Ahmedabad, India

Carnivorous Plants of Australia

Apparently Australia is home to 187 recognized species of carnivorous plants.

Lahore, Pakistan

Hasle-Rüegsau Covered Bridge

Another cover from Hasle-Rüegsau, Switzerland. The postmarks on this cover show an image of the covered wooden bridge near Hasle that crosses the Emme river. It is a Swiss heritage site and apparently the largest covered wood span bridge in Europe at almost 60m in length. It was built in 1839 and moved in the 1950's so a modern replacement bridge could be constructed in its place.

AdMail from New Zealand Post

Ad mail from New Zealand Post rarely has an actual stamp on it. But this latest mailing, advertising their upcoming "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" stamp set, had a nice little gem on the cover. It's a stamp featuring "Radaghast", a stamp from last years "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" stamp set.

Radaghast was played by British actor Sylvester McCoy; famous for being the 7th actor to play the part of Doctor Who during the 1980's. Nice to see him here, with the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who just a month away.

Ascension Island

From the Ascension Island Philatelic Bureau. I used to purchase mint recent-issue stamps from lots of different philatelic bureaus but now, rarely. They also sell recent issues from South Atlantic "neighbours" St Helena and Tristan da Cunha. 

Russia - Famous Film Actors

Uruguay - Notable Women

Fort McHenry Quarter Launch

This is a coin cover I made using a Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine quarter from the US mint's America the Beautiful quarter dollar series. A special postmark to commemorate the launch of the quarter was made available at the time. It got a little wrinkled coming back to me through the mail but turned out ok. The background image on the small A1 size envelope was taken from a c 1814 lithograph by John Bower which depicts the Battle of Fort McHenry.



The coin and postmark show what the fort looks like during the annual Defenders Day celebrations. The fireworks going off over the fort represent the "rockets red glare" that would have been lighting up the skies over Fort McHenry on 13 September 1814 during an attack by the British, towards the end of the War of 1812.