Second birthday

Today’s date used to be very important in former Yugoslavia, it was president Tito's chosen birthday and also youth day of entire country. As hinted few weeks ago here I'm with second part of sage about one of the most influential persons in past century.

As you already know if you read my previous post (if not you can do it now by clicking HERE) his real birthday was May 7th but he preferred today’s date over it due to fact he managed to escape eminent death.

In May 1944 German Nazi military planed operation under the name Knight’s move; main objective was killing Tito, leader of partisan’s resistance in Yugoslavia. Operation failed due to many factors, including rivalry among German numerous intelligence agencies and fearsome resistance from partisan groups. It was a big blow to German army failing in the most spectacular assassination in near history (it included some of the best special forces of time available to Nazis). It resulted in stamps pictured below!

This stamps are first definitive issues of Democratic Federal Yugoslavia depicting Tito, at time Marshal and prime minister, issued not even a year after this attempt.

Much later on in 1953 he was proclaimed president and later on for lifetime president. On that occasion Yugoslav post issued stamp below on June 28th 1953. Is is based on Tito’s sculpture by most prominent sculptor Augustin Augustinčić.

In the beginning Tito had strong connections with Stalin, being communist and socialist but soon after WWII he severed that connection and adopted completely different form of socialism unique to former Yugoslavia, based on workers class rule. Set of stamps below was issued for 1st May 1950, workers day, and it relates to his commitment to make Yugoslavia country of well being for common folk.

Tito was often known under Marshal title rather then president due to his role as a prime commander of JNA, Yugoslavia’s people’s army. He was prone to that title as he begin his climb as a military leader of underground resistance in Nazi occupied Yugoslavia. He often appeared in public dressed in general style uniform which was often considered  dictatorial behavior by his opponents in country and abroad.

22nd December was day of army celebrated in all country and it was important enough to be commemorated by issuing commemorative stamps, like one below issued in 1951, depicting Tito with traditional partisan hat and tank in background.

That is all for now but hope to continue sage as there are more things to be shown and stories to be told about him so if you liked it stay tuned

Fairy Tales, Hungary

I was a bit surprised to see how scarce mothers / children are in my stamps collection. My initial choice was a cat FDC, since the mother cat and the kitty were featured ON the FDC, but not on the actual stamp... and then during my second browsing of my albums, I noticed these, and I knew that would be my choice for today since they all feature children (or dwarfs 😎)

What saddened me is that I actually miss most of the stamps that are part of these two issues, so I guess I will have to work on that now.

Both issues feature fairy tales, with the top two being issued on 15th December 1959, while the bottom two, on 1st December the following year.
Both issues come in a set of 8 stamps, and have the same designers too. Well, ok, the 1959 stamps were designed by Gábor Éva, while the 1960 ones, both by Gábor Éva and Zombory Éva.

I dont think that Gábor Éva has anything to do with the actress of the same name, but just a nice coincidence.

Embarrassed to say I only recognize Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs... the other three seem soooo familiar but I just cant connect them to a name, so if anyone recognizes any of the other three, please mention it in the comments 💙💚💛

I used to read a loooot of fairy tales when I was little, whether it was the Grimm Brothers or Hans Christian Andersen or this fantastic collection of books with a green cover with tales from all over the world - I think that fairy tales are suitable even for grown ups, just that you read them with a different frame of mind compared to when you were a child

And I've learned that today is Mother's Day in some countries, so happy Mother's day to those celebrating.
In Macedonia it is on the 8th of March, and it is a day of buying expensive gifts for teachers and working women leaving early from work and going to a corporate lunch, paid by their company of course - so yeah, that's what Mother's day has mainly turned into here... I wonder what's the situation in other countries?

Hope you had a nice weekend and have a nice week ahead... and dont forget to check the other entries for today 


Edit: Dear Katalin saw my cry for help and helped me out!
So the 40f stamp from 1959 shows "Mattie the Goose-boy", a Hungarian epic-poem by Mihály Fazekas while the 40f stamp from 1960 shows "The miller, his son and the donkey" by La Fontaine (Now I may, just may have read this last one)

Thank you thank you Katalin!!!

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.

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.

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 100th Anniversary of Moscow Zoo, USSR

Another Z day and another ZOO post. Just as last time, so I really need to dig in a bit better for the next round of Z and find something different.
I do really like though this set of USSR stamps issued on 18th June 1964, commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the Moscow ZOO, which had an area of 10 hectares when it first opened, with 286 animals while nowadays it has over 6500 animals representing about 1000 species and covers an area of about 21.5 hectares.

