Independence Day, Philippines

After the long silence here as well, and after putting my postcards blog back to life, it would be also fair to show some attention to this guy here before the year comes to an end... and I wanted to share a strange story here with you...


Few months ago I received this envelope from the Philippines with this really nice set of stamps issued in 2017 for their Independence Day.

the backside suggested that it is something for the official Postcrossing site. Even though I prefer written and stamped cards instead of ones sent in envelopes, sometimes people do this for really noble reasons and include something extra besides the usual postcard - the sender as you can see wants to swap covers too, which is why I thought he had decided to put the postcard in the envelope and grant me this really nice cover.

However, once I opened the envelope I was left with some confusion.

First of all the postcard was nowhere to be found (and the basic rule of Postcrossing is that one has to send you a postcard and you shouldnt register anything other than a postcard, not even a folded card).

The absence of postcard wasn't what was strange here, but it was the actual contents as you can see below...

Two envelopes from which the stamps had been removed and which according to the address is something the sender had received and sent them to me as covers supposedly.

I have never complained to the Postcrossing team before on something I had received but this time I really thought the situation called for it... not cos I want to nag them on what I had received but I just dont want to be the bad guy later and have complaints that I haven't registered something I had received.
They said they would look into it and message the sender and see what happens.
Few weeks later, I got their reply, which said that according to the sender, this is not what the person had sent me, but that they had actually sent me two nice covers since I was a collector and have claimed to have included a postcard as well. Being that no one here can prove what had actually happened (even though I can prove from my side 1000% what I had found in my mailbox), the final verdict was that someone had obviously tampered this envelope along the way. ?!?!

I honestly find that hard to believe, cos the envelope really seemed fine, and how would one know that there are envelopes inside so that they cut out the stamps - isn't it more sensible to simply take both envelopes without bothering with the stamp cutting and all? But then, who am I to claim  what had really happened and there is no point in that... at the end of the day, something that was supposed to be really nice, turned out into something really disappointing....

Have you experienced something like this before? Or what is the strangest mail story that has happened to you?
Feel free to share your story in the comments... if you are still visiting this blog after all my absence :)))

Olympic Games in Tokyo, Czechoslovakia

Might be a too obvious O, but not much else came to my mind... and I do like this set of stamps issued by the back then Czechoslovakia, on 26 October 1963, commemorating the Summer Olympic Games that took place in Tokyo the following year from 10-26th October - strange to have summer Olympics in October, regardless in which hemisphere of the world they are held.

The 1964 Summer Games were the first Olympics held in Asia, and the first time South Africa was barred from taking part due to its apartheid system in sports.(South Africa was, however, allowed to compete at the 1964 Summer Paralympics, also held in Tokyo, where it made its Paralympic Games debut.) These games were also the first to be telecast internationally without the need for tapes to be flown overseas, as they had been for the 1960 Olympics four years earlier.

A number of the sport disciplines are represented, starting from cannoeing, volleyball, wrestling, basketball, boxing, and my favorite out of these - gymnastics.

The top three nations who have left home with medals are USA (90 medals in total, out of which 36 gold), then USSR - six more than USA on the overall but also 6 less gold medals, and Japan, with a total of 29 medals, out of which 16 were gold. That is quite a striking difference in numbers between the first two, and then Japan being third.



Check out the other O's at today's Sunday Stamps edition.

Manul, Tajikistan

Another Sunday is about to come and go, and before it does, it is time for another Sunday Stamps episode - this one right on time :)


It is time for the letter M, and one lovely chubby creature called Manul .featured on this amazing stamp sheet from Tajikistan, issued on 28th June 1996.

The manul, also known as the Pallas's cat, is a small wild cat with a broad but fragmented distribution in the grasslands and montane steppes of Central Asia. It is negatively affected by habitat degradation, prey base decline and hunting, and has therefore been classified as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List since 2002.

