle in Lemgo

On Tuesday I got two postcards: one from Germany and one from France.

The card from Germany shows Brake Castle in Lemgo. Brake Castle was first mentioned in 1306 and from 1587 onwards it was renovated in the Renaissance style. Since 1986 it houses the Weserrenaissance Museum.


Stamp:
100th birthday of Heinz Sielmann (issued 08-06-2017)


Thank You very much Marcel!

France: Dunkirk

On Tuesday I got two postcards: one from France and one from Germany.

The card from France shows various views of Dunkirk. Dunkirk is the northernmost city in France and the World's northernmost Francophone city. It is especially known for the Battle of Dunkirk during World War II.


Stamp:
EUROMED - Trees of the Mediterranean (issued 11-07-2017)
with a special postmark from the philatelic shop in Dunkirk


Thank You very much William!

Thursday, October 19, 2017

Germany: Theses Doors in Wittenberg

On Monday I got a postcard from Germany.

It shows the Theses Doors at the Castle Church in Wittenberg, where Martin Luther allegedly posted his Ninety-five Theses in 1517. The Theses Doors are massive commemorative bronze doors, which were mounted onto the jambs where the original wooden ones had been located before they were destroyed. The Theses Doors were inaugurated in 1858. The Ninety-five Theses are inscribed in their original Latin form on the doors.

To commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation a group of Postcrossers organises a series of Meet-ups at important places in Martin Luther's life. The third of four was held on Saturday in Wittenberg.


The card was signed during the Meet-up.
Stamp:
Saxon Switzerland (issued 02-06-2016)


Thank You very much Thomas!

cover from France

On Monday I got not only a postcard but also a cover from France.

With a nice stamp:
Marianne 0,01€, 0,05€ and 0,10€
Hello Maestro (issued 25-09-2017)
with a special postmark from the philatelic shop in Dunkirk


Inside was a souvenir sheet about castles from Jersey (issued 02-03-2017).


Thank You very much William!

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Germany: Hamm Station

On Saturday I got a postcard from Germany.

It shows the Hamm Station. The Hamm Station was opened in 1847 by the Cologne-Minden Railway Company and is today an important railway hub in the eastern Ruhr Area. The station building is a good example of the style of the Historism.


Stamp:
Lily of the Valley (issued 06-05-2010)


Thank You very much Marcel!

cover from Belarus

On Saturday I got not only a postcard but also a cover from Belarus.

The cover is prepaid and was added with four stamps:
Wild Animals (from set of five) (issued 10-12-2014)
National Emblem (two from set of twelve) (issued 06-07-2016)


Inside were three written and stamped postcards.

The first card shows the Marc Chagall House Museum in Vitebsk. The Marc Chagall House Museum was opened in 1997 in the house where Marc Chagall spent his childhood.


Stamp:
National Emblem (from set of twelve) (issued 06-07-2016)
with a special Postcrossing postmark from Vitebsk


The second card shows a Great Snipe. The Great Snipe is a small wader, breeding in marshes and wet meadows with short vegetation in north-eastern Europe. It is a migratory bird and winters in Africa. The European breeding population is in steep decline.


On the backside is the special Postcrossing postmark from Vitebsk.
Stamp:
National Emblem (from set of twelve) (issued 06-07-2016)
with a special postmark about the Slavianski Bazaar in Vitebsk


The third card shows a Hawfinch. The Hawfinch is a bird in the finch family. It breeds in woodland and parkland with large trees across Europe and temperate Asia.


On the backside is the special Postcrossing postmark from Vitebsk.
Stamp:
Wild Animals (from set of five) (issued 10-06-2008)
with a special postmark about the Slavianski Bazaar in Vitebsk


Thank You very much Elena!

The United Kingdom and World War I

On Saturday I got my stamp orders from Croatia, Hungary and the United Kingdom. Among the British stamps I ordered is this year's set of six stamps about the Centenary of World War I (issued 31-07-2017).

The first stamp shows the artwork Shattered Poppy by John Ross. For this artwork John Ross froze freshly cut poppies and broke the brittle petals with a metal rod. 


The second stamp shows a stanza of Dead Man’s Dump by Isaac Rosenberg. Isaac Rosenberg was a British painter and poet. He arrived at the Western Front in the summer of 1916.