Unlike the Animal Cubs from the Budapest Zoo featured in the previous entry, these animals don't come with names. However, the animals shown on these stamps are:

- The Asian elephant, the only living species of the genus Elephas, distributed in Southeast Asia, from India and Nepal in the west to Borneo in the south, enlisted as endangered since 1986.

- The giant panda, the adorable bear native to south central China. It is easily recognized by the large, distinctive black patches around its eyes, over the ears, and across its round body.

-  The Polar Bear, whose native range lies largely within the Arctic Circle, encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. (The total number of Polar Bears left in the world is 20,000 to 25,000)

- The moose (North America) or elk (Eurasia), which is a member of the New World deer subfamily and is the largest and heaviest extant species in the Deer family. Moose are distinguished by the broad, palmate (open-hand shaped) antlers of the males, and they usually inhabit boreal forests and temperate broadleaf and mixed forests of the Northern Hemisphere in temperate to subarctic climates. Unfortunately, here we have another case where hunting and other human activities have caused a reduction in the size of the moose's range over time.

-  The great white pelican, which breeds from southeastern Europe through Asia and Africa, in swamps and shallow lakes. It has been rated as a species of least concern on the IUCN Red List of Endangered Specie.

- The Bengal tiger, which is the most numerous tiger subspecies in Asia, and was estimated at fewer than 2,500 individuals by 2011. Since 2008, it is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List and is threatened by poaching, loss and fragmentation of habitat. None of the Tiger Conservation Landscapes within its range is considered large enough to support an effective population of more than 250 adult individual.

- The bearded vulture, the only member of the genus Gypaetus. and the only known animal whose diet consists almost exclusively (70 to 90 percent) of bone. It lives and breeds on crags in high mountains in southern Europe, the Caucasus, Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and Tibet, laying one or two eggs in mid-winter that hatch at the beginning of spring.
Populations are resident but unfortunately continue to decline. Until July 2014, it was classified by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as being of Least Concern; it has, however, since been reassessed as Near Threatened.

I think I've said it before, but I'll say it again: I am not fond of zoos, even though I may be really fascinated at how some of them are structured and maintained and all. However, I strongly believe animals should live in their natural habitats and not be confined to living in ZOOs for the sake of people's entertainment (and education).


So that would wrap up another round of the ABC edition of Sunday Stamps. For more Z-entries, check out today's episode of Sunday Stamps.

Penguins, Umm al Qiwain

I know I said that for this round of the alphabet I will (try) not to go with the easiest solution - countries, but I feel kinda lazy today (tell me something new) and just can't put those brain cells into extra thinking, so I'm just gonna cheat on my own 'resolution' this time :))

And I really could have used these Penguins last week, but then they didn't even cross my mind, so here they come in handy for the letter Q.

This set of 6 Penguin stamps was issued in 1972 in Umm al Qiwain, which is one of the seven sovereign Emirates in the UAE and is the least populous one. It issued its own stamps from 1964 to 1972.
The first post office in Umm al-Qiwain was opened in 1963 by the British Postal Agencies in Eastern Arabia. The Agencies were set up in 1948 to provide postal services to several countries in the region. Mail was processed via Dubai using the stamps issued for the Trucial States until 1964, the year in which Umm al-Qiwain also issued its first stamps (when it was a British Protectorate). After joining the United Arab Emirates in 1971, Umm al-Qaiwain continued to issue stamps until the issues of Umm al-Qaiwain were replaced by those of the United Arab Emirates in 1973.

Interesting to see that a country like this would issue something totally unrelated to it like Penguins, that live in climates so opposite than the one in the Emirates

Here you can see:

- the Emperor Penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri) is the tallest and heaviest of all living penguin species and is endemic to Antarctica (shown on the first, fourth and sixth stamp).

- The long-tailed gentoo penguin (Pygoscelis papua), shown on the third stamp

- The macaroni penguin (Eudyptes chrysolophus), a species of penguin found from the subantarctic to the Antarctic Peninsula and one of six species of crested penguin (shown on the second stamp)

- The Humboldt penguin (Spheniscus humboldti) (also termed Peruvian penguin, or patranca) - a South American penguin that breeds in coastal Chile and Peru and was named after the cold water current it swims in, which is itself named after Alexander von Humboldt, an explorer. The species is listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN. (it is shown on the fifth stamp).

yeah, sorry for the total disorder in the scanning of stamps...

so before you go on with your daily activities, check the rest of the Q-entries for today, an interesting letter nevertheless :)

It is an M day!