It cat was first described in 1776 by the German naturalist Peter Simon Pallas, hence the name.

Also the Pallas' glass lizard, Pallas' viper, Pallas's long-tongued bat, Pallas's tube-nosed bat, Pallas's squirrel, Pallas's leaf warbler, Pallas's cormorant, Pallas's fish-eagle, Pallas's gull, Pallas's sandgrouse, Pallas's rosefinch, and Pallas's grasshopper warbler were first described by him, as can be seen in their names.

I don't think the manul is meowing as regular cats. but for another m-related to this, the Macedonian word for a cat is machka (мачка), so there we go :)

Check out the rest of the M's here

Meow!! .

Lighthouses, Portugal

Well, I will do a bit of cheating on this week's Sunday Stamps and post on a Monday but I was away on a trip yesterday and in most cases would just miss the show, but being that L is for one of my favourite topics, I just had to show of part of my L-related collection. It is not very hard to guess it is lighthouses we are talking about, right?
Not the most creative word, but it is lighthouses we are talking about, already magnificent on their own!

A set of amazing 10 stamps (ignore the last two for the time being), showcasing Portuguese lighthouses, issued on 19th June 2008. I have some of these featured on postcards, but still a long way to go to get them all.
I haven't been to Portugal yet, and I am seriously having my eyes set on it for the near future, so I might just as well do a lighthouse tour while there :D

So in, not all their glory, here you can see:

- the Leça Lighthouse, located in Leça da Palmeira. It is in the shape of a white conical tower, with reinforced concrete, with narrow black strips and attached buildings. 46 metres high.

- Penedo de Saudade - located São Pedro de Moel, Leiria district. It is a quadrangular tower of stonework, with an annexed building covered in reddish-brown colored tiles and red lanterns. It is 32 meters high.

- Montedor - located in Viana de Castello - It is the northernmost lighthouse in the country and began operation on March 20, 1910. 28 metres high.

- the Esposende Lighthouse - set in front of the Forte de São João Baptista de Esposende. The 15 metre tall lighthouse dates back to 1922 and what is unusual about it is that it is made of metal.

- Santa Maria - situated to the south of the centre of Cascais, Lisbon District, Portugal. It is a quadrangular masonry tower covered with white tiles, with blue horizontal stripes and a red lantern. 20 metres high.

- Cabo Espichel - situated on the western coast of the civil parish of Castelo, in the Setúbal district of Portugal. The lighthouse was built in 1790 and is 32 metres high.

- Cabo Sardão -  Proposed in 1883, and of difficult access, only came into operation for the first time in 1915. The lighthouse is located at Ponta do Cavaleiro in Cabo Sardão. It has a white square tower 17 meters high in masonry. It has an annex building and a red cylindrical flashlight with light that reaches 43 kilometres.

- Bugio Lighthouse - situated on an island in the estuary of the River Tagus on the Fort of São Lourenço do Bugio, about ten kilometres west of Lisbon. It emits a green flash of one second every 5 seconds and marks the entrance to the port of Lisbon.

- Cabo de Roca - located 165 metres above the Atlantic Ocean, on Portugal's (and continental Europe's) most westerly extent (Cabo da Roca).  It is a third-order lighthouse, which originally began operating in 1772. It was the first new purpose-built lighthouse to be constructed in the country: the older lighthouses in existence at that time, were constructed on existing platforms or from pre-existing beacons. 22 metres high.

- Cabo de São Vicente - 28 metres high, located along the coastal peninsula of Sagres Point.
The traditional land's end of Europe, the extreme southwesternmost point on the continent, it was an essential landfall for sailors returning from Africa and the Americas. One of the most powerful lighthouses in Europe with its two 1,000 W lamps  - can be seen as far as 60 km away.


And back to the lighthouses I initially asked you to ignore since the one on the left was issued by the Azores, and the right one by the Madeira postal entity. And funny, they are double the face value than the rest.

