The Stamps of Velu

A post office video

2012-02-06T18:51:00.000+05:30

I'm not such a big fan of the Indian postal service because it works so well. Rather I'm a big fan because of the staggering fact that it does manage to work so well. Here's a short film i discovered on the G+ on a five year olds first visit to an Indian post office.

The Blue Crowned hanging parrot

2012-02-06T18:25:00.000+05:30

After the upside down dragon-fly, I was getting a bit irritated when an upside down parrot landed on my desk today. On closer look, it turned out that the bird actually hangs around upside -down.

It is a beautiful little stamp and since I haven't been to the post office in a while, I didn't know it had come out.

Dragonfly- Singapore

2012-02-02T13:29:00.000+05:30

A dragon fly landed on my desk today. Seems to have been flying upside down because the post marking has been made upside down. Stuill I'm glad that he's indoors, because its no weather for an Dragonfly to be flying about in Singapore.

This stamp is part of the set of stamps on pond life that I had written about some time back. Its a nice set, though the miniature sheet was too expensive for me to buy. :)

Japan - Ducks

2012-01-20T10:10:00.000+05:30

Received a mail with my name on it at office. It always is a grand occasion for me to get official mail with stamps so am putting it up there.

A simple duck stamp, but I like it. what would be cool would be to send across tens of these stamps bunched together so that it looks like a flock of ducks floating around on an pond. :)

Cyprus Bunny

2011-12-30T09:51:00.000+05:30

Received some stamps form Cyprus in the official mail today.

Don't you love a philately department that issues Bunny rabbits on their stamps?

Christmas

2011-12-09T08:28:00.000+05:30

Started receiving the christmas greetings ( for the office) and don't you get a kick when the stams match the content of the mail?

Have a good season & the year ahead!

Norwegian stamps

2011-09-29T13:27:00.001+05:30

Got some stamps in the office mail from Norway that I snitched! The poor bird seems to have taken a pot shot taken at it.

Unless the shot was actually taken at that bald chap and hit the bird instead.

Hope you all are well.

France - History of Bicycles

2011-09-03T09:56:00.000+05:30

Its been a year since I came here and I received my first philatelic mail. This was sent by Eric, who has a great blog that your really must visit.

I had sent him some stamps on frog some time back and he was kind enough to send a spectacular sheet across. I'll put that up in the next post.

In the meanwhile lets focus on the beautiful stamps that Eric put on the cover itself. These bicycles are part of a series of french stamps called "2011 - The bicycle from its origins to today". The link is in french so you may have to translate it. The stamps themselves are beautiful and love them.

Another point of interest is that the back of the envelope had this stamp that is probably the creation of Eric himself as he is nuts about all thins froggy!

Thanks for the cover Eric. Great Fun receiving it. Will send you across the cover you included inside soon.

Joint issue - Bridges

2011-07-11T07:20:00.000+05:30

Another short one today - An joint issue for between Singapore and Phillipines and Singapore. Bridges are an favourite subject of mine because I used to go over and under them often enough, but don't you think that bridges are a very apt subject for to countries to send across an joint issue over?

The Australian dollar coins

2011-07-03T08:10:00.000+05:30

People who collect stamps will agree that the stories behind stamps are as interesting as the stamps themselves. As I was emptying my pockets after the recent Australian trip, I wanted to check what the story behind the coins might be.

The coin on right is the standard 1 dollar coin. It has the distinction of being the only coin in Australia to replace a circulating note. The design on the coin is called the 5 "mob of roos' and was designed by Stuart Devlin, who by all accounts is a rock star among coin designers and is as big as an gold and silversmith can get.

The coin on the left is the 2 dollar coin and has a whole lot more interesting storyline. The Aboriginal on the coin is supposed to be based on a painting by Ainslie Roberts, of a man called "one pound Jimmy". Apparently he was called one pound Jimmy because any time someone asked how much it would cost to buy something made by him, his answer would be "one pound boss".

In line with our topic of Philately, one pound Jimmy also featured on two stamps of 1950 & 1952 for about 8 pence. Judging by the rate of inflation, I think One pound Jimmy has pretty much maintained his prices over an amazingly long period.

Hong Kong - Lighthouses

2011-06-28T11:55:00.004+05:30

A miniature of lighthouses today from Hong Kong. Even though I did make a trip down to Hong kong last month, this sheet was picked up in Sing post as part of the foreign postal series.

Its always fun to pick up stamps of light houses and the fact that the positions are plotted could even help some loser go on google earth and actually plot these lighthouses.

Anyway, it is sort of cool to imagine the sight from these lighthouses. Check out the tug dragging around a sand barge if front of the first light house.

Singapore - Monuments

2011-06-21T06:50:00.003+05:30

Just a quick one today. For some reason, I'm not connecting with the stamps in Singapore. The stamps are a bit expensive and they cost too much. And on top of it some of them are pricey too.

But some of these are pretty. I like this stamp because of the Sepia and mossy look to it, which is rather apt for a stamp based on monuments.

Australia - Year of the Rabbit

2011-06-17T07:18:00.003+05:30

Here's another set released by Australia. I love it because it adds to my Chinese years collection & also because it is so beautiful. Would I actually preferred it to be a miniature sheet, but since they only released the stamp set, got an FDC for it.

Don't you think the Tiger in the sheet is cool? :)

Down under - Kate - William Wedding

2011-06-14T09:50:00.003+05:30

Went to Australia for three days to attend a vessel. Sadly though the trip happened over the long weekend and though down under they decided to have a winter in June, I report with regret that postal employees in the southern hemisphere also take holidays on the weekend.

As such managed to only get my hands on a few stamps. One of which is the above sheet of the recent royal wedding. Such fun.

Frogs

2011-04-14T12:43:00.005+05:30

Frogs always remind my of Eric Bruth. Anyone with an interest in either stamps or frogs should visit his blog.

So when I read that Sing post had released a series based on pond life which also featured frogs, I decided to pick them up on his behalf. As it turns out Sing post has come out with a really pretty collectors sheet for the pond life, but it cost's 28 SGD. A sum for which I could have probably bought the whole of the Giripeth post office with the well thrown in as compliments of the India postal service.

I decided to shortchange Eric and instead just bought the above first day cover with the two frogs. The lady behind the counter, a jolly person who thinks of the most apt thing to say at all times, saw the completed FDC and commented, "Looks like the two frogs just broke up."

I also took along the above sheet of paper where she had tried out the cancellation mark. After all we can never have too many jumping frogs in our life.

welcome To Singapore

2011-04-13T14:34:00.003+05:30

It has been a long time since I posted and though there are a lot of things I can blame it on, I guess its basically me that the needle firmly points on.

As it turns out, I have exchanged the environs of a ship with the cubicles of an office and relocated to Singapore.

Naturally my stamps may now focus more on this part of the world, but I will sorely miss the India Post that I have so much grown to love and admire.

Hope all the readers of this blog have done well over the last so many days and wish you all the very best.

In case I can send you something from this part of the world, please do let me know.

PS : Please do take note of my new address in case you want to send something my way ( Top right)

Cheers,

Velu

La Central - Classic Matchbox

2010-01-27T01:57:00.002+05:30

Location : Pajaritos , Mexico

It was a disappointing visit to the local post office. Apart from an addition to my postage stamp collection of airplanes. The post office here is a small outlet as befits the town and they didn't have a philately section or any stamps such as the Polar stamps that had been requested.

But I did come across a nice matchbox. Now I don't collect match boxes, but a fellow collector had requested me to keep my eyes open for such things on my travels and I am sure that he will be happy to get this.

This is a matchbox released by the La Central company of Mexico and this match box is from their "Classic" collection. you can find more infor about them here.

Mexico - 100 Years of flight

2010-01-10T00:49:00.000+05:30

Location : Gulf of Mexico

In the sheet of 100 years of Aviation that I had put up some posts back, I
spotted this set of two stamps that commemorates the first flight in Mexico
that happened on the 8th of January 1910. So it is actually 100 years today
that the flight took place. Isn't that great?

Congrats Mexico!

Merry Christmas - USA

2009-12-25T07:33:00.000+05:30

Location : Gulf of Mexico

Wish you all a very happy christmas and new Year!

This is a very beautiful stamp issued by the USPS on christmas and I am
actually trying to collect stamps based on paintings of great painters.
Especially Van Gogh. Let me know if you guys have any to spare.

Mansoor Ji - Thanks for commenting. I would love to send you a couple of
Paquebot mails. But as I don't have internet, I can't go on your blog to
check your mailing id. Drop your address in the comments and I will get the
notification. Sadly, US post is very bad in Paquebot mails and I have had so
many mails that were either rejected or not stamped at all. But hopefully
you should get a nice Paquebot from Mexico.

Happy Holidays

2009-12-21T10:23:00.000+05:30

Location : Gulf Of mexico

Well the winter holidays are finally here, though we'll be lucky to even get
an anchorage over here so that we can relax a bit. Still, I hope you all
have a great and safe holiday.

Best Wishes!

Letters to Santa

2009-12-13T23:34:00.000+05:30

Location : Off Houston

The fog set in again yesterday and it just might mean another extra day out
here at the anchorage. But the Telly is working here, so not much to
complain. The season to be merry seems to have set in on the Americans, and
crazy sales ads are the only things that seem to be on.

The whole nation seems to be firmly in the grip of the Christmas season,
though nobody seems to be sure of what role Christ had to play in the whole
event. I think this has firmly become an Santa event, with gifts becoming
the main focus. The last time I was in Macy's in Beaumont, TX, they had a
table set up for kids to write postcards to Santa.

I loved the concept. The Kids could write postcards to Santa, and mail them
right there in the Macy post-box. macy promised to donate 1 dollar for every
card that was dropped in their box up to a million dollars. Apart from the
fact of the donation of money, I love the concept of mails being written to
Santa. I need connection to the net to get more figures / fact on this, but
the USPS actually has a process for dealing with Santa mails that land up in
its post-boxes. If you register with the USPS, you can even get the Santa
mail delivered to you so that you can take action on mails that you want.
And be the defacto Santa.

