Trams, Belgium

this week's theme at Viridian's is Streetcars, or any kind of public transport. As someone might guess, i was on the verge of posting something related to trains (again) but i do have these set of 3 tram stamps, so it would be the best occasion to use them now :)

So here we have the tram set from Belgium issued in 2008.

the first one shows De kustttram, or the Belgian coast tram, which is a public transport service connecting the cities and towns along the entire Belgian (West Flanders) coast, between De Panne near the French border and Knokke-Heist near the Dutch border. At 68 km in length, it is the longest tram line in the world, as well as one of the few interurban tramways in the world to remain in operation. The service makes 70 stops with a tram running every ten minutes during the peak summer months, during which it is used by over 3 million passengers.

the second, 0,90 stamp shows a tram operating in Brussels, whose system is one of the ten largest in the world, with 17 routes totalling 133.4 km.

the third, 0,80 stamp portrays the Charleroi Metro, which is a 25 km express tram network in Belgium, consisting of a horseshoe-shaped line around central Charleroi and two branches towards the suburbs of Gilly and Anderlues.

the technical details regarding the stamps:

- Date of Issue: 14 April
- Width:            40.2 mm
- Height:          27.66 mm
- Perforations: 11.5 by 11.5


for more rides around, get off at the Viridian's station, by clicking on the button below:

Trams, Belgium

Cats, Poland

I had some hard time in choosing the stamps for today....I have some ADORABLE cats and dogs' stamps, and I didnt know which ones to show...but in the end, the choice fell on these Polish felines..

I am a huge cats and dogs' lover...I have been one since I was born...in the majority of pictures I have from when I was little, a dog or a cat is present too...i used to have a dog too, but someone had stolen him and unfortunately we never managed to find him...it was an adorable Collie, or more popularly known as Lassie...now I have two cats which I absolutely adore, but still, i long for a dog too...at least dogs are genuinely happy when they see you :)

as for today's stamps, this is a set of 10 Polish stamps issued in 1964. I dont have many details regarding them, but I can tell you that they are big-sized stamps (over 4cm x 5cm), that is, bigger than the usual, standard sized stamps...and from top to bottom, from left to right, this is what they represent (sorry for the disorder, but this was somewhat most convenient for the scan...)

50gr stamp - Siamese cat
1.55 zl  - European cat
2.50 zl  - European cat
6.50 zl - European cat
3.40 zl - Persian cat
40 gr - European cat
30 gr - European cat
90 gr - Persian cat
60 gr - European cat
1.35 zl - Persian cat

 Some additional info...the European cat is also known as the European short-hair and is said to have its origins in Sweden.
Persian catsis are a long-haired breed of cat characterized by its round face and shortened muzzle. Its name refers to Persia, the former name of Iran, where similar cats are found. I love these coz they are so fluffy and chubby! Adorable!!
Unlike Persian, Siamese cats are not so attractive to me...at least not all of them..probably coz of their face-shape and the big pointed-out ears. Makes them cold....The origins of the breed are unknown, but it is believed to be from Thailand, where they are referred to as 'moon diamonds'...

Hope you have a nice Sunday folks! Here we finally have some sun and some warm weather! (by warm I mean, 6 degrees...but it is lovely compared to all that snow and ice and freezing cold temperatures!)

for some more adorable companions, click on the button below...and if you dont have a pet, you can always adopt one and give them a chance for a new home and lots of mutual love...you'd be surprised how much pets can change your life..

Cats, Poland

Protection of the Polar Regions & Glaciers, Croatia

well, this Sunday's theme at Viridan's is 'anything you wish', so here I thought Id post something related to the weather outside...we've been having these polar temperatures and snow for days now...ok, not to the extent in order to earn the title 'polar region' but still :) It is beautiful outside indeed, when everything is so white, and the air feels clear....the only problem is the traffic chaos, but we'll live....as always :)

before we begin, i would like to make two questions:


1. What is it that YOU do to contribute to the protection of the environment?


2. According to you, what is a mini sheet and what is a souvenir sheet? For me, this above would be a mini sheet but the HP says it is a souvenir sheet, so I would like some input from your side

thanks! :)


I love the theme of Polar Regions and Glaciers' Protection and it is really a pity the Macedonian post office has not issued any. I mean, you don't have to be a country to be facing this problem...as far as I know, many of our neighbouring countries do pay attention to this and have issued such thematic stamps....and they are all so lovely!
I have had my eyes on this Croatian issue for a long while, and then one day it surprised me in my mailbox since dear Agi decided to send it to me for Lori's NCC RR!