- The Arnel lighthouse -   located at the tip of the Arnel, in the extreme northeast of the island of São Miguel, started operating on November 26, 1876, and was the first lighthouse located in the Autonomous Region of the Azores.

- Ponta de Pargo - an active lighthouse located in Ponta do Pargo, Madeira, Portugal. The lighthouse was built in 1922 on top of Ponta Vigia, a rocky cliff escarpment and has a focal height of 312 metres. 14 metres high.


So that would be a small part of the world of Portuguese lighthouses. I know it was a longish read and wont blame you if you hadn't read it all, but I would like to keep it for my future reference!

And unless you haven't done your task already, click here to head over to Sunday Stamps for some more L's!

Environmental Protection, Germany

After some absence, again, here I am back for one not so common letter, but I realized this FDC is something I've been wanting to post for a long while, and it is a very dear one to me, so here is the perfect occasion.

Issued on April 10th, 2008 by Deutsche Post, commemorating the International Polar Year, and raising the awareness for the environmental issues, it was Knut, the polar bear who was featured on this stamp.
I dont know how many of you are familiar with Knut, but I found out about him thanks to Postcrossing and fell in love with this creature right-away. Firstly, cos I simply adore animals, esp. fluffy ones. Second, the story about Knut was something that had touched the hearts of many... and unfortunately his death, even more.

Knut was an orphaned polar bear born in captivity at the Berlin Zoological Garden. Rejected by his mother at birth, he was raised by zookeepers. He was the first polar bear cub to survive past infancy at the Berlin Zoo in more than 30 years. At one time the subject of international controversy, he became a tourist attraction and commercial success.

After the German tabloid newspaper Bild ran a quote from an animal rights activist that decried keeping the cub in captivity, fans worldwide rallied in support of his being hand-raised by humans. Children protested outside the zoo, and e-mails and letters expressing sympathy for the cub's life were sent from around the world.
 Knut became the center of a mass media phenomenon dubbed "Knutmania" that spanned the globe and spawned toys, media specials, DVDs, and books. Because of this, the cub was largely responsible for a significant increase in revenue, estimated at about €5 million, at the Berlin Zoo in 2007.

Attendance figures for the year increased by an estimated 30 percent, making it the most profitable year in its 163-year history.
On 19 March 2011, Knut unexpectedly died at the age of four. His death was caused by drowning after he collapsed into his enclosure's pool while suffering from Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis.

Now, I am in general against keeping animals in captivity and at ZOOs esp. in poor ZOO conditions like the one here in Skopje. And on one hand I feel sorry Knut had to be kept in captivity, but with all this recognition he had received, I believe he got the utmost care.

I remember the day he died, it was all over the media, and it was really sad. Strange how people can get attached to animals they dont know but which have become famous for one reason or another (currently I actually have two cats dear to my heart, which have received international acclaim, one is Bob, the other is Nala). While Bob has been around for quite a while, Nala appeared not so long ago, but I loved her instantly. There is just something special about the way these two felines had entered these two guys' lives. Funny, it is always guys in the stories. And probably a reason more why these stories become so popular... you know, guys showing their soft side, taking care of stray cats.

So that would be my letter K for today. Hopefully, I avoided scolding too since I fulfilled my duty :D

Check out more K's here 

Appearance of the Halley's Comet, Mexico

After having missed the previous two entries, here we are back with the letter H. And the main reason for my absence is actually lack of inspiration. Has it ever happened to you? Flipping through your stamps albums, like trying to find something related to the corresponding letter, but you realize that it is like staring into blank space, cos you just go through all those pages, but you actually see nothing, your brain is like totally disconnected from what you are doing...