I think its also a neat way to get children to write atleast a couple of
postcards a year. :)

I picked up a couple of cards myself and maybe I'll post one myself. I just
don't know how much postage its going to take to the Northpole!

USA - Gary Cooper

2009-12-11T23:10:00.000+05:30

Location : Off Houston

The US government usually releases stamps in a series. This stamp is from
its "Legends of Hollywood" series and is actually the 15th in the series.

Honestly, I'm not a fan of Gary Cooper, and though I have heard of the
movie, "High Noon" I haven't seen it or his other Oscar winning movie the
"Sergeant York". But I am a fan of the Western Genere. Where Cowboys whip
out guns on dusty streets and shoot down dastardly outlaws. Unless the hero
himself is an outlaw and shoots down the Dastardly sheriff. And then rides
off with the damsal in the sunset.

But that apart, I wanted to put up this stamp to show the great manner in
which USPS promotes understanding of the subject. Gary Cooper died in 1961
and its unlikely that even American Kids have much idea about who the chap
was. Writing a short note about him in the sides, adds so much value to the
collector. India releases so many "Personality stamps" every year. There
seems to be absolutely no reasoning behind the choice of people selected.
Unless a FDC is released on the person, there is no written info provided to
tell you anything about the concerned person.

If the Indian post put in just a little more imagination and inserted a
couple of lines about the achievements of the person or subject, wouldn't
that be great. After all, one assumes that if a person deserves to be on a
stamp, he must have done atleast enough to merit a couple of lines!

Mexico - 100 yrs of aviation

2009-12-07T23:28:00.000+05:30

Location : Gulf of Mexico

If I am not mistaken, the first flight by the Wright brothers was made in
1909. As a result countries around the world have released stamps to
comemorate the 100 years of aviation.

I had already acquired the sheet released by India during my vacation, so
was pleasently surprised to find the Mexican sheet still on sale.

This was an added bonus because I also collect stamps of Airplanes /
Military.

Incase you guys have your own country's stamps on this subject, it would be
great to exchange them.

PS : Cheers All! Thanks for the many comments.

Mansoor ji: Do let me know which subjects you collect on and I can buy an
extra set for you.

Lefung : The twon where I go to in Mexico has a very small post office and
they didn't have the polar stamps on sale. But I will send you a postcard
from the place the next time I visit. Let me know if you need any other
stamps that I put up here.

Gulfman : Thanks for the wishes. Good luck to you too.

Gulf coast lighthouses

2009-12-07T10:25:00.000+05:30

It is always a pleasure when your hobby intersects with your job. So I
though it an amazing coincidence when I found this sheet of the "Gulf Coast
lighthouses in the USPS store - especially when I am going to be on the US
Gulf coast for the next few months.

The lighthouses shown here are the (from L to R) - Matagorda Island - Texas
, Sabine pass- Louisiana , Biloxi - Mississippi , Sand Island - Alabama and
Fort Jefferson - Florida. As you can see, they pretty much seem to have
picked one light house from each state on the Gulf coast. I had not
known till last year that there was also a state called Mississippi.

As luck would have it, the very next port we went over to was Beaumont, TX,
for
which we had to go over the Sabine River. Which ofcourse mandated that we
pass within hailing distance of our Lighthouse No 2. The description behind
the stamp described the lighthouse as follows:

"Erected on soft, marshy ground in Louisiana, Sabine pass light house
features eight buttresses that stabilize the heavy brick structure and give
it a distinct missile like shape. Completed in 1856, the light house was
deactivated in 1952 and is currently closed to public. "

I do like the American method or giving a slight detail behind the stamp. It
is an example that should be followed more by the other countries.

I just had my Iphone to take the picture with, but there certainly was no
brilliant Mississippi sunset in the background or Herons prancing around in
the foreground as in the stamp sheet.

The pilot claimed that someone from Houston had bought the lighthouse for
18,000 dollars. When asked why, he said that he had never owned a light
house before. As per the pilot, " In Texas, that's as good a reason as any."

Back on ship - The Simpsons

2009-12-05T22:42:00.000+05:30

Location : Mexico

I know its been a log time since I blogged, but I am back on my ship and so
I am back to blogging about my stamps as well. It was a great vacation and I
had the funnest of times at home with family. Thanks to all of you who
wished me well and thanks again to all of you who came back to this blog to
see if any thing was still being written.

I joined the ship in New Orleans USA and even though I couldn't make it to
the main post office, I did manage to get to one of the smaller ones and got
a handful of current stamps. Since I am a fond collecter of cartoon and
comics stamps, I was glad to get the "simpsons stamps" which have been out
for some time, but I didn't have them as I have not been exchanging for some
time now.

Its sad that the USPS came out with just five stamps of these characters as
it would have been neat to have a miniature sheet of these guys.

Lets hope that I can get more regular with my postings. Also if you people
want some stamps from this part of the world ( US - Mexico), please do let
me know in the comments section.

PS: If anyone is reading this in France (Eric?), please let me have the
miniature of the Astrix Stamps that was released recently. Let me know what
you need.

Girl Child - Hooray!

2009-05-26T15:18:00.002+05:30

Hi all. I have great news. I am now a father! We were blessed with a baby girl in the middle of this month. It is a most amazing feeling and a bit scary as we are first time parents.

Because of these, my philatelic persuits have been put on hold for the near future. But I will ofcourse be checking up on what you guys keep putting out there.

Hope you all have a wonderful year ahead and wish great health to you and your families.

Cheers,
Velu

The Indian Coast Guard

2009-05-04T19:42:00.004+05:30

I had gone to the main post office (GPO) after a long time and found that two people were smashing down entire walls inside the Philatelic section. It seems that renovations were going on. Its always good that the postal department is sprucing up the Philatelic section, but the poor lady who sits at the desk has now been shifter to a small cubbyhole that has to be accessed by a window! A very uncomfortable perch for the poor lady, so I didn't bother her too much and came away with a few miniatures.

This is the miniature on the Indian Coast Guard. Working in the Merchant Navy and having traded on the Indian Coast for more than ten years, I must commend the Coast Guard for doing an amazing job when faced with such a mamoth task with so few resources.

The miniature is neat, but I like miniatures which have the stamps as a part of a bigger picture, which are not present here. The units on display in this sheet are the Dornier Aircraft, Chetak helicopter, Samar Class patrol craft and the Air Cushion Vessel.

To the coastguard I am personally obligated because of an incident which happened on one of my ships after I had signed off from it. One of the chaps fell in the water while rigging the pilot ladder. Unfortunately this fellow was so overweight that the rest of the complement couldn't pick him up. They had a situation where this fellow was happily floating in the water with life buoys and secured nicely with two heaving lines , but try as that might, they couldn't pick up this fellow weighing about 200 Kgs. Finally they launched the lifeboat, which they couldn't pick up due to the waves picking up. So now they had eight men who needed rescuing. I knew most of the men involved and we had a good laugh over it later. But I'm sure it must have been a sticky issue for the Captain to put in his report at that time.

Please have a look at the excellent resources below

Resources :

India Coast Guard Website
Coast Guard on Wikipedia
Coast Guard on Bharat Rakshak

The Giripeth Post office - Nagpur

2009-05-02T14:53:00.002+05:30

As I have put up in the title bar, I have a weakness of taking my pictures with post offices or post boxes. I got an opportunity to do it yesterday and I wasn't going to pass up on it. The Giripeth post office in Nagpur has a very rustic look to it, like it might have existed in this state for more then 50 years. And it really might have had. My wife is form the locality and she claims to have seen the post office in the same state since memory serves her. That would put the age of the post office anywhere from five years to twentyfive - depending on who is telling my wifes age!

The Post box outside actually looks like it had fallen in one of the stronger monsoon winds and is now firmly propped up in place with a cement base. But nothing much seems to be holding up the building, with its beautiful tiled roof and wooden latticed front. It is really hot in Nagpur, with temperatures reaching up to 47 Deg C yesterday. But because of the construction of these older houses, it was rather pleasant inside the structure.

The well and the Post office in the background

Another neat part about the post office is that it has an serviceable well of its own! Most houses built in this region had a well if their own dug because there was no piped water, but today, you either have bore well dug or even if you dig it at a side or behind your house. This post office was evidently built during a time and place, where the well was a focal point of the house and was considered important enough to accord a place right in front.

Sadly there were no records or information available in the post office about when it was established. The post master, a helpful man in his forties did chat with me for a bit. This post office doee not really handle the home delivery of the letters for the locality. That is taken care of by the post office at Shankar nagar - A heartless three storied buliding, and the area North of the road is taken care of by the GPO.

The General Post office is an nice building from the British era and you can find it towards the north east of map down below, also I had posted about it a long time back here.

If you have been following my regular blog, you'll know that I am working on Geotagging these days and the map below is from another result of a new application called "Here I am".

I was also able to glean the information that the land is not governments and is leased from the "society" and now it seems that they want it back. Since its the government, we can at least be assured that they will take another five to ten years to vacate the building, but it will be a real tragedy to lose such a quaint post office in the middle of the city.

View Larger Map

The map with the Post office location (GPO on top right)

The india post

2009-04-28T22:06:00.004+05:30

Just because I haven't been very active over the last few months, doesn't mean that the lethargy has spread to India Post. The chaps out there have been keeping themselves well occupied. I wanted to check up something on their website and found that due to an oversight, I had not put up the India websitte in my links of world postal websites. I rectified that error and just to make it more easire, you can find the link to India post main webpage here.

I forgot to put this here before but on 23rd sep last year, India post changed their corporate logo to the one given up here. The original one was the one given on the right.

Honestly I'm not sure why, but I liked the older one better. I think its just a matter of getting used to it.

Dinesh wrote a nice article on it here, if you are interested.

Also other changes to have come up are that india post has stopped sea mail parcle service from 1st jan. Its a sad thing as I am associated with the sea myself, but I guess in todays world, it was something inevitable.