What the HP had to say about the issue:
When polar areas and their endangered condition due to climatic changes are mentioned, most people immediately think of a sad picture of a polar bear that is compelled to swim over large distances in search for an iceberg somewhere in the North Pole region. Although being excellent swimmers, polar bears are unable to survive in those regions without ice. Disappearance of the ice cap during summer months and the threat to ice bear habitats have become the symbol of endangered condition of the ice-covered regions caused by recent climatic changes. The scientific community is unanimous in their confirmation of the existence of global warming, as well as of the responsibility of humans for recent changes, which has been confirmed also by the latest report of the United Nations’ committee on which several thousands of scientists worked. Of course, there are also natural exchanges of ice ages caused by the change of the Earth’s orbit or by the tipping of the Earth’s orbit, the so-called Milanković’s cycles. However, they do happen on time-scales of thousands of years and cannot be taken as an explanation for the recent accelerated increase of temperature. Although these changes are global, they do not affect equally all the regions. The most threatened ones are those in the polar circle. In summertime, almost all ice melts in the North, whereas the coastal regions in the distant South experience one of the highest temperature increases on the Earth i.e. 2.5 °C in one hundred years, on the top of Antarctic Peninsula. For instance, disintegration and melting of the ice shelf Larsen B 2002 on the Antarctic Shelf, an ice shelf with an area eight times the area of Croatia’s island of Krk, caused a surprise among the scientific community because no one could foresee such a rapid development in that direction. For all the above mentioned reasons, the period 2007/2008 was proclaimed the International Polar Year, on the occasion of which the scientists carried out a number of projects and measurements, with the specific purpose of better understanding and protecting the polar areas and glaciers. In the last 125 years of modern science, it has been the third time that the world joined its forces in the research of the polar areas, the last time in the distant year 1957/1958 on the occasion of the World Geophysical Year. The projects related to the Polar Year are due to be finished in March 2009 and therefore it is very convenient that the issue of a commemorative stamp on the protection of the polar areas coincides with the end of great effort in science to research and protect them better. An important issue has been left open: what we as individuals can do to protect the polar areas. Although we are very far away from them and our country is small, we can still make quite a difference. The atmosphere is getting warmer and warmer under the influence of glasshouse gases and it is not irrelevant where they arise from. The Western world generates enormous quantities of these gases and a fair part of them is superfluous and their emission can be reduced. As a nation we can plan the sustainable development which will not be an additional threat to the Earth and as individuals we can save and more efficiently use the energy; we can plan better and reduce our "imprint" in the emission of glasshouse gases, in order to help everyone on the planet to keep their habitats, even the polar bears. It is believed that this commemorative stamp will have a certain impact and contribute to raising of awareness on the necessity of protection of the polar regions and glaciers.

Technical details:

5kn of each stamp
Size: 112 x 73 (31,24 x 35,50) mm
Paper: white 102g, gummed
Perforation: Harrow, 14 Tehnique: Multicoloured Offsetprint + Embossed print and Varnish
Date of issue: 27.3.2009

for other random themes, pay a visit to Viridian's blog

have a great snowy or sunny Sunday everyone (depending on where you live) :)

 I Agi, još jednom, hvala i najviše!!! <3

Protection of the Polar Regions & Glaciers, Croatia

Pioneers of American Industrial Design, USA

well, it is time to get back this blog to life as well...you know, once you get it going, it is ok...but when you get into the hibernating mood...it is much more difficult to get out of it and start doing things...but enough of winter sleep, no?

and here is one FANTASTIC cover dear Bryon sent me last year...containing a full set of the Pioneers of American Industrial Design set which the USPS issued last year.

the whole set contains not more not less but 12 lovely stamps and Bryon as kind as he is, included them all! Thanks to him to the heaven and back for that...and for all the other amazing stuff he had sent me!
This set of stamps honours 12 of the nation's most important and influential industrial designers, where each stamp features the name of a designer and a photograph of an object created by the designer, as well as a description of the object and the year or years when the object was created.

what made me post this cover today is actually the desk-telephone stamp..the other day some friends and I were discussing about the dependence of this world on electricity and how nowadays not even landlines are functioning when electricity goes off, since those telephones need electricity in order to be operational...compared to the past when we had this kind of rotary dial telephones..and the later a bit modern version of these. As much as these new portable telephones can be handy, since you can move freely around the house while you speak, i do feel sort of nostalgic for these old times....and as much as new technology can be useful, it is not perfect and has its faults too...

ok, lets go step by step with the stamps, from left to right, top row first....


