Turin, Italy

Lots of stamps on this cover with a Torino philatelic bureau handstamp. From left to right: a 1974 stamp commemorating the 200th anniversary of the Italian financial police, a 1974 stamp commemorating the European Athletic Games, a pair of 1975 stamps commemorating the Holy Year, a 2009 stamp commemorating the 200th birth anniversary of Charles Darwin, 2023 Europa stamp and a 2004 stamp commemorating the 600th anniversary of the University of Turin.

Port Menier, Quebec

Canada's Anticosti Island sits in the gulf of St Lawrence and is part of the province of Quebec. Nearly the entire coastline of the island is a UNESCO world heritage site. I always thought it was off-limits to tourism and was uninhabited so I was a little surprised when I saw that there was a post office there that now uses this postmark. 

The fishing village of Port Menier is home to a little more than 200 people and it is the only real population center on the island. In the past the island was privately owned and exploited for it's resources. The government of Quebec purchased the island in 1974 with the intention of maintaining the island as a nature reserve. It is a popular destination for hunting and fishing and outdoor tourism.

In the center of the postmark is the Vauréal Waterfall in Anticosti National Park. The stamp from 2023 shows a northern bottlenose whale. Although they do live in the northern Atlantic and have been know to frequent the waters off the coast of Canada, they are not usually seen in the gulf of St Lawrence.

Port Louis, Mauritius

Some savage postal employee thoroughly defaced the wonderful stamps on this nice cover from Mauritius. I wonder sometimes if it's just done out of spite. From bottom left to right, a cowrie shell from a 2017 sea shells set, a 2022 stamp commemorating the 200th anniversary of the municipal theater in Port Louis, a 2023 stamp commemorating the 50th anniversary of the State Bank of Mauritius, and a Mauritius Blue Pigeon from a 2022 extinct species definitives set.

Italian Food Companies

The stamps on this cover from Colnago, Italy, commemorate Vismara, a cured meat company that has been in operation since 1898. And Cirio, a company that has specialized in canned tomato products since 1856.

Triesen, Liechtenstein

Triesen is a municipality in Liechtenstein to the south of Vaduz. I believe the image in the postmark is Saint Marmertus chapel: the oldest chapel in Lietchtenstein. The stamp is from a 2002 set that shows old inn signs. On this stamp is the sign from the Eagle Inn, in Bendern.

If you look closely at this image from Google you can see the sign hanging at the corner of the building.

Record of Nature, Japan FDC

On this cover from Japan is a pair of 2024 "Record of Nature" series 4 stamps. The stamp on the left is a porcupine and on the right is some kind of dog. And in the FD postmark is an image of a badger.

Sauna Culture in Finland

On this cover from Finland are a pair of 2009 stamps from a booklet of stamps featuring sauna imagery. The Finish sauna has been recognized by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage. According to the Finnish Sauna Society there may be as many as 3.2 million saunas in Finland.

Miffy FDC from Japan

Miffy, the Dutch children's cartoon character, is very popular in Japan. This pair of stamps is from a recent sheet of 10 designs issued on January 17th. Hard to tell if it is a retail envelope or if it was custom printed. It's very well done.

100th Anniversary of the Austrian Federal Railway

Austria Post occasionally produces some unique and gimmicky postage stamps: stamps decorated or made from non-conventional materials for example. Some of them are very impractical and were clearly not designed to ever be used as postage. 

This stamp from 2023 commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB). Here is what's unique about it. It's made from recycled acrylic, laser cut into the shape of a stamp. The stamp part has a peel and stick adhesive backing. Beneath the backing is an NFC chip that can be scanned to obtain a link to some augmented reality animation. And the blue label part at the bottom can be separated from the stamp and it has a magnet attached to the back. It's a weak magnet but it does hold both stamp and label to the side of my refrigerator. 

The label below each stamp has the name of an ÖBB station. Every station is represented and there 1031 stations in the Austrian rail system which means there are 1031 variations of this stamp (of 181655 stamps produced). On my stamps is "St Georgen am Steinfelde" : a small town an hours drive west of Vienna, just south of St. Pölten.

I bought mine with a little folder that has some extra info about the stamp. The surfaces were protected with a plastic film which I removed. I don't necessarily have an interest in trains, or Austrian stamps. I just thought it was an interesting curiosity.

 

The Battle of the North Cape, UK postmark

On this cover is a stamp showing Stonehenge from a 1990 series about astronomy, a pair of stamps from a 1991 set that commemorates the Ordnance Survey, a 2023 Christmas stamp and a King Charles low-value definitive. The postmark commemorates the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the North Cape: one of the last big-gun navel battles of WWII. It ended with the sinking of the German battleship Scharnhorst off the northern cape of Norway on 26 December 1943 by the HMS Duke of York and other supporting vessels.

Skein, Norway

A small collection of older stamps from Norway. From left to right, the 100th Anniversary of the Salvation Army in Norway (1988), a 1982 definitive, a 1991 Christmas stamp, a Geological Survey stamp from 1973, and a stamp from 1990 commemorating the 1930 Nobel Peace Prize winner Lars Olof Jonathan Söderblom.

Pratovecchio, Italy

Pratovecchio is a Tuscan commune in the  province of Arezzo. I was amused by the placement of the address above the additional 0.05c to make the international letter rate. The stamps are a pair from 2020 that commemorate the establishment of Italian publishing company Casa Editrice Libraria Ulrico Hoepli SpA in 1870 and the Marietti Publishing House in 1820. 

Year of the Dragon FDC, South Korea

I love these stamps. And the postmark. The flatbed scanner doesn't reveal the shinny hotfoil applied to some stamps but my phone picks it up perfectly. The gold foil really pops and the iridescence of the silver foil shimmers nicely with the changing angles of light. The first-day postmark completes the cover perfectly.