Toa Payoh, Singapore

From the residential area of Toa Payoh in central Singapore. An interesting spray-on postmark. The stamp in the right corner is a 2024 Olympic stamp from a set of 10. This stamp represents sailing.

São Filipe, Cape Verde

From the city of São Filipe on the island of Fogo. Cape Verde consists of a group of volcanic islands 600km west of the western tip of Africa. It was settled by the Portuguese in the 15th century and gained independence in 1975. Over half a million people live in Cape Verde. 

The stamps are 2004 Summer Olympic stamps: Gymnastics and Taekwondo. On the back of the envelope there is a handstamped postmarks from Cape Verde with a date stamp and another machine stamp from Portugal with a Lisbon postal code. Thanks for the cover Pedro. Much appreciated!

2012 Olympic Games from Ahmedebad, India

The stamps from 2012 commemorate the Summer Olympic Games held in London in 2012. Badminton and Volleyball. It's a very nice and tidy cover from Mr Dilip Naik and a shame I have to blur out his beautiful handwriting. This one got a bit crumpled somewhere on it's way to my mailbox but that just gives it more character.

Slovenia, Rio 2016

Brazil Rio 2016 - Our Stamps

Another set of Olympic and Paralympic stamps from Brazil. They are from a sheet of 16 that feature designs by contest winners. The contestants were adults and children and I believe the theme was Olympic spirit.

Algeria, Rio 2016

Rio 2016: Olympic and Paralympic Sports

More sports of the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Rio. The sports on these stamps are Equestrian, Field Hockey and Paralympic swimming. These are from a sheet of 25 with 11 different designs. I believe this is the third sheet from Brazil featuring Olympic and Paralympic games.

Cēsis, Latvia

Brazil, Sports of the 2016 Olympic Games

A strip of stamps from a sheet from Brazil commemorating the games of the upcoming 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio.

Rio 2016

Sports of Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Block of 4 stamps from a sheet of 20 that was issued in August of 2015. The games are a little under 7 months away now. 

Rio 2016 Paralympics

Like the 2016 Olympic transition stamps issued by Brazil this year, these Paralympic stamps were printed in 2012 but due to a licensing dispute, were held off sale until earlier this year. I almost thought these were the same stamps until I noticed the Paralympic logo.

Rio 2016

These stamps were issued to represent the transition of the summer Olympic games from London to Rio de Janeiro. The stamps were printed in 2012 but due to a licensing dispute, were held off sale until earlier this year.

Riga, Latvia

London England with a Doctor Who postmark

This cover from the UK, with a pair of 2012 Olympic stamps on it, is postmarked with the Sci-Fi Collector's Doctor Who postmark. It doesn't actually refer to the show but the image of the police box in the postmark is the Doctor's time machine : the TARDIS. The BBC are very protective of Doctor Who and were requesting fairly large licensing fees of those wishing to create commemorate postmarks to go along with the Doctor Who stamp issues. So groups like Sci-Fi Collector (a store in London specializing in Doctor Who memorabilia) left out the reference to "Doctor Who" in their postmark design to avoid the licensing fee.

London 2012 Maximum Cards

This is the result of my attempt to get maximum cards made using the recent "Welcome to London 2012" stamps from the UK. I sent two cards to Tallents House for the official first-day postmark and the other two I send to the London Special Handstamp Center  for alternative first-day postmarks. Results were mixed.

This first card was my favorite before I even sent it out for postmarking. Lots of noise free space for the postmark and the card had a matte finish so the postmark stuck to it real nice.

This card had a gloss finish and resulted in a not so perfect postmark application. And the stamp is starting to lift off the card significantly. I should have asked for the postmark to be place a little lower. And the card itself is a little too busy. Still, not bad.

I really wanted this one to work. The picture on this card is from the last Olympic games held in London in 1948. The postmark is rotated 90 degrees which isn't what I wanted. This was an alternative first day postmark for this stamp issue. The card has too much noise in the background though and makes it very difficult to make out the postmark. I should have sent this to Tallent's House for the official postmark. Would have looked better and maybe the postmark would have been applied properly.

I laughed when I saw this one. Where's the postmark? I had extra postage on the back of this card and that's where it was postmarked even though I had fairly simple instructions attached to the back of the card, and a drawing of where to place the postmark. This was the first day postmark used for the coin cover that was issued along with the miniature sheet FDCs.