Well, today almost ended up the same, but then somehow m brain registered this stamp in my album, and voilà!
It is just a single stamp, not something typical for my posts, but it is surely better than nothing, plus this makes it a first Mexican related post ever on this blog :)

Issued on 25th April 1986, to celebrate the appearance of the Halley's Comet that year. I still remember the euphoria this event had caused back then. And for a kid like me, it was also something unheard of. I mean, something appearing every 75 years, and like being so punctual every single time... how is that even possible!! These kind of phenomena still amaze me to this very day.
In the background of the stamp,you can see an image of Edmond Halley, after whom it is now named since in 1705 he first determined the comet's periodicity .

It is said that its next appearance would be in mid-2061, with some precise date of 28th of July. Now if I get to live until then, this would be like the most unique birthday present :D

If someone is more interested about Halley, take a look at this video. I believe that a video is sometimes better than some dry facts and figures.

For more of today's H-entries, check out today's Sunday Stamps edition.

Different kind of a post!

Hi folks,

This time I have something little bit different.

Few days ago, on April 6th we celebrated day of the city here in Sarajevo. This date is also related to quite few important historical moments, on April 6th 1941, Germany attacked Kingdom of Yugoslavia (part of which during that time was Bosnia and Herzegovina). On same date 1945, resistance of remaining German and collaborationist troops in Sarajevo was broken and Sarajevo was liberated from Nazi grip. Finally on April 6th 1992 Bosnia and Herzegovina became recognized by many countries of European Union as independent country.

As you can imagine on such important date many manifestations took place all around city. In Sarajevo we have Society of postage stamps and coins collectors of which I'm also a member of and just a little bit before this date we decided it would be nice to organize small joint exhibition. We acted promptly and got some support from City government and also from Gazi Husref bey library which offered us their premises for exhibition. Total of 20 people exhibited some parts of their collection and all I can say it was pretty neat little exhibition!  Below are some photos of event and exhibits, hope you enjoy it :)

As you can see media representatives were there too!

It was not crowded but can't say there was no interest for it :)

 

Chairman of our little society had to give speech!

Topic of exhibits were  quite colorful as you can imagine.

This is a exhibit on first president of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito

     I liked this one (made by before mentioned chairman :) ) Postcards of old part of city by the end of 19th century

They say modesty is one of my many virtues :D so I have to show off my exhibit, Money on stamps

This is one very serious exhibit, Bosnia and Herzegovina issue from 1906, considered one of the most beautiful issues in general philately. This exhibit shows  basic set as well as many trial prints perforations etc.

 And for the end Chess on stamps!

I hope you enjoyed this virtual exhibition!  

The 50th Anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's Space Flight and the Launch of the First Spececraft to Venus, Bulgaria

I came across a post on FB today which reminded me what day it was (one of the times when FB is actually useful for something).

Quoting that post:  On this day, 51 years ago, it was said that Yuri Gagarin, was killed in a mysterious plane crash, just seven years after his historic flight. Gagarin and his instructor were killed. The circumstances were unclear and the accident was hushed up for days. Documents declassified 50 years later say the most likely cause was a sharp manoeuvre to avoid a weather balloon. Many many questions remain, nonetheless.

Well I guess we will never really know the truth, and even if we do, that can never bring back someone to the living. Gagarin lived for a very short while unfortunately, but he will always be remembered and cherished!

Just this past weekend I did a short trip to Sofia, Bulgaria's capital and paid a visit to the philately store :D And among else, got myself this issue from 12th April 2011, commemorating the 50th anniversary of Yuri's flight into space.

It also features the launch of the first spacecraft to Venus (Venera 1), which was launched by the Soviet Union on February 12, 1961 and flew past Venus  (some 100.000 km from it), but I guess that is considered a success too for those times, esp. since unlike the previous attempt, when its sister ship even failed to leave the orbit of Earth.