Also for delivery outside india, India post has entered a jloint venture with the Duetsche post to form something called WorldNet Express . We'll just have to wait for user feedback and about how much more expensive this service might be.

Abe Lincoln - Wish list and Part 2

2009-04-14T14:16:00.002+05:30

As i got online in the night, I did dig up information on the Lincoln stamps that Jean and Claude had sent me in the last post. On the USPS site, I was able to dig up the stamps in concern and these are most delicious. The stamps have been released in a set of four , each pertraying the multifacted nature of this great man, ie, as a Rail splitter, a lawyer, a politician and finally a president. The stamps that Jean and claude sent me were of Lincoln as a president and a lawyer.

It really was a pity to see the collection being sold for 17 USD, and if that wasn't enough, I also found that the USPS had released another beautiful framed collection on Lincoln which sells for USD 50.

As we can see, it not only has the first day cover of the bicentinial, but also has other items such as the Lincoln penny, and what seems to be an anti-slavery stamp. An amazin g thing to get your hands on as all my kind readers will agree.

One slight ammendment to the last post. It is 200 years to the year when lincoln was born. :)

Ab Lincoln

2009-04-13T17:36:00.002+05:30

I came back from a vacation to find only one post waiting for me. It
was a little sad, but I haven't been able to give much time to
philately these days and of just isn't fair to you people to keep
sending me stamps without anything back from me.
Todays letter was from jean and Claude Linossi from NC, Usa. And they
were very kind. They had actually taken the pain to go through the
blog and sent me stamps which I like, such as on military, cartoons
and even postage. Very considerate and appreciated.
But the best stamps that i liked was the pair on president Lincoln
that they put up on the cover. I doubt that they knew this, but I am a
fan and it came as a pleasent surprise to see that the USPS has come
out with a stamp on him .
.

It really shouldn't have been a surprise as it is his birth centinary
this year. When I was last in the US around feb, I bought a copy of a
special issue on lincoln that the Times had brought out on the man.
So thanks for the stamps jean and Claude. Will try to send across
something soon.
.

PS: Regret the atrocious picture of the President, nut am posting this from the iphone and the picture quality of its camera does leave a bit to be desired when taking macro pictures. One of the pictures is of the bearded man whereas the other one was the clean shaven Lincoln. Apparently a school girl had written to Lincoln to keep a beard. :)

Sent from my iPhone

Peekaboo

2009-03-24T12:19:00.001+05:30

I do apologize to anyone who has noticed the lack of posting on my
blog. But I am home these days , and as
You all might have guessed from the above picture, our priorities have
been undergoing some dramatic changes.

Cheers all!!

Venezuela - The Metro System

2008-08-23T21:47:00.001+05:30

Location : Freeport, Texas

I did mention previously that the last trip to Venezuela was a total waste. Well maybe not because I did get one set of stamps there on the Metro rail system. Sadly I'm not really collecting stapms on train, but it does make for interesting collection.

The stamps on top are dealing with the Metro system, a mass rapid transport system in the Capital Caracas and its neighbourhoods. Apparently the Metro system, which was started in 1983, is a source of great pride in the Venezuela, so the next time you are there, you should make a mental note not to pee when you are waiting for your next train.

An excellent source of information on the Caracas Metro system can be found here at Wikipedia. The stamps in question are dealing with the new developements being made on the Caracas metro system. The top stamp is on the new 4th Line that was opened in 2006. The other stamp deals with the " Metro Los Teques", a line started between the main line with the town of Los Teques.

The two stamps below are the stamps on the metro system of the city of Valencia. Now this is a much newer system that came into service only in 2006. As per wiki, they charge only 500 bolivar for an adult, which comes to about 23 US cents. Which makes it irritating to me because the cost of the stamp on the metro costs 3000 bolivars, a cost that would have gotten me 6 round trips on the metro.

Sources : Urban Rail - Valencia , Urban Rail - Caracas , Offical website - Caracas Metro , Offical website - Valencia Metro

Italy - Como the silk stamp

2008-08-16T20:42:00.010+05:30

Location : The Gulf Of Mexico

Sometimes it is frustrating not to have access to the internet because I want to research a bit into the subject that I want to blog on. This is one of the reasons that I have been holding out on this miniature sheet that I am presenting today.

This is apparently the first (and as far as I can tell - the only) stamp sheet to have come out in pure silk. This sheet, priced at approx 2.8 Euro was released by the Italian post to comemorate the Italian artist and sculptor Baldassare Longoni (1876 - 1956). The picture on the left of the sheet is one of his paintings of the city Como, which is famous for the silk it produces. Please note the side edges that I have left out where you can see the fine silk threads coming out.

That said, the above information is something I have deduced using my non-existent knowledge of Italian, mixed with the help of a few translation sites. So there is much that still needs to be resolved. For example why silk? Does it pay homage to the city or to Longoni, who did something in silk as well.

Also It seems to be particularly tough to get hold of an boigraphy of Mr Longoni to know more about that chap. Web searches only lead to auction houses who ask me if I am a neice of Mr Longoni.

Finally the translation of the back printing leads me to believe that this is actually some sort of an envelope and it is supposed to open up. Very exciting and Indiana Jones like! I think I will leave it a mystrey till someone from you kind readers can translate it and shed some more light on it.

USA - Vintage Black Cinema

2008-08-11T20:53:00.004+05:30

Location : Gulf Of Mexico, 26 31 N , 094 17 W

Firstly I am a bit surprised that in this age of extreme political correctness in the US, the USPS came out with a stamp sheet called "Black Cinema". Maybe they thought that "Colored Cinema" might be misleading. :)

Regardless, I was thrilled to get my hands on this sheet. I am an minor Jazz fan and so I was very happy to get my hands on the stamps featuring Duke Ellington and Louis Jordan.

Let me tell you a bit about the stamps.

Remembered as the first screen appearance of Duke Ellington, the 1929 Black and Tan features three songs by Ellington and his Cotton Club Orchestra. In this 19 minute short movie, Ellington, playing himself, is in danger of having his piano repossessed. When his fatally ill girlfriend dances at a night club, she saves Ellington's music - and asks to hear his "black and Tan fantasy" on her deathbed. So by all accounts, it wasn't a fresh and happy short movie.

I haven't seen the movie myself, and I as an policy don't post you tube videos on my blog. But if you are so inclined, you can get the first five minutes of the movie on youtube at this link.

The other stamp I was keen about was of Louis Jordan. This chap was one of the most colorful person in the Jazz industry and was an accomplished singer, Saxophonist, and a bandleader. He had a band called the tympani five and sang his way into peoples hearts right through the 1930s to the 1950's. An amazing personality, the Caldonia was called a short film simply because in that time, no body had coined the term "music video". This was an 18 minute film featuring four of Jordan's songs.

Links : Official website of Louis Jordan.

Egyptian Immigration

2008-08-09T16:02:00.000+05:30

Location : The Cayman Ridge , 19 38 N 083 36 W

Since we have been going through my official papers, let me show you a page from one of the passports. This is the Egyptian immigration at work and for some reason they seem to be using revenue stamps in the temporary visas. I'm not sure if they are still doing that, but I haven't seen too many countries using stamps.

Sadly the impressive Eagle cancellation hasn't been done properly and the stamps themselves are upside down to each other. The whole effect onestly doesn't seem too appealing. But then Immigration officials are rarely known for their artistic sensibilities.

Venezuela No 2

2008-08-09T06:10:00.003+05:30

Location : Off Jamaica , 17 24 N 080 31 W

In line with the yesterdays fiscal stamp, I wanted to put another one I spotted on the official papers. This one seems to have a value written on it of 0.02 UT, a value I'm not sure what it represents in Big Mac's.

If someone could shed some light on then, it would be greatly appreciated.

Venezuela

2008-08-08T00:50:00.000+05:30

Location : Caribbean , 14 45 N , 074 33 W

The last few days were busy as I went to Venezuela, but it was sure disappointing. I couldn't get ashore and couldn't get any cards till the very last minute. So sorry folks, but there's not going to be any mail call from Venezuela this time. But I did get a few stamps on the offical mail during this call.

Pictured above is an Venezuelan stamp to be used on the offical stamp parers. I think the notation "Timbre Fisical" on the bottom left means "Financial Stamp". Itas a neat thing, but sadly as its part of the offical papers, can't add it to the personal collection. :)

Empire state building - Postal Chute

2008-08-01T22:30:00.000+05:30

Location : Atlantic - 24 24 N , 069 28 W

It seems ages since I put up a picture of a post box or a post office out here. So I wanted to show you something different today. I had gone to the Empire state building in New york a few days back and they let us up to the observatory on the 86th floor. On the way I came across this chute which is pictured here. The inscription on the metal plate reads " US Mail - Cutler mailing system, Cutler mail chute Co., Rochester, NY USA".

I saw it on only one floor, but its a safe assumption that this chute goes all along the height of the the Empire state building. I haven't seen such an system in use anywhere else and I doubt in the new skyrises being made today, postal chutes are fitted anymore. Postal chutes must have been a great godsend in those days for all postal employees.

I heard that once the Empire state building postal chutes shut down and an postal employee had to climb the outside of the building to deliver mail to the top floor. An unfortunate mix up in the new USPS uniform led people to believe that an ape was climbing the Empire State Building. I believe that even made a movie on that!

U.S - Frank Sinatra

2008-07-30T22:45:00.000+05:30

Position : The Atlantic - 38 19 N / 072 07W

The last few days were hectic as hell. We were discharging at three ports inside New york , and what with all the inspections and going out and doing stuff, I was plum out of time to post something here. But in all that I did manage to get my foot into the door of the probably the smallest post office in USA. I got a total of three stamps and one sheet out of the trip, which only means that I am going to have to shift to bigger post offices.

