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! :)

The 100th Anniversary of the Titanic disaster

Letter T is very tempting for Trains lets say, but trying to be not so transparent and predictable, I will go with some Titanic stamps today, all issued in 2012, commemorating the 100th Anniversary of its sinking.

First is a cover from Canada, showing two of the four stamps that are part of the block showing the bow of the ship, as well as an international stamp, showing its side-view. These stamps were issued on 4th of April.

Even though many countries commemorated this anniversary on stamps, Canadians were among those personally involved with the world's most famous ocean disaster. In addition to a number of Canadians aboard, and the tireless efforts of the people of Halifax, it was a team of employees working at the Canadian Marconi company's wireless station on Cape Race, Newfoundland, who heard the early distress call.

Next we have the FDC issued by the BH post, on 29th of May.
No extra information regarding this stamp, but anyway, it is not like any extra info is necessary on this world-wide known tragedy.

then we have this FDC from Alderney, issued on 22 February, featuring 6 striking stamps. During its journey, Titanic had sailed past Alderney as well.
The story behind the six stamps is:

36p. - Leaving Southampton
47p. - Sailing past Alderney
48p. - The Grand Staircase
52p. - Orchestra plays the final rune
61p. - Captain Edward J. Smith
65p. - Lifeboats leave the ship

And just as it had caught me by surprise that I had never posted Titanic stamps before here, I was also surprised to see I have this FDC in my collection, issued by Macedonia Post on 17th April. The reason is cos I simply don't know why I would have bought this for myself, taking into account it is a bit pricey, and not as part of my collectibles. But I guess this was during the times I was just splurging on stamps (un)necessarily. Oh well :D

I have this gut feeling that I may be overlooking some other Titanic related FDCs or covers from my collection, but I guess these four will do for now.

For more T-related stamps, simply visit the Sunday Stamps blog.

Golden Age of Sailing Ships, Yugoslavia

Stamps-wise, being a Yugoslav-kid, letter Y is always like an easy solution for me. The difficult part is what in particular to choose from the wide range of Yugoslavian stamps I have :)) (these could also fit in well with the letter J edition though...)

Sailing ships as the means of navigation on the seas were very important in olden times when only the power of winds could be used as a propulsion. Various types of sailing shipsfor commercial and war purposes navigated on the Adriatic Sea. In the old historiography, the Phoenicians were considered as the first seamen. However, later it was proved that the Egyptians had built their ships before them. The Greeks with their ships conquered the isles on the Adriatic coast and founded their colonies. The notion of a war ship at that time was the famous Greek trireme. The Illyrians, especially the Liburnians, who were good ship builders, took part in the maritime commerce on the Adriatic Sea. Their "Liburna is well known in the maritime history. Later the Romans took over the shipbuilding and navigation skills from the Greeks and the Illyrians and then the Roman galley appeared. In the 7th century, the Slavs gradually took possession of the Adriatic coast. The Croatian ships were the only ones which could resist to the Venetian and the Byzantine naval force. In the naval history, Dubrovnik appears in the 8th century and becomes an important military martime and commercial centre with a navy and mercantile shipping, while the shipbuilding also develops at Boka Kotorska where the famous navy of Boka had originated. In the 15th century, Dubrovnik reaches the climax of its naval power. The navas of Dubrovnik - merchant ships on long lines are well known. At the Mediterranean Sea, the French, English, and Dutch ships appear more and more frequently, and they "expel" the ships of Dubrovnik back to the Adriatic Sea. The era of the sailing ships ends with the 19th century, when the steam-ships, modern and more economical, take over the reign of the seas.

This set of six stamps and one souvenir sheet was issued on 10 June 1989.
1. A classic Greek Sailing Ship
2. A Roman Sailing Ship
3. A Crusade Sailing Ship, 13th century
4. Nava of Dubrovnik, 16th century
5. French Sailing Ship, 17th century
6. Sailing Ship, 18th century

s/s - an engraving of Dubrovnik - various sailing ships in the harbour of Dubrovnik and various symbols of Dubrovnik and its surroundings

so that would be the short story of the Yugoslavian sailing ships.

For more stamps related to letter Y, head over to Sunday Stamps.

Nautical History, Kiribati

Hello everyone! It has literally been long time no see... more precisely, almost a year :) As some of you know, I lived in China for 9 months... those of you who didn't know, now you do :) Actually I thought I would be able to continue with my updates there, but I was proved wrong cos I simply didn't have time for that... and the free time I had, I just didn't feel like using it for blogposts and stuff... 

and then today I finally was like, hey, it is Sunday, let's see if Sunday Stamps is still up.... *yes it is*... subject of the day "Tall Ships" .. now this kinda confused me.. I have never really referred to a ship as a tall ship,  but turns out there is a distinction indeed and even though those cruising ships are as tall as your eyes could see, they do not actually fall into the 'tall ships' category... go figure :D But I guess I did come up with something appropriate...

