Saturday, December 30, 2017

Bari, Italy

From the Southern Italian port city of Bari. I really like the Nutella stamp.


Wednesday, December 27, 2017

USA, The History of Hockey FDC

A US FDC for the History of Hockey stamp pair issued jointly with Canada Post. I'm happy to see this postmark is a proper size and not really tiny like the postmarks used on the Canadian joint FDC.


Here's another one:


Saturday, December 23, 2017

Anniversary of the First Algerian Postage Stamp

This sheet was issued to commemorate the first postage stamp produced by the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria in 1962 and the signing of the 1 November 1954 proclamation. This sheet was unveiled at a philatelic exhibition that occurred in Algiers between 31 Oct and 3 Nov 2017.


The text on the left of the sheet is the November proclamation. In it the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) declared their intent to basically end French rule over Algeria. The stamp on the top shows the house where the proclamation was originally printed in 1954 and the press used to print it. And the bottom stamps shows the printing press used to produce those first postage stamps in 1962. In the background on both sides of this sheet is a faded image of that original stamp.

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Twelve Greenland Expeditions book

This was published a few years ago by Greenland's Tele-Post. Hardcover, around 80 pages. It contains each of the twelve "Expeditions" souvenir sheets issued by Greenland Post between 2003 and 2014. Each sheet commemorated a specific Expedition in Greenland between 1818 and 1978 and each of those Expeditions is summarized in the book. At the time it was selling for 299 DKK with shipping ($60 CDN). I thought that was a bit much for me but when I saw it selling for 149 DKK with shipping I ordered a copy.


None of the advertising I read for the book said much about it really so I thought I'd post a couple of images of the book's interior to give a better idea of quality. It is very well produced. Exactly what I expected. It is available in four languages: English, German, Danish and Greenlandic.




Considering the time of year and where it was coming from, shipping was fast. Added bonus is the postage used to send it to me. Nice high value stamps, clean and used.



Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Monday, December 18, 2017

Taastrup, Denmark

Taastrup is between Copenhagen and Roskilde. I believe it's a railway hub and perhaps that explains the large PortNord terminal there. A nice selection of stamps from 2017.


Something that caught my attention was the amount of postage on this letter: 24.90 DKK. This letter cost twice as much to send than a similar letter would cost me to send from Canada. The rate calculator on the PostNord website confirmed it. I found a couple of articles on the internet from late in 2015 discussing how postal rates in Denmark were going to double, making them the highest of all EU countries. If that were to happen in Canada I'd be done with cover collecting.

Saturday, December 16, 2017

Christmas in Norway

Christmas stamps from Norway. The stamp on the left depicts Christmas in the country and the one on the right shows Christmas in the city. The broken text at the top of the postmark says simply "Posten Norge" but V30 on the bottom is the code for Trondheim in central Norway.