Helsinki, Finland

Kerava, Finland

Kerava is a large town in the South of Finland. This is the first time I've received mail from Finland with one of the self-adhesive low-value definitives on it. The 10 cent cross shaped stamps on the left is from a sheet issued in 2008. The stamps in the strip show a view of the archipelago of Gulf of Finland. That same year a sheet of 5 cent stamps were issued showing ripples of water.

Bruck an der Leith, Austria

Bruck an der Leith is a small city in the eastern part of Austria, between Vienna and Bratislava Slovakia.

I believe the stamps on this one are "personal" stamps: stamps that customers can have printed with their own images on them. I'm pretty sure that's what these are but what I don't know is if these were printed for a specific customer, or it they ere sold this way by Austria Post. Austria Post sells personal stamps with their own images on them.

Toronto's First Post Office

TAAF - Dumont d'Urville

Spring Greetings from Kobe Japan

Bulgarian Antarctic Base St. Kliment Ohridski

The postal code 1090 is the Bulgarian postal code for the post office at St. Kliment Ohridski Base. But there are no base markings on this cover. It could have been posted to me from Bulgaria and not returned from the Antarctic continent. I sent this request late last fall. It was postmark in January and just got to me yesterday. The turn around time is certainly long enough for this to have come from the base.

St. Kliment Ohridski Base has had a post office since the mid 90's. The base is located on Livingston Island in the South Shetlands, at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. It is not far from the Spanish base "Juan Carlos I". The base accommodates about 25 people during the summer months and is a routine stop for tourist ships sailing through the area.

Lyon, France

Rumšiškės, Lithuania

Oryahovo, Bulgaria

Ad Mail from New Zealand Post

New Zealand post are now putting postmarks on their stamped ad mail. The last one I received might have been cancelled as well... can't recall. Must be a machine cancel. The stamp on this cover is from a series that commemorates the 75th anniversary of Air New Zealand.

Casey Research Station - AAT

From Casey Station in the Austrian Antarctic Territory. The stamps are a gutter pair from the recent "Colours of the AAT" issue. As with a similar cover I received from Davis Station in December, the first day of issue postmark was used.