Greetings for National Postcard Week -- May 3–9, 2015

This week is National Postcard Week. Although I am not making and mailing actual NPCW postcards, I thought it would be fun to modify the greetings on an old French New Year postcard that shows a female mail carrier delivering postcards.

the original French New Year postcard
Heureuse Année = Happy New Year

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Russian New Year Stamps

This is a square (5-3/4" or 14.5cm) postcard showing a collage of Russian New Year stamps. It was printed in Russia in 2013. I received this postcard from Postcrossing earlier this year.

The stamp on the back is one of the set of twelve 2009 Kremlin stamps. This one is the Ryazan Kremlin.

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See it on a Postcard

С НОВЫМ ГОДОМ! -- Happy New Year

Countdown to the New Year with Ded Moroz, Snegurochka, and this 1979 Soviet New Year postcard.

A Child's Christmas -- It's Magic

Here is a set of five PHQ cards showing the 1987 British Christmas stamps issued on 17 November 1987.

Decorating the Christmas Tree

Waiting for Father Christmas

Sleeping Child and Father Christmas in Sleigh

Child Reading

Child Playing a Flute and Snowman

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Christmas Through the Eyes of a Child

Here is a set of five PHQ cards showing the 1981 British Christmas stamps issued on 18 November 1981. The stamps reproduced art by children of various ages that was entered in a Blue Peter competition. The competition received 74,000 entries (source).

Father Christmas

A Mosaic Collage of Christ

A Christmas Angel

The Journey of Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem

The Three Kings Outside Bethlehem

image source

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Winter Fun Stamps

Here is a set of five PHQ cards showing the 1990 British Christmas stamps issued on 13 November 1990.

Building a Snowman, 17p

Fetching the Christmas Tree, 22p

Carol Singing, 26p

Tobogganing, 31p

Ice-skating, 37p

The subjects are Building a Snowman, Fetching the Christmas Tree, Carol Singing, Tobogganing (Sledding), and Ice Skating. Most of these subjects also appear on the 2014 British Christmas stamps shown here. In the 2014 series the sledding subject is replaced by "Posting Christmas Cards" (my favorite).

source

The title of this post "Winter Fun" comes from the USPS 2014 "Winter Fun" stamps which I bought in preference to the Christmas designs. These stamps were issued on October 23, 2014 as Forever® stamps in self-adhesive booklets of 20 (five of each design). This set also includes  ice skating and building a snowman as themes.

USPS described these as follows:

Winter days can be a wonderful time to appreciate the great outdoors with friends and loved ones. Drawing on nostalgic images of snowy childhoods, the Winter Fun stamps can be used not only to convey the joyful spirit of the holiday season and the new year, but also to send cheerful greetings for any occasion all winter long. Each stamp is sure to add a welcome splash of warmth to letters and cards during the year’s coldest months.

With four playful designs, Winter Fun celebrates some of the season’s most enjoyable activities: ice-skating, making snow angels, building snowmen, and bird-watching. The art for the ice-skaters design was painted with acrylic on plywood with a dry brush technique to give the illustration a textured, folk-art feel. The other three were all hand-sketched and then digitally manipulated.

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American Painting -- William M. Harnett

 

The ninth stamp in the annually issued American Painting Series was placed on sale at Boston, Massachusetts, on December 3, 1969. The stamp depicted the painting "Old Models" by William M. Harnett which is held in the collection of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. This painting is painted in the trompe l'oeil style. Trompe-l'œil (French for "deceive the eye") is an art technique that uses realistic imagery to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects exist in three dimensions.

"Old Models" features typical subject matter painted by Harnett. He owned a collection of musical instruments and often used them as props. This painting was painted shortly before Harnett died in 1892 and  is considered one of his best compositions.

The violin was also depicted in Harnett's 1886 painting, "The Old Violin," featured in the video below. (Note: that painting also includes a stamped envelope. Video best viewed in full screen mode.)

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Wild Berries Stamps

This postcard shows the Wild Berries stamps issued by Sweden in a booklet on September 8, 1977. The motifs show blackberries, cowberries, cloudberries, bilberries, and strawberries.

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Stamp Collecting Stamps

Philatelic Memorabilia.
Members of the American Philatelic Association are shown on the maximum card at their annual convention in 1898. 

Boy Examining Stamp Collection.
The Post Office Department's Philatelic Truck is shown on the maximum card. The truck carried a complete collection of U.S. stamps for youngsters to view and toured the country from 1939 to 1941 to stimulate interest in stamp collecting. President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent along a message to "The Junior Philatelists of the United States,' which said: "I commend stamp collecting to you because I started a collection when I was about ten years old and have kept it up ever since. In addition to the fun of it, it has kept up my interest in history and geography, past and present. I really believe that collecting stamps makes on a better citizen."

Under Magnifying Glass
The 1938 U.S. postage stamp commemorating the 300th anniversary of the landing of the first Swedish and Finnish settlers in America in what is now Delaware was based on a painting by Stanley M. Arthurs, which now hangs at the University of Delaware.

1986 Presidents Miniature SheetPresident Franklin D. Roosevelt was the nation's most famous stamp collector during his years in office. The maximum card shows him working with his stamp collection in the library of his home at Hyde Park, New York, in 1936.

The U.S Postal Service issued a Stamp Collecting commemorative booklet on January 23, 1986, in State College, Pennsylvania. This was its first commemorative stamp booklet. The stamps contained in this booklet are shown on the four USPS issued maximum cards above. The Swedish postal administration also issued a similar stamp booklet on the same day. The Swedish stamps are shown on the four Swedish maximum cards below.

Misprint 20/TRETIO (THIRTY)

The Engraver

The Album Sheet
Te design of this stamp is almost identical to the U.S. Under Magnifying Glass stamp.

The Stamp Collector

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Letter Carriers Stamp

 

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The Legend of Sleepy Holllow

This is a Colorano Silk Maximum Card with the "Legend of  Sleepy Hollow" stamp that was issued on October 10, 1974. The stamp features a scene from Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" in which the infamous Headless Horseman pursues Ichabod Crane. The story was first published in 1820. Wikipedia has a summary here.

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Belarus WWF Stamps

 

This postcard shows four series of four World Wildlife Fund (WWF) stamps from Belarus:

• 1995  Beavers
• 2000  European Lynx
• 2005 Black Storks
• 2010 Dragonflies 

The stork stamps in the lower right corner are an interesting se-tenant pair. The top stamp in the pair shows the adult stork's body, while the bottom stamp shows the adult stork's legs and the nestlings.

This is a post for Sunday Stamps at Viridian's Postcard Blog

China Stamp Agency

This is a card (not a postcard) commemorating the opening of the China Stamp Agency in North America in 1981. The attached stamp is titled "Amphora with Apricot Blossom." It is one in a series of six Chinese Ceramics stamps issued April 15, 1981.

The China Stamp Agency in North America is now found at  http://www.stampagencies.com/, along with stamp agencies for some other countries.

This stamp is the most colorful one in the series:

source: postbeeld

This is a post for Sunday Stamps at Viridian's Postcard Blog