AdMail from New Zealand Post

I get ad mail from New Zealand Post a few times a years: colourful brochures advertising new stamp releases. Sometimes the envelope they come in has an actual stamp on it.

This stamps is from the Matariki 2014 series. Matariki is the Māori New Year. On this stamp, Ranginui and Papatuanuku are depicted in a painting by Pauline Kahurangi Yearbury. Rangi and Papa as they are known are the birth parents in the Māori creation myth. The sky father and the earth mother are always depicted in a tight embrace.

Musée de La Poste, Paris

I've been to Paris a few times and never managed to visit the postal museum.  The postmark on this letter depicts a horse-drawn mail carriage and I believe this is one of the permanent postmarks available from the postal counter at the museum. There is some good info about the museum's ATM issues and accompanying postmarks on this website.

Denkendorf, Germany

From Denkendorf, in Baden-Württemberg a few kms south-east of Stuttgart. 2014 Lighthouse stamps : Buk in the north-east and Pellworm in the north-west

Mechelen, Belgium

FIFA 2014 Artwork

These stamps from Brazil feature artwork that represents some of the FIFA 2014 host cities. From left to right: Curitiba, Porto Alegre and São Paulo

Jimi Hendrix

Cancelled in Austin, Texas. The Jimi Hendrix first day postmark was used on the Jim Hendrix stamp.
The stamps next to it are from 2013: WW2 Medal of Honor and one of the "Made in America" statmps. The older group of stamps on the right are the 1975 Apollo - Soyuz  Test Project commemorative (the first joint US-Soviet space mission), the 1962 Civil War battle of Shiloh commemorative and the 1948 Gettysburg Address commemorative.

Skien, Norway

S.A. Agulhas II

I would guess that this comes to me from the South African research station on Marion Island. I can't find a reference to the SA Agulhas II missions but I did find an article saying the vessel returned to port this month after a journey to the island. Same month as the (Cape Town) postmark.

Brazil, FIFA 2014 Host Cities

Three stamps from a set of 12 that feature artwork from the official host city posters for the 2014 FIFA World Cup. From left to right, posters for Belo Horizonte, Brasília and Cuiabá.

Daneborg, Greenland

Daneborg, on the North-East coast of Greenland in the Northeast Greenland National Park: the largest national park in the world. There is a small research station there and it serves as the headquarters for the parks sled dog patrol : SIRIUS Patrol.

This comes to me from a team with the Belgian Antarctic Research Program studying sea ice in Greenland. I received a cover from the same team last year while they were stationed in the Ross Dependency.

Almaty, Kazakhstan

Almaty was the capital of Kazakhstan from 1991 to 1997, when all of the stamps on this cover were issued.

East London, South Africa

It's hard to make out but the postmark on this cover has a coelacanth on it. A coelacanth is an ancient ocean fish that was assumed extinct until one was caught 22 December 1938 off the east coast of South Africa. It is still on display at the East London museum.