However, there was one not a very pleasant surprise for me, and that is to realize that Photobucket (where I've been hosting all my blog images), has for one reason or another decided to s**** its thousands of customers by deciding to prohibit third-party hosting and therefore making all those millions of uploaded images all of a sudden - forever gone (the images are still there on photobucket, but of course not visible outside of it). And if you want them back you should pay not more, not less but $400 a year... someone here has gone insane, and that is not me.

No way Im paying that much of money...after all, this is supposed to be for fun, not some kind of business I'm running here....but my unwillingness to pay, comes at a price of course...a totally useless and ridiculously looking blog... they could have simply put R.I.P on those images.

I don't know when and IF I will ever be able to put all those images back... kinda killed the desire in me, having ditched down the drain years and years of dedicated work...but oh well, who cares about us, the mortal people? Photobucket certainly doesnt..

anyways, sorry for the totally off-topic paragraphs, just had to do my rant... esp. since I realize that out of all those postcard blogs out there, I seem to be one of the rare ones who has actually used photobucket for the posts... yeah, stupid me

so, back to today's actual subjects - this is my contribution for the 'Tall Ships" - this nice FDC from Kiribati, showing "Charlotte" - This convict transportation called at the islands in 1789 to replenish stocks of fresh water while on return passage from Botany Bay to England.

The ship was commanded by Captain Thos. Gilbert whose name was given to the islands.

For more tall ships, click here

Nordic Maritime, Finland

Finland has been rather neglected on this blog, yet it has some awesome issues..so I thought that for today's Sunday Stamps entry, I'll show these two Finnish items...I think that Titanic as a ship theme is rather over-estimated (not that there aren't some great Titanic issues..some of which I proudly own :))

Here I have one FDC and one cover with a mini sheet...both coming from the Finnish "Nordic Maritime" series. The above FDC was issued in 2010 while the cover below comes with a mini-sheet issued in 2012 (yeah, those are coffee stains)
For the set on the FDC, "Top of the World", Finland chose to depict the award-winning Maritime Center Vellamo, the Finnish Wooden Boat Center, and the Tarmo Museum Ship in the Kantasatama Harbor in Kotka.

on the cover, the miniature sheet honors both The Finnish Lifeboat Institution (an organization for voluntary maritime rescue associations in Finland) and The Finnish Border Guard.)

for more sails around the world, check out today's Sunday Stamps

Centenary of the Rosselare/Fishguard Ferry Service, Ireland

So hello Sunday Stampers! Beautiful sunny day over here..chilly, but the sunshine just feels so nice! So before i head to catch some fresh air, here is my entry for today's theme, which is ships.
Well, the first thing that crossed my mind was of course Titanic...or some of those great US Forever (and not Forever) stamps depicting ships...but then I wondered...what are the odds of actually those being a more frequent 'see' today...hmm..Macedonia has also issued two ships stamps, but somehow i didnt get very thrilled at the thought of posting those...and then it dawned on me that recently i have received something that would fit in the theme perfectly...and is just extra beautiful! (well, to me at least :))
A fantastic cover from Ireland, where the entire mini sheet has been attached!

these stamps were issued on 20 June 2006, to celebrate the centenary of the Rosslare/Fishguard Ferry Service.
the story goes that towards the end of the 19th Century a ferry service linked New Milford, in the Milford Haven estuary, and Waterford.
The engineer, Marc Brunel, envisaged a port on the west coast of Wales which could handle the transatlantic liners trade and which by definition would require a rail connection to serve London. The Fishguard and Rosslare Railways and Harbour Company, which was taken over jointly by the Great Western Railway and their Irish partners, the Great Southern and Western Railway of Ireland, undertook to build a railway from Waterford to Rosslare. Linking New Milford to the rail network presented major engineering difficulties so the alternative port of Fishguard was chosen. It was sheltered, had deep water and most importantly offered a shorter crossing to Ireland.
During the next few years no expense was spared in making Fishguard a major port for Irish traffic. Work began on the development of Fishguard in 1899 and was completed in 1906. The service to Ireland was launched in 1906, and the first westbound sailing of the Saint David carried 231 passengers. The service has operated since then without interruption, even during the First and Second World Wars, carrying both passengers and mail between Ireland and Britain.

Among the liners that called to Fishguard were the Mauritania and Lusitania. The ferry service established a very strong connection between the communities in Fishguard and Rosslare which is maintained today. It continues to serve as a key element of the infrastructure linking Ireland and Britain for the purposes of trade and tourism. Both ports are legally owned by Fishguard and Rosslare Railways and Harbours Company in which Stena Line and Irish Rail are shareholders.

ehhhh....I wish i could sail away somewhere right now....

see where others have sailed to today :)