Early Mail Ships, Tristan da Cunha

Boy, this Sunday Funday flew so fast! It is almost 8 pm, and I can say that I've been anything but productive today... so at least lets get an update done :)


I recall I wanted to post these stamps for one of the M-days (as Mail Ships), but in the end i posted something else, so here they come today, in all their glory, 9 early mail ships! (I must point out that I'm missing three of the stamps in the set (the most expensive ones, of course), so if anyone has these, or you know someone who might have, please let me know, cos Id really like to complete this set :))

Issued on 8th December 2015 by Tristan da Cunha, which you collectors probably know by now, is the most remote inhabited island in the world lying some 2,430km from St. Helena and over 2,800km from Africa. With my good orienteering skills, the last row of stamps was, of course, scanned in a reverse order....

Mail from and to the island became very important as it was their only opportunity to communicate with the outside world. Quite often this could take years as they were dependent on passing ships, like whalers, to carry the mail.
Eventually after numerous requests British war ships called annually but even this waned.
This definitive stamp issue depicts ships that carried mail to and from the island between 1904 and 1953. Of course most of the ships calling at Tristan would carry out this task and as such not all of the ships from this period are included.

The stamps, briefly, depict the following:


- 1p
HMS Odin -  Called at Tristan 23 January 1904. This was the last of the war ship visits for the next 15 years.


- 2p
RMS Asturias - Called at Tristan 15 February 1927 and was the first ship to call for over a year. Supplies and mail were brought ashore using a water tight raft towed to the shore. Mail was taken off and reached London 14 March 1927.

- 5p
SS Empress of France  - Called at Tristan 28 February 1928 and was the first ship to visit for 11 months. 54 letters and 3 packages were landed. The ship was on its way from Buenos Aires to Cape Town. It landed stores and gifts from USA, Canada and Great Britain.


- 10p
HMS Carlisle -Visited Tristan in 1932 and 1937. She landed 7 January 1932 with the New Bishop of St Helena, the first such visit since 1856, and the Tristan Representative Mr Percy Snell. The opportunity was taken to try and establish whether a radio transmitter could be installed to assist future possible sea plane visits.

-25p
Barque Ponape - Visited Tristan around June or July 1934 and the mail she took was off loaded at Singapore bearing the date 24 September 1934.

- 35p
RMS Atlantis - Visited Tristan 19 February 1934, landing 12 tons of provisions including mail. Some of the mail was struck with an oval ship cachet which has become highly collectable.

- 45p
Sailing Ship Cap Pilar - Called at Tristan 31 January 1937. This was a refurbished barquetine. She carried mail to the island on its world cruise and was allowed to fly the Royal Mail Pennant by special permission, the last sailing ship to do so. It unloaded 9 bags of letters and 10 bags of parcels.

- 60p
RMS Franconia - Visited Tristan 21 February 1939 on a cruise from New York. 4000 souvenir postcards were produced on board and sold to passengers, an image of this postcard is featured on the First Day Cover envelope. Mail was dropped off and taken on board, but no passengers could land on the island as a case of chickenpox had broken out on the ship.

- £1 HMS Queen of Bermuda Called at Tristan 24 August 1940. Built in 1933 by Vickers Armstrong Barrow she has been referred to as one of the most beautiful cruise ships of all time.

Can you imagine, living in such a place, where mail is delivered and collected like, twice a year? What kind of a postcrossing world would that be? Hmmm....

For more e-stamps, click here

Have a nice evening! :)

Prehistoric Animals and other stuff, USA

It is time for letter D today and even though the title has no D or whatsoever, this is a D-related post... I just hope it wont spark any controversy as this actual issue of stamps had :)

A bunch of D-stamps here, however, the main focus is of course on the top right corner, where four dinosaurs are displayed.

These were issued by the USPS on 1st of October back in 1989... and managed to enter the list of some of the most controversial stamps in the US history.