Good afternoon folks, it is a Sunday and a day for new post here at myphilatelicpassion.blogspot.ba. First of all want to say thx to Ana for letting me use her blog and (ab)use her faithful followers.

It is an M day and I would like to introduce you to my unusual stamps collecting topic. There are a lot of people collecting stamps on topics like birds, cats, dogs, art, religion, lighthouses, Olympics etc. You could try to guess and say I collect motors and would be still wrong.

They say stamps are like small ambassadors of their countries but there is one thing older and even more ambassador of one’s country.  As the song says Money, money, money must be funny and for me if money is on stamp it is double funny 😀

Collecting coins and banknotes often goes hand in a hand with collecting stamps and I have been collecting both for quite a while when I came upon idea of collecting this particular topic. Will give it a try display few items and who knows maybe someone finds it interesting enough to start collection of their own.

 

This is oldest stamp in my “Money on stamps” collection Cyprus ¾ Cypriot piastre stamp issued on February 1^st 1928. This stamp is lowest face value and part of set of 10 stamps. Usually I go for mint stamps but average sale value of this set is bit on a high side so for now I have to put up with this nice used example 😁

As mentioned stamp is a part of 10 stamps set issued to commemorate 50 years of British rule of Cyprus, recess printed on watermarked paper, perforation 12. It depicts silver Coin of Amathus. Amathus was one of ancient royal cities of Cyprus and coin has a head of roaring lion, which was city emblem, both sides (it was common practice for this type of coins)

Now something bit more modern and to pay my respects for blog owner 😉 

On April 26^th 2012 Macedonia issued stamp to commemorate 20 years of monetary independence. Stamp has a face value of 50 Macedonian denars and features 1 denar coin and an ancient Byzantine M type coin (picture is not sharp enough to try to attribute it properly and showing only avers so it will remain partial mystery).   

Macedonia declared its independence from Yugoslavia on 8 September 1991, shortly after, on 26th April 1992 the national bank was established and the denar was declared as official currency, few days after first issue of emergency banknotes was put into circulation (these were more like money coupons), in 1993 Macedonia issued first permanent banknotes.

We are all pretty aware of money importance in our daily life, and while it is true you can’t buy happiness but one can’t deny influence money has on every single person living in modern society. 

Changes in monetary system of any country are kind of very important events but forming of monetary union among multiple countries is epic event with tremendous impact on every country involved. 

Everyone would agree that forming European Monetary Union and common Euro currency was event of century. All countries involved recognized importance and many of them issued stamps commemorating Euro currency.

One of my favorite sets was definitive stamps set issued by Vatican in 2004 consisting of whooping 15 stamps. Each of stamps features one European Monetary Union country flag in background and Euro coin design from corresponding country.

Those stamps remind me of UN series issue that has been issued for a quite few years now, so called flags and coins series. It would be too much to display all of it here but just two pics to show off 😃

Even some non EU countries issued stamps featuring Euro currency, like my country (Bosnia and Herzegovina). 

Speaking of my country I decided to share two more issues also money related ofc.

First, there is this set of three definitive stamps issued in  2002 featuring coins of Bosnian medieval rulers king Tvrtko (0.20 face value), Stjepan Tomaš (0.30 face value) and Stjepan Tomašević (0.50 face value), Stjepan Tomašević was also last sovereign ruler of Bosnia before Otoman empire invaded and occupied country in 1463.

And for the end MS issued by Bosnia And Herzegovina but this time Croat Administration (yes, we have three different and independent postal administrations, each one with its own territory and stamps of each are valid for postage only at corresponding post offices)

MS consists of four stamps with two different designs (two stamps of each design), I personally like design of stamps and a fact they are embossed gives them some luxury appearance, and a price of 20 Bosnian marks for a MS is quite luxury if I can notice (equivalent of 10 euro)😒

Stamps feature ancient Daorson coins. Daorson was a capitol of Daorsi tribe. Daorsi were Hellenised  Illyrian tribe. They adopted Greek language and a lot of their culture. They were quite influential tribe in area of river Neretva valley, possessed their own money (as shown on stamps) and quite powerful navy for that period. They left lot of archeological traces throughout Neretva  valley.

So that was all for today, bet you are exhausted now and I’ll let you go and enjoy rest of this Sunday. Maybe I’ll write sometimes again if Ana finds this was up to her strict standards.

And not to forget for some more interesting M-posts, well you know the drill, click on the following link - Sunday Stamps
 
Sincarely,
 
Danijel