The stamp above is of the USPS, an organisation that I'm afraid will feature more often here as my ship spendfs a lot more time in this part of the world. So as I was saying, this stamp features Frank Sinatra. Though I never did like the guys music, he was an and remains fabulously liked by a lot of people. Several of his recordings - including 'In the wee small hours' and 'Come fly with me' - are considered classics.

I think the only song I liked of his was "Strangers in the night". But honestly if I want to listen to music of that time, I would rather listen to Kid ory or Louis Jordan's Jazz. I'll probably post something on that tomorrow.

New Links

2008-07-26T17:14:00.003+05:30

As I mentioned, I haven't been online much and it seems that a lot more blogs have linked over to me & it is my pleaseure to introduce them here & put up their links as well.

The first blog is called Rainbow Stamp club and other then the name, which I think is a little lame (sorry Ajay & jeevan :) ) , the blog is amazing. The amount of effort these guys put into every post is simply amazing and disconcerting in the way that there really can't be much for a person of the Indian forest office to do! Plus they even publish an Philatelic magazine. Please do check out their blog on the link above and also added to the right with all the other great blogs.

The next to come up is Gulfmann. He has ofcourse been a regular contributor to this blog, but due to an oversight his blogs haven't been here. Sorry for that George. Gulfman has three blogs running on Philatelic issues so I'm only putting up his stamps blog, Gulfmann Stamp Collection . Plus it has some snaps of Post boxes, so I couldn't resist. Keep up the good work George, and oh yes.. put up my link in your blog!

Lastly, though its not a link, I just want to show you all the nice site of europe-stamps, where the author was kind enough to write something nice about me. So thank you for that.

Italy - The winter games

2008-07-26T16:49:00.004+05:30

Location : New York - 40 38 N / 074 02 W

Am in new york now and am waiting for the berthing to take place so that I can see what the USPS is up to these days.

Since was busy the last couple of days, am just here to put up a miniature I picked up in Italy about the winter "olimpici" games.

Of all the above games, my personal favourite would have to be the top centre - Figure skating. Simply because all all the beauty, the poise, the elegance ... and of course the short skirts.

Answer to comments

2008-07-25T05:58:00.002+05:30

I logged on to the internet after a long time today. Till now I have been blogging only by email so I really didn't keep track of the comments coming in. So let me say thanks to you all for writing in. To questions raised,:
Eric From Jura : Yes buddy. I did indeed get your miniatures. Thanks for them. Sorry for not sending across a card your way from this ship. I'll send something nice from Venezuela.

Yukikoh : Thanks for the comments. Missed you out too. I se you are back in Germany. Double treat your way too.

Lefung : Yes got your stamps. Thanks. Hope you got the cards from Algeria and Gibralter by now.

Thanks to the all the rest who were kind enough to comment.

Australia - Fantasy

2008-07-20T15:44:00.000+05:30

Location : The Atlantic - 37 10 N / 049 18 W

To get away from my Geographical location, let us look at a strange stamp
from a land possible the farthest from me at present. The Australian stamp
was give to me by very good friends Rajat & Radhika. I simply can't make out
what this stamp is all about, but it was released back in 2002 and is most
likely about some fantasy characters from an artist or writer. Let me know
if you can shed some light on it. But I like looking at stamps like this and
its an great addition to the collection. So thanks Radhika.

Italy - Thailand joint issue

2008-07-19T20:13:00.000+05:30

Location - The Atlantic

Close to the heels of the Thai joint issue with turkey, is this one with
Italy. Though both the pictures have the famous landmarks, the theme doesn't
match. In the last joint issue, at least both the pictures were of places of
worship. I think in this issue, due to the colloseum, the Thais should have
sent a picture of their Kickboxing arena. :)

Turkey - Thani Joint release

2008-07-18T13:22:00.000+05:30

Location - The Atlantic

I know that some people like Eric from France like to collect joint issues. So today I wanted to show you the set of joint issue released by the turks and the Thais. Featured are soem of the most popular sights of the countries. If you look a few posts back on my regular blog, you can see pictures of the Mosque at Istanbul. The last I had seen the temple in Thailand was when we went there in 2006.

I suppose they must have released a miniature sheet on the occasion, but sadly I only got my hands on these individual stamps.

Turkish Fort

2008-07-17T17:00:00.000+05:30

Location : The Atlantic

Today since I put up a picture of a turkish fort on my regular blog, I though that I might as well put up a few of my Turkish stamps. I don't think that I have put up any TUrkish stamps here in a little while. This stamp I picked up when I passed through Turkey last time somewhere in Late June.

The turks are serious about their flags. Every vantage point is adorned with their huge flags. And this stamp is another good example of that.

Algerian football

2008-07-16T19:41:00.000+05:30

Location - The Atlantic - 35 47 N / 023 34 W

During my last visit to Algeria, along with the FDC of the Algerian national anthem, I also managed to get my hands on this nice miniature. I like it firstly because the stamp is based on football and is thus round. Such things give me inexplicable pleasure. A fact I'm wary of investigating too deeply incase the pleasure stops.

Also the black & white picture and the green tint gives it a very nice flavor. The stamp seems to be commemorating the fifty years of the creation of the Football team of Algeria. I don't follow the game much, so am not too sure how good their team is now, but they sure did seem a happy bunch back in 1958. :)

Is it only me or are most of the Algerian stamps of a nationalistic theme?

Gibralter - Bonelli's Eagle

2008-07-15T19:13:00.000+05:30

Location - Atlantic Ocean

The day before I was refueling at Gibralter. Gibralter has an amazing collection of miniature sheets if you look it up on the net. But as I reached late at night on a midnigh, the only stamp I could source out there through the agent was this one of the Eagle. Stamp is obviously from a series of stamps "The birds of the rock". The adjoining literature says the following about these birds:

" Bonelli's Eagle ( Hieraaetus fasciatus) - Formerly resident in Gibralter, it still breeds in Spain and young birds are sometimes seen on the rock. It bred here untill the early 20th century, its disappearance probably a result of the disturbance caused during the construction of the runway. A lack of hunting ground in Gibralter and nearby Spain makes the return of this species unlikely. Bonelli's Eagles are a charecteristic species of the rugged country such as the cliffs and crags around the Mediterranean. It also breeds in Africa and across asia all the way to Indonesia. "

About the stamp itself, the painting is beautiful, except that the Eagle seems to be dozing off to sleep. In the background we can see the Rock of Gibralter as seen from the south and on the top right corner, you can see the Spanish coast behind the rock.

For a better view of the rock, please check out my regular bog (link on the right) where pictures of the area are posted.

Cheers all !! Post cards & covers sent out to the same bunh of people as from Algeria, so not posting your names again. Let me know once you get them.

Algeria - Anthem

2008-07-13T08:21:00.000+05:30

Location - Approaches to Gibralter / 36 09 N / 004 33 W

We left Algeria the day before and now are on the way to the US via the
Gibralter straits. Sadly Algeria doesn't allow seamen shore leave so
couldn't set foot on the land. But the trip wasn't a total waste because
atleast the agent was able to get me some post cards and miniatures.

As a bonus, I even got one first day cover. This one pictured above is the
FDC comemorating the national anthem of Algeria, I don't suppose you can
make out the stamp in much detail, but this stamp, released in 2008, has the
Algerian flag and the whole of the national Anthem (Hymne - as it calls it)
written across it. I'm not sure what 1er Jour D'Emission, but maybe Eric or
some other kind soul can explain that to us.

But all said, this is a beautiful piece to add to my collection.

Cheers all!

covers sent to the following from Algeria :
France - Eric
Russia - Alexander

Cards sent to the following from Algeria :
France - Mr Cotard
Portugal - Mr Almeida
Canada - Glenn (sent two your way)
Thailand - Charlie
Malaysia - Lefung
Taiwan - Wu
China - Mr Zhou fan
UK - Brett
Germany - Kalpana
Czech Rep - Lenka

Hope you all get them and sorry for all the others I missed out. Do put in a
comment if you want to be added to the mailing list.

Rats from Canada

2008-07-10T10:11:00.000+05:30

Location - Algeria

In sequence to the rat stamps sent out to me by Eric, is this sheet sent to
by Glenn Moores from Canada. Glenn has a great blog running at
gemsworldpostcards.blogspot.com where he is trying to have a collection of
postcards from all corners of the world.

This miniature is an amazing piece of art. There are etchings in the stamps
that don't come out on the scan, but the thing is breathtaking. Which is why
this senseless cancellation is all the more befuddling. The fact that a
postal worker would put his rubber stamp on something like this is sad.

But all the same, thanks for this sheet glenn. Have sent across a couple of
cards youtr way from Algeria. Hopr you get them.

Cheers all!

French Rats

2008-07-08T14:24:00.000+05:30

Location - At Anchor, Algeria

Since I showed a stamps I recieved, I might as well show you a few more I
got. This one is from a great guy in France , Eric Bruth. His link is on the
Left, and you can get to him at my-philately.blogspot.com . This is one of
the stamps released by France on the occasion of the year of the rat. Please
also note the cancellation done here, which I find more beautiful then the
stamp itself. :)

Thanks Eric. Once more for all the stamps. Have sent you something from here
in Algeria. Hope you get it.

The bridge from China

2008-07-06T08:20:00.000+05:30

Location : Off the Sardegna Island, Mediterranean

Since I put up a post about the bridges at Istanbul on my regular blog, I
wanted to put up a stamp with a bridge here. So I am showing you a beautiful
stamp sent by Mr Zhou fan from China. A person who keeps sending me stamps
inspite of my irregular replies.

To him and my other friends all over the world, I am deeply grateful and
apologetic.

The stamp in question is undoubtably beautiful and is of a set of six stamps
issued by the Chinese govt featuring the Summer palace, in much the same
style. The set includes three bridges, two buildings and a boat house (which
as I understand is the "clear and peaceful boat").

Thanks again Mr Zhou.