Despite what must have been a really busy month for the Tallents House postmarking team, they did a fantastic job with my cards. The London SHC can put down a pretty good postmark but I think they were a little busy to get it right for me. Maybe the next set of postcards will turn out better.

London Olympic Postmarks

A couple of 2012 Olympic postmarks from Royal Mail. Both are available from the London SHC for a full year with the E20 postmark from 27 July 2012 to 26 July 2013 and the W2 postmark from 5 Jan 2012 to 4 Jan 2013. 

More from the Salon du Timbre

I received this cover from François who must have made a trip to the Salon du Timbre in Paris this past week. I wanted to send myself a cover with this label on it but I didn't get a chance to. This label features key people from French history: Louis IX, François I, Henri IV, Louis XIV, Napoleon and General de Gaulle. Thank you François!

I also received this postcard that I had sent myself from the Salon. It was a postcard we bought at Disneyland and we happened to have it handy at the Salon so I stuck a newly issued "sports" stamp on it and mailed it back to myself. It's postmarked with the first day of issue postmark. 

Whitehorse 2010 Winter Games Cancel

I know, I know… the winter games were held in Vancouver and Whistler. So why does Whitehorse have an Olympic cancel? Canada Post went all out with Olympic spirit and created cancels for 30 cites in BC and 2 in the Yukon that had any connection what so ever with the games. I wanted a cancel form Whitehorse and had an Olympic Gold domestic rate stamp available which I thought was a good match. So onto an envelope and into the mail it went.









The postmaster up there did an excellent job of canceling my cover and even sent it back under cover and included a Yukon Gold post card, cancelled with the same Olympic cancel. I was very pleased.

Early in the year I had plans to collect a whole stack of covers with the Olympic cancels on them: one with a matching cancel for pretty much every 2010 Winter Games related stamp Canada Post had issued. But I didn’t get around to it – wasn’t really that interested in them I guess. But I’m happy with this one from Whitehorse.

Canada 2010 Winter Olympic Games Souvenir Sheets

The winter games are coming to Vancouver next year. I would love to have the time and money to go and take in a few events but the kids are a little too young to get much out of it. Besides, I think going to see the games in a "foreign" country would make for a more exciting experience.

The Royal Canadian Mint has been cranking out coins to celebrate the event for the past year and a half and we're still a year away from the event. Fortunately Canada Post has exercised a little more restraint and only recently started to produce stamps commemorating the event.

Recently, they have been producing souvenir sheets of definitive stamps which I think is a nice way to introduce definitives into the collections of those who would otherwise shy away from them. It also means stamps that would normally be available only as adhesives in booklets and rolls are now available in a gummed and perforated format. I'm sure in the future, used version of these gummed stamps, even though they are definitives, will be worth much more than their self adhesive cousins.


The first sheet released by Canada Post on 12 January 2009 was the "Sports of the 2010 Olympic Games". The 5 Permanent domestic rate stamps on this sheet are also available as self adhesives in booklets of 10 and 30. The stamps feature images representing 5 of the Winter Olympic Games: ice sledge hockey, snowboarding, freestyle skiing, bobsleigh and Curling.

The second sheet released on 12 February 2009 was the "Vancouver 2010 Winter Games Mascots and Emblems". The five stamps in this sheet include a pair of Permanent domestic rates stamps features the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games emblem and the Vancouver 2010 Paralympic Winter Games emblem. The three mascots of the games, Miga, Quatchi and Sumi, are also featured on the US, International and Oversized rate stamps respectively. These stamps are available in rolls and booklets in the adhesive format.

The release of this sheet was delayed to coincide with the one year countdown and release of the $1.15 Oversized stamp that features the mascot of the Paralympic Games, Sumi.

Olympic Commemoratives

There are 204 nations competing at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and as I watched them all walk out into the Olympic stadium during the opening ceremonies it occurred to me that it is the one event on this planet that brings together all corners of the globe. I can’t think of anything else that comes close.

The first Olympic commemorative stamps were issued by Greece to coincide with the first modern Olympic games hosted there in 1896. This was also their first commemorative issue and it consisted of twelve values. Apparently they are quite collectible today but a few appear on Ebay from time to time.

Flash forward to today and you find virtually every postal authority issues commemorative Olympic stamps. To be honest, I’ve never been even slightly interested in them until now.