Who could be offended by a block of four stamps honoring animals that had been dead for millions of years? In this case, paleontologists, who maintained that two of stamps contained errors. The dinosaurs labeled as brontosauruses were, in fact, apatosauruses, they said. And the pteranodons weren’t technically dinosaurs at all, but flying lizards. Postal officials admitted the latter point but noted that the stamps were officially named the “prehistoric animal series” and that the term “dinosaur” had merely appeared in promotional materials.
The other two stamps, honoring the stegosaurus and the tyrannosaurus, escaped any controversy.
So, to keep the peace in the postal waters, the title of this post refers to Prehistoric animals, instead of dinosaurs, as initially foreseen :)

As for the other 3 stamps on the left: first is a Davy Crockett stamp issued in 1967. Davy was an American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier, and politician. He is commonly referred to in popular culture by the epithet "King of the Wild Frontier".

Below it is a stamp from 1962 featuring Dag Hammarskjöld who was a Swedish economist and diplomat that served as the second Secretary-General of the United Nations. Hammarskjöld was the youngest person to have held the post, at an age of 47 years upon his appointment.

The last of the stamps was issued in 1969 portraying the Dartmouth College case which was U.S. Supreme Court case in which the court held that the charter of Dartmouth College granted in 1769 by King George III of England was a contract and, as such, could not be impaired by the New Hampshire legislature (whatever that means...)


And last but not least, this cover is part of Bryon's super cool postal experiments, since as you can see, these stamps bear the cancellation of the Dinasour Post Office, and Dinasour is an actual very small town in Colorado.
Hopefully, no paleontologists would be offended by that :D

Check out the other D's here! 

And have a nice Sunday! :)

Coffee

This warm day of March may fool you that spring has arrived, being it is 22 C right now, but the following days shall prove me wrong cos it's gonna be all cold and rain again... meh. I don't mind the rain as long as I don't have to go outside and do stuff....but since that's not the case, I can just say I'm really not looking forward to next week :P

Anyways, we are already in the third episode of the new A-Z Sunday Stamps season, and I almost went with cats, again, but then I told myself, Ana, just get out of that comfort zone and post something else... so I decided to go into another comfort zone of mine, and that is Coffee :D


I was actually surprised to see that there aren't that many coffee related stamps out there, and out of those not-that-many, seems like I only have these...didn't do a thorough check though..

First is an FDC issued by HP Mostar, one of the three postal entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

International Coffee Day was celebrated on October 1st 2015 in Milan  for the first time, and it was organized by the International Coffee Organization – ICO through emphasizing coffee's journey from the manufacturer to coffee lovers. Coffee (Coffea arabica L.) is a tropical plant whose colour and scent partially depend on the time used for baking its beans, and the quality of this drink depends on the manner of grinding the beans.
The two most popular sorts are: Coffea arabica (typica and bourbon) and Coffeacanephora (robusta). It comes from Ethiopia, from the Kaffa region by which it got its name. The legend says that the drink was discovered by a shepherd named Kaldi that noticed that his goats were more energetic after having nibbled on the red berries. After tasting the coffee berries for himself he concluded that they gave him additional energy, so he shared his discovery with the Coptic priests in a nearby monastery. Through them, coffee expanded to the Arabic peninsula where the process of preparation, serving and drinking coffee was developed. In Europe coffee appeared in 1570 when the Venetian traders transported it to Venice along with tobacco.

There were two stamps issued on this occasion on October 1st 2018, i.e last year.

The other set comes from Sweden, showcasing 4 different stamps of hot coffee, where, my guess is, the preparation of coffee in a coffee shop is presented, starting from the washing of cups, choosing your coffee and finally preparing it. Very cute.
These were issued on 29th March 2006.

Are you a coffee lover or do you prefer tea? I'm a coffee person myself, but not that I cannot live without it, just that I kinda don't want to - having a cup of coffee in the morning has more of a psychological effect on me than that it actually helps me wake up or whatever.

Btw, if you are ever (like me) not so sure what you are about to order, here are some simple guidelines :D

cheers to this magic liquid!

