The Estonian Year of the Ox stamp (issued 12-02-2021) was used on the card.
The Belarusian Year of the Ox stamp (issued 08-02-2021) was used on this card and got cancelled with the new permanent special Postcrossing postmark from Minsk.
I bought this card on the Internet and instead of keeping it unwritten, I sent it to myself using the new Matrixcode stamp (issued 04-02-2021) and its First Day Special Postmark.
The stamp used here was one of my favourites in 2017, as it shows a painting by Johann Vermeer from the collection of the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum here in Braunschweig. It was cancelled with the Covid-19 postmark from the mail sorting centre 38 in Braunschweig. For me it is the first time to see it in blue. In February the colour of the German postmarks was switched from black to blue due to the new Matrixcode stamps.
Mother Hulda is this year the theme of the German Welfare stamps (issued 04-02-2021). Like usual three stamps were issued and the lowest value became available in three versions, gummed, self-adhesive from booklet and self-adhesive from coil. These three versions with their related First Day Special Postmarks I used on this card.
The second card shows an illustration by Gabriela de Carvalho. While I got the first card through a swap, this one I bought online.
On this card I used the middle value stamp from the set and the First Day Special Postmark from Berlin. I like this set! The third stamp you can see on my blog about Childhood Heroes on Stamps.
This year we celebrate 1700 years of Jewish Life in Germany. This related stamp was issued on 4th February. While the stamp itself is rather plain, I really like this postmark highlighting great Jewish contributions to German culture.
The card above I had ordered on the Internet for the stamp, but I was also able to swap for a second card of a synagogue. That one returned on the same day and shows the Old Synagogue in Essen. The Old Synagogue of Essen was built between 1911 and 1913. It is one of the largest, best preserved and architecturally most impressive testimonies to Jewish culture in pre-war Germany. Today it is used as cultural meeting place and museum.
I used the same stamp on the card and got it cancelled with the second official First Day Special Postmark.
The stamp is from a big set about the members of Gabon's Constitutional Court (issued 26-01-2019). This one shows Marie Mborantsuo, who is the court's president since its foundation in 1991.
WESTbahn is this year the theme of Austria's railway stamp series. This matching stamp (issued 11-02-2021) was used on the card and got cancelled with the First Day Special Postmark. Like all stamps from the series this is a great looking one.
Like usual Macau Post also issued this year a set of "normal" stamps about the Chinese New Year and a label stamp. The label stamp about this Year of the Ox (issued 20-01-2021) was used on the card and got cancelled with the First Day Special Postmark. To note that this year the label stamp was issued on time, while last year it had been postponed multiple times due to Covid-19. A second stamp was used to cover the postage for a card to Germany.
Two cachets were applied to the card as well. One of them promotes the fight against Covid-19.
Thank You very much Jerry!
As I did not expect to find someone to swap with in Macau, I ordered the "normal" Year of the Ox stamps in early January. They finally arrived here on 11th March. Actually it was said last year that a new series was started with the Year of the Rat, but these stamps are completely different. I really wonder why they changed the plans.
Unfortunately the card was not signed during that meet-up, but it is still a very special piece of mail. First there is the stamp, which is not about this year's Year of the Ox, but about the penultimate one in 1997. This makes the stamp so special for me, as I was born in that Year of the Ox. The stamp had been issued already on 2nd December 1996 and is from a set of two. And second there is this great new Postcrossing postmark for my collection, which also keeps the Year of the Ox theme. I love this card!
The card was signed during the meet-up. One of Hong Kong's four Year of the Ox stamps (issued 28-01-2021) was used and got cancelled with a nice postmark of ox and rat.
The second card from Hong Kong is a different card about the same meet-up.
A different Year of the Ox stamp was used and got cancelled with a different special postmark.
The card inside shows a Navajo Hogan, a traditional house.
Also the second cover got a Valentine's Day postmark. This one is from Bliss in New York State. I honestly had to look the word up, but just like Romeo this is a good name for a love themed post office. Two more stamps from the National Parks set (issued 02-06-2016) were used.
The card inside shows Clay Moons.
The postmark on the last cover honours Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, a historian and important intellectual person of the Harlem Renaissance. Interestingly this postmark is from Puerto Rico, where he was born. I think it is the first time that I get a piece of mail sent from there. Although the stamps look similar to the national park ones, they are actually from a different set of twelve about Wild and Scenic Rivers (issued 21-05-2019).
In the cover was a written and stamped postcard.
It shows the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The Leaning Tower was began in 1173 as standalone tower of Pisa's Cathedral, but a few years after the construction started it began to lean to one side. Due to that the construction was stopped for roughly 100 years, resumed, stopped again and just finished in 1372. The tower is one of the four buildings on the Piazza del Duomo, an important centre of European medieval art. Nowadays the Leaning Tower is one of the most famous buildings of Italy and the whole square is regarded as one of the World's finest architectural complexes. The Piazza del Duomo is since 1987 on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
A stamp about one of Pisa's most famous sons was used on the card. It commemorates the 850th birthday of Leonardo Fibonacci (issued 23-11-2020), who is said to have been the greatest European mathematician of the Middle Ages. He popularised the Hindu-Arabic numeral system in Europa and is also known for the Fibonacci numbers. The stamp was cancelled with a First Day Special Postmark.
Unfortunately I forgot to take the card with me to the post office in January to get it cancelled, so just got it cancelled in February. This however means that the postmark was now blue (will tell you later why), which actually looks even better. Can you spot Spongebob on the stamp?
The card was cancelled in the philatelic shop in Tulle and as you can see it had travelled for a rather long time. Cancelled on the last day of 2020, the wonderful French Beethoven stamp (issued 26-10-2020) was used on it. In a Review and Overview of the Beethoven 2020 Stamps on my history blog I selected this one as my favourite.