Italy - The Scouts

2008-06-29T07:23:00.000+05:30

Posn - East Coast Sardegna - 40 30 N / 10 38 E

The institution of Scouts completed a hundred years of its existence in the
year 2007 and everyone other then the Indian govt seems to have issued reams
of stamps to commemorate the occasion. Pictured above is one of the sheets
released by the Italians for the occasion. I am putting this here simply
because so many people have been asking for Scouts stamps on the internet
bulletin boards, that I am sure that I am missing out on their significance.

I actually was in the scouts. I distinctly remember wearing my brothers
hand-me-downs to the parades. The only thing I took to those parades, which
was my own, was this round ferrule type thing through which we knot the
scarf and a fierce will not to parade.

And that is what we did in the scouts, I swear. We paraded, saluted that
three fingered salute and read some rules off some blue book. Which was
immediately taken back as soon as the parade was finished.

Of course the stamps prove that some scouts play the guitar around the
campfire and do canoeing, but I assure you that the only thing remotely like
that in my two years with the scouts was to move some stones near a hill.
And I don't like hills and I didn't like those stones.

The Map

2008-06-27T18:24:00.000+05:30

Posn : South East of Sicily - 36 18 N 018 11 E

First off, please forgive me for the long absense off the blog. I wish I
could say that it was for a good reason like global hunger, but I was
actually busy killing friends and strangers on the Team Fortress servers.
After a moth or so of that, I find myself again in the safe sanity of
bobbing along in the middle of the sea. This time in the middle of the
Lagoon - Something the US Navy calls the Mediterian. I don't particularly
like the Medi. Too crowded for my taste and some of the worst weathers that
I have faced in my seafaring life has been in these waters.

But hey new waters translate into new stamps don't they? I had gone to the
beautiful Italian city of Trieste and actually stepped out to visit the
International Maritime Institute to have a look-see, but it turns out that
the place shut down few months back. Just my luck. Someone who knows someone
tells me that there was some scandal. Money taking and all that. But don't
tell anyone.

Anyway, Not to make it a total loss, I went over to the charming post office
in the city centre where they have a really nice postal museum, with
postmarks from as far back as the 1800. Pretty neat stuff.

I got this sheet from there. I love maps of any kind and one of the
bemnifits of sailing at sea is that you are sorrounded by charts, some of
them really old. In my last ship, I came across a chart of New Zaeland,
where the credit for the plotting was given to Captain Cook.

So I'm pleased as a plum to present this map sheet. It seems to tell us the
path from the cities of L'aquila to Foggia and probably the name of the
route is "tratturo Magno. The route obviously passes through mountains and
we see in the stamp a mountain range with sheep in the fore ground. A
beautiful stamp sheet.

75 Years of the Indian Airforce.

2008-02-13T08:36:00.004+05:30

Its only so long that I will be able to use to excuse of setting things in order before starting to post more regularly. :)

And it is time I put up some more stamps of India. I have written earlier about the Philatelic account I have with India Post and so on coming back, I was surrounded with the stamps released by India over the past five months.

One of the neat sheets I got was this one released on the Platinum Jubilee (1932 - 2007) of the Indian Air Force.

The Indian Air Force was officially established on 8 October 1932. But by the time they actually got around to flying their planes it was 1st April 1933. So it's probably apt that I got the 75 years of the Air force in 2008! The IAF inetially compromised of six RAF-trained officers and 19 Havai Sepoys (air soldiers) and four Wapiti Airplanes. The Wapiti is thus aptly pictured on the main sheet on the lower left.

The others featured on the main sheet from top Left are the Dhruv, the AWACS and an IL 78 refuelling two Su-30 airplanes.

The neat thing about this sheet, is that on either sides of the sheet, are the pictures of the planes that have accompanied the IAF in this 75 years journey. The planes on the left side from top to bottom are: The Toofani , Mi 26 Helicopter (The biggest Helicopter in the world) , Gnat, Packet (C 119), Hunter and the Jaguar.

On the Right from top to bottom are: Dakota DC-3, Mig 21, AN 32, Mirage 2000, Vampire 52 and finally the Mig 25 (Foxbat).

A very comprehensive history of the IAF can be found here on the IAF website.

As you can see the FDC released on the occasion is a stunner as well. When taken with the previous released stamps and FDCs of the humble Gnat, 16 Sqn of the Air force and the sheet released on the 100 years of Man's first flight, the sheet finds itself in good company.

New links

2008-02-09T17:19:00.000+05:30

Over the last few months I have been mailing to a lot of new friends and today I added two of their links on the left out here.

The first is Glenn from canada who has a nice blog about postcards. He is trying to collect cards from all over.

Secondly I have put a link to Zhou fan's blog. He is a new friend from China and has been sending me covers from that country on a regular basis.

Thanks to the both of you!

In case I have missed out links of any of you, please do write in and I'll put it up.

Tintin

2008-02-09T16:56:00.000+05:30

I don't think its ever going to be possible to show all the mail that has come in during my absence, but I'll try to put a few of them over the next few days. Today I'm showing this amazing cover and sheet sent to me by Kalpana from Germany. I had posted the sole Tintin stamp on my blog earlier and Kalpana had offered to send across the sheet. I collect comic stamps and am a huge fan of Tintin, so I was thrilled to receive this.

Cotard and Eric also sent me the sheet in mint condition (Thanks to the two of them) but enclosed in the cover was the sheet of Tintin comic covers that I didn't even know was out. It is an amazing sheet and I am eternally grateful to Kalpana for this.

Tintin is one of the most recognisable figure in all fiction and since his first arrival in 1929, he has sold more then half a million comics in more then fifty languages. It seems improbable that most of Tintins travels were conceived by an armchair traveller in the early 1900's when media was so restricted. It wasn't before the "Tintin and the Picaros" (1976) that Herge actually went to some of the places he showed us all a long time before that. The last stamp in the series of the comic cover is of the comic called "Tintin and alpha Art" - A story that herge couldn't finish before he passed away in March 1983.

Personally I haven't been able to read the first three comics as of now. Something I plan to correct very soon.

Thanks again Kalpana. :)

Paquebot mail

2008-02-08T20:05:00.000+05:30

Paquebot Letters posted in Dakar & Lome

As the last post said, I am back from the trip at sea. It was pretty eventful trip by all means and we throughly enjoyed it. But on the Postal front, it was an exciting time. I was able to visit a lot of post offices in foreign lands and posted to a lot of people from obscure spots on the globe.

One of the things I am happiest about is the use of the Paquebot mail that I tried for the first time. I had written extensively about the use of Paquebot mail before I left for the ship and let us do a slight recap of the concept before we go any further.

The ship is considered as part of the country of the place that it is registered in. So technically letter's posted on the ship are considered as posted in that particular country and hence are legally accepted as proper means of postage as long as the vessel hands them to the port post office on the first port of arrival.

The beauty of the Paquebot mail is that the cancellation of the stamps is done by the country through which the letter is posted. This would normally never happen. In the picture above you can see two of the Paquebot mails that i posted to myself. The top one is posted in Dakar (Senegal) and the bottom one was posted in Lome (Togo).

Paquebot canceled at Panama

A bit about the envelopes themselves. On the top of the envelope is the marking with the "Paquebot Mail - Posted at high seas" By all accounts I could have written this by hand as well, but this gave a better look, so dad sent it across to me on the ship.

The stamp on the left top is the stamp of the ship and this ship was the M.T Maroni, registered in the port of Willemstad in Netherland Antilles (This is why the stamps are from Netherland Antilles). The notations below the name refer to the GRT (Gross Registered Tonnage), NRT (Net Registered Tonnage), DWT (Deadweight) and the BHP (Power of the vessels Engine).

And finally the stamp on the bottom right is the stamp of the vessels captain. As per Paquebot regualtions the letter has to be signed and stamped by either the ships captain or the purser.

I did try to send these mails from pretty much every post that I went to, and surprisingly the mail reached from most of the places. The best were the African countries of Senegal and Togo, where they were decent enough to put nice cancellations and send it across. A month late, but still in one piece!Paquebot canceled in Corpus Christi, USA

Panama topped the list of countries that requires to put some money into making new postmarks. You can see why by the picture posted up there. I had heard that posting Paquebot through the US would be a pain, but surprisingly the only mail that I posted from Corpus christi, Texas did reach in good order and I was surprised to see that they even put a hand-stamped postmark and not one of their usual machine made ones.

Some of the other chaps who were nice enough to put the Paquebot on their blogs were Eric from the My Philately Blog, and again Eric from Jura. Thanks to the both of them for the nice write ups along with the pictures. George from Taiwan had also put up the pictures on his blog but I can't seem to open his page right now.

Thanks to you all!

Back Home !

2008-02-04T07:37:00.000+05:30

Hi All.

As the title says, I am back home. The last few months were great and I did cover a huge chunk of the globe in those months. But the time was very hectic and it feels great to be back home and wind down for a while.

Firstly, it was simply amazing to come back home and see the pile of letters that you folks have been sending over to my address for the last few months. I loved all of them and thanks a ton for them. It will take me a few days to deal with them and I will be putting up a lot of them on the blog over the next few days.

Anyway, thanks again to all of you & I want to let you know that I'm open for swaps again of Indian stamps.

Cheers all!

Togo - Sir Edmund Hillary

2008-01-22T05:10:00.000+05:30

Location : Off Yucatan - 17 08 N, 081 36 W

News reached a little late on the ship, but I came to know about the passing of Hillary yesterday. I had put up a couple of stamps on the 50 years of the climbing of the Everest many months back on this page.

This stamp is part of a bigger miniature released by Togo on the occasion of the mellinium. There are apparently ten of such sheets, based on the ten decades of the century. This stamp is part of the sheet on the fifties. I would have liked to use this stamp for a better occasion. Probably the 75th year and not for the passing of that man.

