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!