- The Eliot Noyes stamp features a photograph of the “Selectric” typewriter, which was introduced by IBM in 1961 (I still keep one at home...and I LOVED using it when I was little....I didnt usually type something particular....just random thoughts that came to my mind, but i enjoyed typing :)

- The Gilbert Rohde stamp features a photograph of a clock created for the Herman Miller Clock Company in 1933. The clock is part of the John C. Waddell Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, New York


- here is the guilty stamp :) featuring a photograph of the Model 302 Bell telephone introduced in 1937, designed by Henry Dreyfuss.

- The Dave Chapman stamp features a photograph of two sewing machines from the Special Collections Research Center at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York


- The Frederick Hurten Rhead stamp features a photograph of two pitchers from the Fiesta dinnerware line designed for The Homer Laughlin China Company in 1936

- The Donald Deskey stamp features a photograph of a table lamp that Deskey designed around 1927–29

bottom row:


- The Greta von Nessen stamp features a photograph of the “Anywhere” lamp, designed in 1951 for Nessen Studio, Inc.

- The Russel Wright stamp features a photograph of a fork, knife, and spoon from the “Highlight/Pinch” line of flatware designed by Wright in 1950


- The Walter Dorwin Teague stamp features a photograph of the “Baby Brownie” camera, introduced by Eastman Kodak Company in 1934

- The Norman Bel Geddes stamp features a photograph of the “Patriot” radio, designed for Emerson Radio and Phonograph Corporation in 1940. The radio is part of the John C. Waddell Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, New York.

- The Peter Müller-Munk stamp features a photograph of the “Normandie” pitcher, introduced by the Revere Copper and Brass Company in 1935. The photograph is from The Liliane and David M. Stewart Collection at the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal.

- The Raymond Loewy stamp features a photograph of a pencil sharpener prototype created in 1933

If youd like to read a bit more in-depth about each of these designers, click on the link here. It will take you some extra time, but it is worth it.

Just to mention, that these stamps belong to the Forever series.

Pioneers of American Industrial Design, USA

Christmas, Dominica

Here is my participation for Viridian's Sunday Stamps today on the theme Christmas

Believe it or not the Macedonian post office is DUE to issue this next week...just egregious! I really dont know what they've been thinking..but in case you are getting a Christmas card from me this year, it's gonna be with oldish Christmas stamps...which according to me, are nothing special so don't expect some 'wows' - hoping that they won't get lost in the Christmas chaos in the first place :)
Also, our postal service issues just one single stamp each year (and it is never enough for postage), unlike many other countries ive seen which issue at least two....and often a whole set of 4 or 5 stamps.

Ok, back to the stamps above, for today I picked these issued by Dominica in 1981. The entire set consists of nine stamps actually so if anyone has the three Im missing, PLEASE contact me for an exchange. Actually, with all these rare countries issuing Disney-related stamps, I am always missing a few stamps in each set coz they never seem to be sold as a whole...I don't know why, but it is sort of frustrating :) There is also a s/s coming with this set, so I would need that one too :)

Anyways, these stamps are actually like an excerpt from the Santa's Workshop cartoon. Probably you have watched it time ago...if you haven't well, click on the link below....if you have, you can still click on the link and invoke memories :)

isn't this how most of the children actually imagine what Santa's doing? This even makes you WANT to believe in Santa! Esp. the part of the letters' reading...more or less this is what I thought had happened to the letters I sent to Santa when I was little. Maybe Santa's laughing is a bit bizarre and might give some children a scare, but on the overall, this is every child's dream land ;)
And on the side note, I really prefer these older cartoons compared to those modern ones nowadays.....yeah, call me old-fashioned :)

for some more Christmassy spirit, visit Viridian's blog

Christmas, Dominica

Blue Whale, Canada

Few days ago I received this fantastic cover from Glenn...and it came in very handy for this Sunday's theme of Viridian's blog, featuring Stamps of the Great White North...so apart from Canada being eligible for this category, the stamp itself feels very northy, so I simply had to choose it for today....and believe it or not, this cover took EXACTLY two months to reach me...from Canada!! I'll never understand the postal service, but im definitely more than happy it had arrived coz it is such a beautiful stamp and such a nice and clear cancellation! It would have been more than a pity if this had gotten lost somewhere..