Chile - Santa

2008-01-21T08:20:00.000+05:30

Location : The Carribs - 13 55 N, 079 40 W

Things were crazy in Panama this call and I'm sorry but all got out was one paquebot. But I did send some out from Nicaragua and I hope you do get them soon. The thing with posting the mail from the ship is that you hand over your mail to relative strangers and simply trust that it will reach the other end. Its a wonder any of those reach at all. :)

With this nice warm feeing in the air, I'll leave you with a set of X mas stamps released by the Chilean postal Dept. This is one cool santa. I'm still not sure what exactly he is doing with Rudolf "the red nosed deer", but it certainly can't be what I think he is doing!!

Curacoa - Dive

2008-01-18T04:32:00.000+05:30

Location : Panama City Anchorage - 08 50 N, 079 29 W

I haven't been around for some days and the reason for that is that I am getting off the ship and this will be pretty much one of the last posts before I get back. Thanks to you all for the comments and the wishes.

Wanted to put up a stamp from the underwater. It is a rare stamp in the sense that even though many stamps are released featuring underwater scenes, rarely do we see divers being featured in them.

Hopefully will be able to get some diving done in Honduras before I get on the plane back home.

Neth Ant Cartoon

2008-01-12T08:22:00.000+05:30

Location : Pacific , Nicaragua coast - 09 41 N, 086 22 W

We are reaching port in the morning and as things were a little tight, I was wondering if I'd let you good fellows do the talking. I picked up this cartoon strip in Curacao, & I wonder if any of you could figure out what it stands for? Is this a famous cartoon character in Netherland? Looks like a spider to me.

Chile - The Easter Islands

2008-01-10T08:39:00.000+05:30

Location - Pacific, Equador Coast 00 24 S, 083 08 W

The Easter Islands, though seperated from the Clilean mailland by a huge distance, have become much of an icon for the country. The reasons of course is the presence of the statues on the Island. No one really knows who or why built these statues, but
the small wooden statues being made on the bottom right are made for money and sell for as much as 2 US dollars each on the road side.

Martin, a friend from Chile says that there are teo main types of statues - one with bigger ears then the others. He said that the statues were built by warring tribes who fought each other till everyone died and the only ones who were left behind were
the gods with no one to pray to them and some to buy them for two bucks.

PS: As you can see from the position, am crossing the equator again in a couple of hours!

Chile - Sea Lions

2008-01-08T22:25:00.000+05:30

Location : Pacific, Peru Coast - 07 59 S, 080 49 W

Chile claims a sizeable chunk of the Antartic Continent as a part of its Territory. I am not really sure how this goes down internationally because as far as my understanding went, the whole of the Antartic was supposed to be an international territory.
Regardless, the Antartic does impose a potent influence on the whole country simply because of the cold water current that flows from it up the Chilean coast. This also brings along the visitors from down under such as Penguins and Sea lions.

I did see a bunch of these Sea Lions perched on a rock off Vina Del Mar. Picture on the regular blog.

A point of interest is that even though the Chilean currency is denoted as dollars, it is actually called "Peso". This stamp of 1500 Peso's costs approximately 3.5 dollars or 130 Indian Rupees. Sometimes I think India is the cheapest Philatelic
destination in the world.

Chile - Two Nudes

2008-01-08T08:49:00.000+05:30

Location - Pacific, The Peru Coast - 11 01 S, 079 45 W

One of the good things about moving around a city during a bright sunny day is that you can always go into the post office. The post offices in Chile are called "Correos De Chile" and are very difficult to find, simply because they are hidden in
Shopping malls.

I did get some nice stamps and sheets there and I thought that I might as well start off with this beautiful painting by Henritte Petit. I put it up here because fine art always has fascinated me. The fact that there are naked chicks on the stamps had nothing to do with it. At all.

Fruits

2008-01-06T07:19:00.000+05:30

Location - Chile Coast - 21 39 S, 075 57 W

Well its been a hectic past week and we were in chile for the day of the new year and a few days hence. It was a beautiful port stay and I'm just about getting over it now. Apologies for not coming by earlier and updating this with more posts.

Thanks for the wishes from you people and I have put in some mail from the port. Will make a post call tomorrow. In the meanwhile, thanks for checking in and the comments. Am putting up a set of stamps released by the Neth Ant, on fruits. I think its always good to start off something like the new year with food on your plate. :)

Happy New Year!!

2007-12-29T21:04:00.000+05:30

Location - Chile Coast - 23 28 S, 075 16 W

Seeing that I will be in port and the next few days will be a bit busy, let me wish you all a very happy new year. I hope you all have a very healthy and wonderful year ahead. :)

PS: Eniko! - Thanks for the comment. I had joined this ship in August so it is possible that I missed out on posting you a card. My apologies. But I don't have your address. Drop your address in the comments and I will send you one from Chile and
Nicaragua! Happy new year to you too!

Merry Christmas

2007-12-27T07:18:00.000+05:30

Location - Peru Coast - 11 25 S, 079 37 W

Here is another stamp from the N.A for the festive occasion. I hope you all had a good time.

Merry Christmas

2007-12-26T08:31:00.000+05:30

Location - Peru coast - 07 03 S, 081 11 W

Merry christmas to everyone out there. I hope you all have a great day today!

PS: Thanks for the wishes people. Best wishes to you all too.

Curacao - Last of the pigs & Postcall

2007-12-24T09:23:00.000+05:30

Location - Coasting Columbia , Pacific Coast - 02 37 N, 080 37 W

This is the last stamp in the series released for the year of the pig by the Neth Ant. The Warthog holds special significance in the Hindu Religion as it is one of the incarnations of Vishnu and is thus holy by default. Also they do remind me of the Wild Boars that Astrix and his friends keep chasing in Gaul.

PS:Cheers All! Post Call at Panama -

Paquebot -
Gulfman - Taiwan
Benedikt - Iceland
Alexander - Russia
Prazeres - Portugal

Covers :
Lefung - Malaysia
Cotard - France
Eric (Jura) - France

Postcards :
Gem - Canada
Yukiko - Germany
Lenka - Czech Rep.

Please let me know once you get the above. Also if you people on the Paquebot list would like to recv ordinary covers with the local stamps, do let me know and I will put you on the other mailing list.

Sorry for the people I didn't cover this time. Time was limited and will put you one from Chile.

Curacao - Another pig stamp and postcall

2007-12-23T04:28:00.000+05:30

Location - Gulf of Panama, Pacific - 08 40 N, 079 29 W

Thanks to Gulfman and Yukiko, its been established that the next year is the year of the rat. Somehow I think even less countries will be lining up to release stamps of the rat, then they did for the pig.

As per Yukikos comment, I think I was born in the year of the Snake. I don't think that can be very good.

Anyway, Since the pig stamp did come up, let me also show you a couple of stamps that the Neth. Antelles released along with the miniature. This is the Berkshire Pig in all its glory. I have read many stories of Wooster and jeeves which simply revolve around the bowel functions of these very intelligent creatures.

I just passed through the Canal after a very long day, so lets do the post call tomorrow.

Curacao - Year of the Pig

2007-12-21T08:49:00.000+05:30

Location : Cristobal Anchorage - 09 25 N, 079 56 W

I don't have many days left for this stamp, so let me present you the sheet of the year by Neth. Ant. 2007 was the year of the pig, and these guys have taken out this sheet with the qualities of the person born in the year of the pig. Among other things , if you were born on one of these years, you are tolerant, gallent, honest , loyal and many more such nice things. Apparently you also cost other people a lot of money because this sheet was about 5 Gilders, which is about 3 Dollars.

Any idea which year is 2008? Eric sure would be glad if there was a year of the frog! :)

Panama comes up tomorrow morning. Will send across some mail over the next day or so.

PS: Cheers all!
Glenn - Great that you got the card. Hope you get the other one soon as well. Best Wishes for the New year.

Yukiko - Thanks & have a great holiday!

Curacao - More Frans Hals

2007-12-20T09:49:00.000+05:30

Location - Coasting Columbia - 10 36 N, 077 16W

Since we started off with Frans Hals, it seems only correct to show you the other stamps released by the NA (Netherland Antilles) in his name. I think it is safe to say that the image of the mach man has changed considerable since the times of Frans Hals.

PS: Cheers All:

George - Not to worry. Will be sending you a Paquebot from Panama, did not send you a cover from Curacao because I didn't send any Paquebots from there. Best Wishes for the new year to you too.

Gem - Thanks for the comment. Hope you get the cards soon.

Curacao - Frans Hals & A Post-Call

2007-12-19T08:13:00.000+05:30

Location - North Coast Venezuela - 12 30 N, 071 56 W

It took us a long time, but we are finally out of Curacao. The Island is a beautiful place, but is expensive as hell. The place is like Europe where everything is imported. So everything is expensive. Even Fish is expensive on this Island. Baraccuda that I purchased fresh in Togo for 3.55 USD per KG costs 15 Dollars here. If you can't get fish cheap on an Island, something is very wrong.

What I am coming down to, is that the stamps are very expensive. No one is going to debate that this sheet of a painting by Frans Hals is anything but beautiful. But the cost of 550 C equates to about 3.2 US dollars and 125 Rupees. Which really prevents one from buying 10 of them just so that you can exchange them if others later so desire.

But I did manage to track down the only Philatelic counter on the whole Island and got my hands on a few stamps. Let me show you these over the next few days. After all my next visit to a Post office will be in Chile at the year end!

PS: Cheers all! Thanks for your comments. The post out of Curacao looked like this:

COVERS
------
Eric Bruth - France
Eric from Jura - France
Alexander - Russia
Cotard - France
Yan Wu - USA
Zhou Fan - China
CHarles Jensen - USA
LeFung - Malaysia
Prazeres - Portugal

POST CARDS
---------
Yukiko - Germany
Gem - Canada
Leela - India

Next up is Panama from which I will be sending out Paquebot mail. New on the mailing list is Benedikt from Iceland. If anyone new wants to get mail, this is where you drop in a comment.

Take Care!

Senegal and the world cup

2007-12-18T06:39:00.000+05:30

Location : Curacao

I don't follow football. At all so I'm not really sure if Senegal took part in the 2002 Football world cup. But they sure did come out with a series on the cup. This is the first of the series and shows the world cup and the footbal over a stadium floating in the universe as if out of something you read in a Duglous Adams Novel.