For the rest of the C-entires, take a look at here 

The 75th Anniversary of Batman, USA

Nice chilly Sunday over here, which is kind of the perfect weather... not too cold, not too hot... just ideal. And it is time for our second letter of the alphabet, that has nothing to do with weather, but with one of the most cult... cultest (??) superheros of all times...
 Na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na... BATMAN!

Well frankly I've never really watched the Batman movies, but when I was a kid I was impatiently waiting for every new episode of this Batman and Robin series from 1966. It was just so funny and entertaining!  (it was shown decades later here, I was far from born in 1966 btw :))

The character (whose secret name is Bruce Wayne) was created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, and first appeared in Detective Comics #27, in 1939.




So on October 9, 2014, the USPS issued stamps commemorating the 75th Anniversary of the superhero.

Four versions of the iconic DC Comics super hero are depicted from four eras of comic book history. In addition, there are four circular stamps showcasing the evolution of the Bat-Signal.
At first I actually thought the circular ones were like stickers, but then I realized they were actual stamps... super cool, eh?

Love the color of the envelope here... fits in perfectly with the stamps! Thanks to Bryon! :)

Enjoy your Sunday and check out the rest of the Bees :)

Astronomy, Malta

As I had promised (to myself), I am back to Sunday Stamps as the new A-Z cycle begins. Will start the new season with one of my favourite themes - Astronomy.

The year of 2009 was dedicated to this topic with the EUROPA stamps, where MaltaPost Philatelic Bureau issued its two stamps on 9th May 2009, featured on this FDC.
The Euro 0.37 stamp features a portrait of Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642) by Francesco Boschi and one of Galileo’s sketches of the moon set against a starry background including the constellation Orion. The stamp also commemorates the 40 year anniversary of the first manned lunar landing by featuring the Apollo 11 lunar module “Eagle”.
The Euro 1.19 stamp shows the great telescope of William Lassell, set up in Malta between 1861 and 1865, against a background of stars showing Nebula M42, which Lassell himself observed on various occasions from Malta."

So you all new and old Sunday Stampers, check out the rest of the A-words today, and don't forget to contribute with yours :)

Locomotives, Croatia

So, after the revival of the postcards' blog, it is about time to bring this one back to life too. Though it has not been as neglected as the Postcards one, still, it's been a few months since anything has happened here.
I see Sunday Stamps is still alive and soon ready for a new round, so I thought it would be most convenient to join it at the new A in a few weeks.
For now, my favourite Croatian stamps from last year (yes, even more favourite than Balthazar and the cats :D).
They issue trains like every second year, but so far I must say that this design is the best one. Probably cos it kinda differs from the previous ones which kinda resembled each other, so I was never sure if I actually have a particular issue or not.

This set consists of two different stamps, both with a face value of 7.60 kunas and portray locomotives of the Samobor Railway.

The concept of Samobor Railway includes the narrow-gauge railway with the track width of 760 mm between Zagreb and Samobor that was operational between Jan. 16th, 1901 and Dec. 31st, 1979. The railway was constructed under the status of a commercial railway with a length of 19 kilometres.
After WWII, the railway became a part of JDŽ and on July 1st, 1950 it started operating as an independent company entitled Gradska željeznica u Zagrebu (GŽZ). In 1951 the railway was extended by 5 kilometres from Samobor to Bregana. During the next two decades, investments were made into railway renewal and modernisation of mobile capacities. Despite that, the railway transport on that track could not compete with the expansion of the roadway transport so the Samobor Railway was closed for transport at the beginning of 1980. Used engines or leased engines were mostly used to pull trains on that track. The only new engines were a steam locomotive no. 7 and aluminium diesel-electrical motor trains.


The first stamp shows the Steam Locomotive no. 7, while the second one The Silver Arrow Dev 1.

I have these stamps both mint and on a cover. I just need to find the FDC now to have it complete :)

Thanks to Predrag and Danijel for making it possible to have them in my collection!