Dead Man’s Dump

The plunging limbers over the shattered track 
Racketed with their rusty freight, 
Stuck out like many crowns of thorns, 
And the rusty stakes like sceptres old 
To stay the flood of brutish men 
Upon our brothers dear. 

The wheels lurched over sprawled dead 
But pained them not, though their bones crunched, 
Their shut mouths made no moan. 
They lie there huddled, friend and foeman, 
Man born of man, and born of woman, 
And shells go crying over them 
From night till night and now. 

Earth has waited for them, 
All the time of their growth 
Fretting for their decay: 
Now she has them at last! 
In the strength of their strength 
Suspended—stopped and held. 

What fierce imaginings their dark souls lit? 
Earth! have they gone into you! 
Somewhere they must have gone, 
And flung on your hard back 
Is their soul’s sack 
Emptied of God-ancestralled essences. 
Who hurled them out? Who hurled? 

None saw their spirits’ shadow shake the grass, 
Or stood aside for the half used life to pass 
Out of those doomed nostrils and the doomed mouth, 
When the swift iron burning bee 
Drained the wild honey of their youth. 

What of us who, flung on the shrieking pyre, 
Walk, our usual thoughts untouched, 
Our lucky limbs as on ichor fed, 
Immortal seeming ever? 
Perhaps when the flames beat loud on us, 
A fear may choke in our veins 
And the startled blood may stop. 

The air is loud with death, 
The dark air spurts with fire, 
The explosions ceaseless are. 
Timelessly now, some minutes past, 
Those dead strode time with vigorous life, 
Till the shrapnel called ‘An end!’ 
But not to all. In bleeding pangs 
Some borne on stretchers dreamed of home, 
Dear things, war-blotted from their hearts. 

Maniac Earth! howling and flying, your bowel 
Seared by the jagged fire, the iron love, 
The impetuous storm of savage love. 
Dark Earth! dark Heavens! swinging in chemic smoke, 
What dead are born when you kiss each soundless soul 
With lightning and thunder from your mined heart, 
Which man’s self dug, and his blind fingers loosed? 

A man’s brains splattered on 
A stretcher-bearer’s face; 
His shook shoulders slipped their load, 
But when they bent to look again 
The drowning soul was sunk too deep 
For human tenderness. 

They left this dead with the older dead, 
Stretched at the cross roads. 

Burnt black by strange decay 
Their sinister faces lie, 
The lid over each eye, 
The grass and coloured clay 
More motion have than they, 
Joined to the great sunk silences. 

Here is one not long dead; 
His dark hearing caught our far wheels, 
And the choked soul stretched weak hands 
To reach the living word the far wheels said, 
The blood-dazed intelligence beating for light, 
Crying through the suspense of the far torturing wheels 
Swift for the end to break 
Or the wheels to break, 
Cried as the tide of the world broke over his sight. 

Will they come? Will they ever come? 
Even as the mixed hoofs of the mules, 
The quivering-bellied mules, 
And the rushing wheels all mixed 
With his tortured upturned sight. 
So we crashed round the bend, 
We heard his weak scream, 
We heard his very last sound, 
And our wheels grazed his dead face.


The third stamp shows Elsie Knocker and Mairi Chisholm. The two friends Elsie Knocker and Mairi Chisholm travelled to Belgium shortly after the beginning of World War I, where they joined a small ambulance corps. They later established a front-line first-aid post at Pervyse in Belgium. In 1917 they were awarded the Military Medal.


The fourth stamp shows the painting Dry Docked for Scaling and Painting by Edward Wadsworth. Edward Wadsworth was invalided in 1917. From then on he was engaged to design dazzle camouflage patterns for British ships, which were intended to confuse attacking German submarines.


The fifth stamp shows the Tyne Cot Cemetery in Belgium. The Tyne Cot Cemetery was established in 1917 and is the largest Commonwealth war cemetery in the World. There are 11976 war graves of World War I. The cemetery is surrounded by the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing, a long stone wall with the names of missing soldiers written on it.


The last stamp shows Private Lemuel Thomas Rees’s life-saving Bible. Lemuel Thomas Rees was conscripted in 1917. During the Battle of Passchendaele an exploding German shell landed close by and although Rees was hit, he was saved by a small Bible that he kept in his breast pocket. He had to spend four months in a field hospital. Then he was send back home, but as he suffered terrible nightmares, he returned to the front. There he was wounded in a gas attack and died on 13th November 1918.