One thing I have not been able to figure out is that the cost of the stamp is 290 + 50. I'm not sure what that means? Does it mean that if Sengal doesn't make it to the finals, we all have to pay 50 extra?

PS : Cheers All! Thanks for the comment everyone.

Eric From Jura : Sad that the stamps were not cancelled. Will send you another from Panama. They cancel it out so much you will be hard pressed to find a stamp underneath! :) Regd you seeing a snap of my ship, I write a regular blog called the "Bills
of lading" which you can usually go by following a link on the right of this page. These days I have taken the page out of circulation for a while. Once I put it back up, you can see all the pictures of the ship and the sea and the birds and all.

Alexander : Glad you got the Paquebot and glad you liked it. My address is also on the right of this web page. you can send the mail there. I will see it in a couple of months. You can send me miniatures on , Military, comics, Dinosaurs, fishes or ships.

Senegal - Dakar Rally

2007-12-16T23:57:00.000+05:30

Location - Curacao

Have been absent in the near past and the trip was rather hectic. Infact I never got to show you the stamps I got in Senegal during my visit. I had gone to their main city of Dakar and it is one of the biggest cities of West Africa. A beautiful city but one where we stayed for only a day.

The Dakar Rally is the only reason why I had heard of Dakar before this and it was good to get my hands on this stamp.

THe stamp features two SUV's and one bike on the top left. For some reason, one camel is also shown there. As if a stamp on India needs to have an elephant in the background!

Also of interest is the wordings of Senegal , which are in the colours of the Senegelese flag.

360 cfs roughly equates to 36 Indian Rupees and 1 US dollar.

PS: Cheers all! Thanks for the comments people. I'm glad that the letters from Togo & Dakar have started reaching. It always is a gamble with the Paquebot mail that it might very well end up in the garbage bin of the post office.

Cees - Thanks. I should be celebrating New Years in Chile. A beautiful country that one.

Yukiko : I should be back home in Jan or Feb. Hope you have a great holiday back home. Thanks for the comment.

Togo - The end of war

2007-12-12T08:01:00.000+05:30

Location - Off Curacao

The last few days have been passing very fast. I must be having a lot of fun because the Atlantic seemed to be a much smaller place this time around.

Anyway tonight find me drifting off Curacao waiting to go in. At the end of the voyage, its kind of fitting to put up this sheet for you people. I sadly don't speak french, but many of you do so you will probably know more about these.

The main Sheet claims it to be the 50th year anniversary (1945 - 1995) of the end of the Guerre Mondial, which I assume must mean the World War & shows the English Churchill tanks crossing the Rhine into Berlin.

The top left stamp is nice and fits into my Aeroplane collection. It is apparently the "La luftwaffe Lance une attaque finale desesperee"

The next one to it is about the allies gaining supremacy in the Atlantic.

The third one is about "Le pont ludendorf est pris intact". I think it is about capturing something lookling like a bridge intact.

The final stamp in the series is about the Katyusha Russian missiles hitting Berlin.

The russians are again active in the bottom row of stamps with their tanks rolling into berlin and by something sad in the next stamp which describes the scene as "Les Russes reprennent Varsovie devastee"

The bottom end are about peace with the left bottom announcing the Italian Cessesation of hostilities in the "Ravagee par la guerre", & the bottom left showing us the flag of the UN.

I'm not sure that we've actually stopped fighting since. Lets hope one day we actually do and stamps such as these become obsolete.

PS: Cheers all. Thanks for the comments Lefung & Yukiko. Good to see that the Dakar & Lome cards are reaching. The people on the mailing list are going to remain. If anyone else would like a card / Paquebot / cover from Curacao / Panama / Chile /
Nicaragua / Honduras , drop in a comment here with your address.

Togo - Marine Sheet

2007-12-09T05:52:00.000+05:30

Location - Atlantic - 12 50 N, 051 36 W

I always like marine sheets and if you remember I had some time back shown you a sheet from Thailand that Charlie had sent over to me. This reminds me of that sheet, but is not of that neat standard.

My particular favourite in this is the Hammerhead Shark with the anchor. :)

Togo - Dino Sheet

2007-12-08T05:09:00.000+05:30

Location -The Atlantic - 13 20 N, 045 43 W

If the last few stamps have lead us anywhere, then it is to this sheet. This sheet is my current favourite and by all standards other then puja's, one of the best sheets ever made. Puvilaand excels himself in this sheet and depicts the scene when the asteroid / comet hits the Earth, bringing in the Ice age and the subsequent extinction of the Dinosaurs.

People with a scientific inclination of mind may note that the Dino's depicted on the top of the panel from left to right are : Plateosaurus (Trias) , Sceudosaurus (Jurassic) , Kentrosaurus (Jurassic) & Heterodontosaurus (Jurassic).

The dino on the bottom left, in whose eyes we can see the reflection of the comet (neat touch Puvilaand!) is the Compsoganthus (Jurassic), and the one in the stamp perforations and thus the star dino of the sheet, is the Velociraptor. Enthusiasts will recognise this last Dino from one of the Jurassic Park movies in which they create some ruckus.

All in all one great sheet!

PS:
Kalpana - Glad you got the Paquebot. BTW, which one was it? I have sent you three of these mails and I was wondering if this was the one sent from Curacao or Togo. Have a good time in India.

Togo - Dino #6

2007-12-07T00:47:00.000+05:30

Location - The Atlantic -

The Polacanthus is exactly the kind of stuff that a toy makers dreams are made of. One mean looking dino with sparp horns all over to kill, maime, gouge and in other manners incapacitate any living creature that might habitat in the vicinity.

Like all heavily armed things, its not hard to imagine how they must have gone extinct. It must be pretty tough to get any procreational activity going on between all those horns!

PS: Cheers all! Thanks for your comments.

The next port of call will be the Island of Curacao and mails will go out from there. I shall not be sending out Paquebot from Curacao so people who have asked for a paquebot will be sent one from the next port.

Benedikt - Got your address little late for Senegal. Will Send you a Paquebot from Honduras

Kalpana - Yes I did recv it at my home. It is said to be one stunning peice of postal package. Thanks a lot. I will miss seeing it for some time till I return.

Eric Bruth - Yes Thanks. I did recv your Letter and sheet as well. Thanks. Did I mention that I send you something from Togo?

Lenka - Got a nice envelope from you as well waiting at home. Thanks.

Togo - Dino #5 & Post all

2007-12-03T02:38:00.000+05:30

Location - Senegal

Finally we see a mean looking dinosaurs, I had previously classified Dinosaurs as either "Eaten" or the "Eating" types. The Coelophysis definitely seems to belong to the latter group. Watch out from those mean looking claws and sharp teeth!

PS: Cheers All! post call Ex Senegal:

Paquebot mail :
Alexander - Russia - Got your address in time. Paquebot on the way.
Kalpana - Germany
Eric from Jura - France
Mr Prazeres - Portugal

Covers:
Lefung - Malaysia

Post Cards:
George - Taiwan - Sorry ran out of Paquebot stamps this port. Did send you a card from here & one also from Togo.
Gem - Canada - Got your address just in time. Postcard on the way.
Kalpana - Germany
Lenka - Czech Rep
Cotard Stephane - France
Ms Yan Wu - US
Charlie - Thailand
Yukiko - Germany
J - India

Please drop a comment once you get them.

PPS : Eric Bruth - Thanks for the comment. Sorry could not send you a cover from Senegal, but did send you a cover from Togo. Hope you get it. Plus I'm not sure if your sheet made it to Home. Hopefully it will. Thanks for putting up my paquebot on your
blog. Will check it up once I get online in a month. Cheers & good health!

World AIDS Day

2007-12-01T22:16:00.000+05:30

Location - West Coast Africa

Let's take a break from the dinosaurs today. Today is world Aids day and its only fitting that I put up this stamp up here. It was released by India on the World Aids day of 2006.

There are more then 5 million cases of Aids in India alone. If we don't do something about it, rather then me putting up stamps of Dinosaurs up on the net, we might have someone else putting stamps of humans on their blogs.

PS : Eric : I'll send you a cover. :)

Togo - Dinosaurs #4

2007-11-30T23:58:00.000+05:30

Location - African West Coast

Today we look at Mr Brachiosaurus from the Jaurassic era. I'm not sure about this painter. The backgrounds are stunning, but something seems to be wrong with the dino's. Take this big fellow for instance, he really does seem upbeat about his extinction
and is actually smiling. This seems particularly praiseworthy because his head seems to be all bumped up - probably because a caveman hit him with a piece of wood. I like this chap.

PS: Cheers all!

Lefung : Will send across a Paqubot your way. And don't worry about registered post. The letters will be accepted and kept safely till I return.

Alexander: I have been on your blog & liked it. will send across letters without fail, but I don't have your address and can't log on to your blog now. So type in you address in the comments space so that I can send letters.

Togo - Dinosaurs # 3

2007-11-29T14:04:00.000+05:30

Location : West Coast Africa

I think we all can agree that even his mother would have been hard pressed to call the Dilophosaurus a good looking bloke. I don't know if its this chap in the foreground that does it, but the background of this stamp is nice. Its got the morning misty look with the sun coming up bathing everything in the mysterious foggy orange that looks great.

BTW, thanks for the comments :
Yuki - I didn't send you a card from lome because you didn't post a comment to let me know you recd my panama card. I'll send you one from the next port. Say if you are in Japan, can you get me the full set of stamps on the Steam Engines that I had
shown a month of so back?

Gulfman - I thought you must have got tired with all the paqubot covers fo I send you a postcard from Togo on the 26th. Let me know once you get it.

Lefung - I haven't got it with me yet, but I haven't checked up my mail since the last two months so it might have arrived at home. Please let me know here is you send/recv anything. Will send across some covers your way.

Cheers All!

Swaps with Velu

2007-11-29T00:25:00.000+05:30

Hi all.