On October 4, 2010 Canada Post issued a $10 definitive stamp depicting the world's largest creature, the Blue Whale (Balænoptera musculus). The stamp is the largest in size and highest denomination Canada Post has ever produced.
10 $ of face value certainly is A LOT and makes this stamp mainly interesting for collectors only coz I highly doubt it will be used for regular mail often.

The stamp was produced using a combination of intaglio (for the whale in the foreground) and offset lithography (for the colours in the background). The intaglio process (which was used to produce Canada’s first postage stamp) was recently reinvented using a new, state-of-the-art laser engraving technology.
A special printing technique called microtype was used to write the Latin name for blue whale - a feature that is normally impossible to reproduce by any other means than intaglio.
Additionally, a large cluster of krill (the whale’s food of choice), along with a diver, were introduced using tagging inks. These can only be seen under an ultraviolet lamp.

 here is an image of the stamp under UV:

pretty cool, no? :)

This mammal weighs between 80 and 180 metric tonnes and reaches lengths of more than 30 metres. It can travel at speeds of 33 km/hr, accelerating to 48 km/hr when chased, making it among the fastest of whale species. This fascinating giant of the deep is also unmatched in the projection of its voice, emitting low-frequency sounds that can travel hundreds of miles (and possibly entire oceans) under water. Yet despite its outstanding stature and might, sightings of the elusive blue whale are very rare—another reason why it has fascinated us since the dawn of time. In Canada, the blue whale roams the waters along the north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence near eastern Nova Scotia, the south coast of Newfoundland, and in the Davis Strait between Baffin Island and Greenland. In the west it habits the coast of British Columbia.

Maybe not so appealing as dolphins coz whales are a bit scary, but I love them too....and im appalled each time when I read how in some part of the world there are mass killings of these animals...the latest I read was regarding the dolphins' killing in the Faroe Islands/Denmark...disgusted is the least i could say I've been...man's nature is just so twisted...

well, a few more technical details about the stamp:

Date of Issue  4 October 2010
Width            128.0 mm
Height            49.0 mm
Denomination 10.00 CAD
Perforations    13 by 13

For more north-related stamps, please visit Viridian's blog:

Have a great Sunday!

Blue Whale, Canada

400 years since Rembrandt's birth, joint issue between Netherlands and Germany

here comes a small piece of art for today's Sunday stamps

I picked this cover with the sheet issued in 2006, to commemorate the 400 years since the birth of this great dutch painter and etcher. He was born on 15 July 1606 and died on 4 October 1669.

Im pretty sure you know quite a lot about him, so I wont be holding on to his general life, but will try to explain what's on the stamps here.

the set consists of 5 stamps plus a vignette, containing the information.
all stamps have a face value of 0,39 euros, and this is actually a joint issue between Netherlands and Germany, which has arisen some controversies, esp regarding a 70c stamp of Saskia in the prestige booklet, which the German's found invalid, since he printing - made in the Netherlands - was different from the prinitng made in Germany for the German sheetlets. The Dutch one actually contained the text in German and in some catalogue listings was said to be good for postage only in the Netherlands, which on the overall is rather confusing as to what's what, so i wont go into depth about it here.


Anyways, as for the stamps here, they all show Rembrandt's works. The top left stamp shows us Saskia van Uylenburgh in a pompous dress (Rembrandt's wife). The portrait was done sometime around 1642 and can be found at the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Kassel.

The stamp next to it shows a portrait of Titus reading, c.1657-1658 (Rembrant's son) at The Kunsthistorisches Museum (or the Museum of Fine Arts) in Vienna.

The third stamp in that row shows us the painting called "Woman in a doorway", c. 1656-1657, and can be found at the Gemäldegalerie (or the Art Museum) in Berlin.

As for the bottom stamps, the both show etchings, where the one on the left shows us the "Bearded man, in a furred oriental cap and robe", from 1631, which some consider to be a portrait of Rembrand's father. This can be found at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, while the other one shows us the artist's mother seated at a table, c.1629 - 1633, which can again be found at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

for some more artistic inputs, click on the big button below

400 years since Rembrandt's birth, joint issue between Netherlands and Germany