I did put in a post about it some time back but since I'm not online, let me just say it again so it's somewhere on top.

It's like this. Anyone reading this is most welcome to put in a comment here. I will read it. If you want to recv a card or a cover from me, you'll have to put in your address in the comment and I'll dispatch a letter from the next port of call.

I can send you the following :-
a. A Paquebot mail (lots written about it in the posts past)
b. Post cards
c. Covers

What I would like is stamp miniature sheets from you in return once you get my letter & if you read my blog, you know the topics I'd like the stamps or FDC to be on.

So if you want to get a card, drop a comment on this post & I'll send a card from the country you want. Or from all the countries you want it from!

Countries coming up in the next month or so:- Senegal , Netherland Antilles , Panama , Chile , Equador , Honduras , Venezuela.

PS: Ms. Yan Wu - Already sent across a card in your direction the day before. Let me know once you get it.

Togo - Dinosaurs

2007-11-29T00:11:00.000+05:30

Location :- West coast Africa

Coming up next in the series of the Togo Dinosaurs is the Pachycephalosaurus also from the prehistoric era. This chap seems to bear a striking resemblance to the pictures that I have seen of Dodo's. I wonder if it even waited for the ice age to go extinct!

Togo - Dinosaurs

2007-11-28T04:12:00.000+05:30

Location : West Coast Africa

I was not really active much around here for the last few days. I apologise to all those who did drop by and found nothing new. The last few days were spent a bit busy in the port of Lome. It is the only port and also the capital of a country called Togo.

One good thing that did happen was that I managed to get to the Main post office of the town and went through the Philately section. I have decided to officially include a collection of Dinosaurs in my stamps. Picked up a few of them over there and let
me show you the first one - A Scutellosaurus from the pre-historic age.

The artist seems to be someone called "Puvilland" I will need to do a google on him and dig up more info on that chap.

Finland Ships

2007-11-23T03:16:00.000+05:30

Location - At Anchorage, West Coast Africa

Recd in the same cover as the previous post, this is another stamp in the same series of ships. As with the Express, the SS Nicolai is on a great stamp, but we can see that it is based on a more classical approach towards beauty and seems to find most
of its propulsion from Wind rather then Steam.

also of note is the beautiful postmark from Helsinki dated the 23rd of Aug that has come with this mail. It is a great pleasure to recv covers with good covers. For some reason, everyone one who put up a comment after recv my cards from Panama reported
getting horribly postmarked cards. My regrets.

Finland - Moomin

2007-11-19T03:53:00.000+05:30

Location - Anchored on the African coast

I know I said it & I'm sorry, but I like cartoon stamps too much to stay away from them for long.
This is surprisingly the only Moomin stamp I have. Surprisingly, because Finland has released so many of them & I have so many cards coming in from Finland and everyone from Finland seems to like Moomins and send everyone else moomin Stamps, that
anyone who could have followed this sentence would have logically assumed (as I did) that I would be swamped by Moomin stamps. It was because of this, that I have as of now not requested any of my Kind Finnish friends to send me a Moomin Stamps.

Flowers. Finnish people seem to be crazy about flowers. Nine postcards out of ten from finland seem to have flower stamps on them. To every one of them I reply with stamps of snow & barren mountains.

So any of you kind reader from Finland who happen to drop by here, please remember that I was talking about the other people who sent the flower stamps. Your flowers were wonderful. Now send those Moomins! :)

PS: BTW, in all the rant about the stamps I never got around to talking about the Moomins. I have sadly read only one of the Moomin books (a few years back)& it was lovely. Please do read them if you haven't. This stamp by all accounts of my feeble
memory is of Moomin Mama. Who is cooking with evident nonchalance. As she does everything else.

Stamp was sent by Ometsola of postcrossing. Thanks!

Estonia - Whale

2007-11-17T04:14:00.000+05:30

Location : Coasting West Africa

Following up on the order of fishes, I ordered about 60 KG's of fishes at the next port and hopefully they should last for a good month or so. I was thinking that if I could somehow fit one of these whales in my freezer, I might as well drop all
wsorries for feeding the crew. :)

This is a beautiful stamp by any standards & the small sub-stamp (I'm not exactly sure what it is called) that is part of the sheet has also been sent to me. This seems to be a joint issue stamp as can be seen from the two flags of the top left. If I'm
not mistaken, the picture on the top right is the map of the Arctic ice-cap. So this might be a stamp issued on the occasion of some joint survey or some such event. Anyway, the event doesn't matter as long as they keep dishing out such beauties.

Many thanks to Muhv from Postcrossing.com who swapped with me and had sent across the beautiful Edward Wiiralt painting miniature that I had posted much earlier.

Hungary - Fishes

2007-11-16T03:05:00.000+05:30

Location - Off Western africa - 03 48 N,007 20 W,

We have pretty much reached the destination in Western Africa and I was busy ordering fishes for the provisions. The only thing happening out in this places seems to be fishing and hopefully they should be good. That reminded me that in the mad comic
rush out here, I haven't shown you much of the fishes collection other then the sheet of Ibrahim. Pictured above is a set of fish stamps (used) from Hungary.

Gabor was kind enough to send me this full set.

Thanks Gabor!

Malaysia - Fish

2007-11-13T00:31:00.000+05:30

Location - The Atlantic - 06 16 N, 024 50 W

Today from my collection on fishes, lets have a look at this sheet from Malaysia that Ibrahim was kind enough to exchange with me. Its got a great look to it & the background coral snapshot is great to view. I haven't done much diving in recent times.
It is kind of sad because this ship has recently been travelling around some of the best dive spots in the world. Maybe if I sign off at Curacao or Venezuela, I could arrange for a few dips in the sea. :)

Curacao

2007-11-11T06:16:00.000+05:30

Location - The Atlantic - 07 34 N, 033 48 W

This is another stamp from Curacao & I think it must be depicting the Queen of Netherland. I like it because it is actually issued on behalf of the Island of Curacao & that it shows the kind of buildings that this Island is famous for. If you check my regular blog, you'll see a picture of this type of buildings there.

I also like this stamp, because at first sight its not arresting to look at & doesn't have very jazzy graphics, but it does have a reserved regal look about it that does look nice the more you look at it.

PS: Thanks Msyanwu for the comment & the cover.

Diwali

2007-11-10T06:49:00.000+05:30

Location : The Atlantic - 08 13 N, 038 26 W

Today we celebrate Diwali in India. Diwali is called the Festival of lights. So today I present to you this beautiful stamp from Curacao which looks like nice lamps floating in the water on lotus flowers.

I wish this diwali brings good fortune & health to all you people & your families.

PS: George : Thanks for the wishes. Wish you the same. :)

USA - Alpine Tundra

2007-11-07T17:53:00.000+05:30

Location - Atlantic - 09 59 N , 050 27 W

This is another of the sheets that I got in the US this time. I don't particularly collect nature stamps, but this sheet is definitely beautiful. The sheet comprises of 10 stamps of 41 cents each, but has a total of 24 birds, animals, butterflies or
flower species included in it.

Alpine tundra begins above the tree line in high mountain areas such as the rockies, & the stamp pane depicts a summer scene in the Rocky Mountain national park, Colorado. The prominent birds & animals depicted in the sheet, from left to right are :
American Pika, White tailed Ptarmigan, American Pipit, Bighorn Sheep, Golden Eagle, Short tailed weasel & the yellow billed marmot.

This Alpine tundra sheet is supposed to be the ninth in the series of "Nature of America" This series, "features the beauty and complexity of plant & animal communities in the US." and I think it certainly does justice to that aim.

Curacao

2007-11-06T07:40:00.000+05:30

Location - The Atlantic - 11 03 N, 057 41 W

The last few days I have been writing on my regular blog about Curacao and insects, so I thought that I might as well write a post about the stamps of Curacao. Now I have been to Curacao before & I have had the stamps of that place for well over a month, and yet I have never put them up before this. The reason for that it that they are spectacularly dull. If you go back many-many posts, you will find one revenue stamp of Netherland Antilles that does actually look rather neat. But the stamps used for postage seem to be vying for the top spot of uninspiring art works.

But of the whole lot of stamps that I managed to get my hands on, this stamp of the Dragonfly is the only one that I really liked & will probably put up here. The rest of the stamps I do put up in the Paquebot mails that people ask me to send.

Regd this stamp, it is issued under the name of St Eustatius. This is another beautiful Island around these places & I was there a couple of years back. St Eustatius holds a special place in my heart because I learnt to dive there & I have yet to dive at a place better then that. The Island itself is beautiful & basically consists of an Extinct Volcano & friendly locals. Worth a google earth sighting.

PS: Thanks all for writing comments & sending mails to my place. True I will get my hands on them next year, but I do get to know of mails when they reach. :)

USA - Pollination

2007-11-03T22:14:00.000+05:30

Location - Off Curacao - 12 05 N, 068 57 W

This is another of the sheet that I had picked up at Corpus Christi during this call & deals with the subject of Pollination. Not much to talk on the subject, but the sheet is nice and features four ways that pollination does take place.

I particularly like the bat stamp because you get to see bat stamps so rarely & well.. bats are cool!

Star wars - The duel on Mustafar

2007-11-03T06:31:00.000+05:30

Location - The Caribbean - 12 43 N, 070 50 W

When the republic falls, the greatest fear of Obi-wan Kwenobi is realized: his former apprentice Anakin Skywalker has turned to the dark side and been named darth vader, dark lord of the Sith. Obi-wan confronts his old friend on the volcanic lava planet of mustafar, where their fierce light saber duel leaves a severely wounded Anakin dying on the charred gravel of a hellish world - and forever changes the destiny of the Galaxy.

This duel on Mustafar is a great stamp right in the middle of the sheet, & seen separately, it seems surprising to find such a bright stamp in the star wars sheet, which seems to be a dark sheet on the whole. But if you go back a couple of posts,
you'll see the whole sheet that I had put & the whole thing is very nicely laid out.