Cover to Swap - UN One Planet

  

On 6 May 2010, the United Nations Postal Administration issued six se-tenant mini-sheets of four stamps each (for a total of 24 commemorative stamps) on the theme "One Planet, One Ocean", on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the International Oceanographic Commission (IOC).

 

Just thought this is a pretty colorful or un colorful :P undersea s/s to trade for some of your covers.  Contact me if interested.  Hehe..

Sunday Funnies V

 Dennis the Menace





LOL - Dennis can be described as "that" trouble kid every parent would have to go through because the creator of Dennis the Menance draws the same inspirations from his family and of course, his son Dennis.

This wraps up our tour of the Sunday funnies stamp tour.

Sunday Funnies IV

Garfield -------------------->>
  



Who doesn't know Garfield?  That smart but fat and lazy orange cat who walks, eats and talks like human?  Seriously, I think that Garfield's creator Jim Davis hates dogs.
 

Sunday Funnies III

Archie ------------->>









All the girls love Archie.  LOL.  It's still running in newspapers and comic books I think.  Archie is forever 17 years old and lives in Riverdale.  He's a nice kid but just has had too many crashes over attractive girls.

Sunday Funnies II

Calvin & Hobbes ------------->>

Calvin & Hobbes started its run in the newspapers in 1985. The strips are about a 6 year-old boy named Calvin, and his imaginative friend - a toy stuffed tiger which Calvin named Hobbes.

Some very interesting observations of world politics, right?

Sunday Funnies I

Oh my god, this is cute. I can't wait for it to be released.

Although I never read some of the strips when they were still running on newspapers, but the drawings are just too adorable.

Beetle Bailey ---------------------------->>

Let's have some laughs with the first stamp featuring Beetle Bailey - which is a comic strip first published in the 1950s. The story revolves around a lazy and inept private name Beetle Bailey and his superior Sergeant Snorkel.

As you can see, Beetle has to answer for everyone since he has not done a roll call for so many days!!

Tomorrow, we will have some laughs from Calvin & Hobbes.

A flowery cover from Russia

【作者: msyanwu】【2007年04月16日 星期一 10:31】

俄國花朵實寄封欣賞

Russian cover with flowers

集邮其中一个最大的乐趣就是能通过四通八达的邮政系统和世界各国的集邮爱好者交流。 最近新认识的一位俄国朋友寄来了这样一个实寄封。 对俄国的历史，人民风俗实在不太了解。 只是在历史学堂里稍微认识了一下皮特一世， 凯莎琳大帝， 列宁， 斯大林， 以及电影上的战争与和平， 施瓦够医生。 实在是贫乏。 觉得， 俄国人的信封总是色彩缤纷的， 邮戳蛮好的， 字很奇怪。 前苏联跟中国是盟友， 虽然后来闹了矛盾， 不过在中国还是有遗留下来的影响力， 好多官员都要学学俄语， 不知道现在的中国， 俄语是否还是有市场？

One of the advantages of collecting stamps is to be able to interact with collectors around the world.  Here is a cover from a Russian collector.  I really don't know much about Russia, except Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Lenin and Stalin from my history class.  Other than this, I've watched War and Peace and Doctor Zhivago on film.  This is so meager isn't it.  :( 

Year of the Monkey - a heartache

I have written about stamps for quite a while and some of my older articles were written in Chinese. I would like to post them here from now on so they are all in one place.

【作者: msyanwu】 【2007年06月22日 星期五 02:19】

心疼

一直想拥有的８０猴子邮票又又升值了。 现在要３百多美金。 几年前或是更早以前我都可以用大大低于这个数目的价钱买到， 可惜我什么时候都觉得这个邮票被高估了， 所以一直没买。

有些人说， 只要你喜欢，就应该买下来， 不要等将来升值了你又来后悔。 也对， 可惜有些人就是没那么的萧洒， 像我。

最潇洒的一次吧， 就是用６００多大洋买下了牡丹小全。 还有一次， 还在读书的时候， 发邮疯， 用一千多大洋买下一集邮本， 里面包括了梅兰芳套票， 黄山套票。 这个投资不错。 不过在当时来讲其实是很冒险的， 因为我都还没有收入嘞。 集邮是很花银子的爱好， 而且引诱很多， 因为同样的邮票可以做出很多不同方式的邮品。 所以一定要管住自己。 有个朋友每次到邮展都给自己一个数目， 高了就要停买。 我觉得可以借鉴。

梅花－我最喜欢的邮票。 买了十几张。 赫赫， 又病了。

Prague 2008

Sorry about my prolonged absence and thus neglecting the blog. For now, I would like to share some pictures and words from the Prague 2008 International Stamp Exhibition which I've recently attended.

This is my first visit to the Czech Republic. As a collector I've always been impressed by the stamps of this country. They have exquisite designs and are beautifully engraved. I especially like the stamps that Czech Post issued in the 60s-80s.

The night before I leave I was very excited because this was my first stamp show in a foreign country. My plan was to attend the show for the first day and 1/2 a day the second day and then go on with my other plans in Prague.

9/11 Looking out the window while flying from France to Prague, I gotta say Air France was pretty good in terms of service and food.

9/11 Looking at the land of the thousand spires. Almost there!!

9/12 First day of the show. Long lines at the entry gate! Unlike stamp shows in the US, stamp shows in Europe most likely are not free. But, first time I felt lucky to be a woman because women and children could attend the show for free :) Great wasn't it. This worked for me because I didn't know I would be in and out of the exhibit later on.

9/12 This is a picture of the Industrial Palace in Prague. We were late for 2 hours the first day because we had no idea how to get there. Haha, but we made it following the tracks of the tram that goes to the palace.

9/12 The venue itself was quite big! But of course, it was a lot smaller than Washington2006. I walked into the exhibition hall and felt a little overwhelmed because it was really really crowded and we were like the only Asians there and (young) No offense here .. hehe..

This is the catalogue I bought, I forgot how much maybe 500 kr.

9/12 The exhibition ground was divided into 3 parts. The right side of the palace housed all the competitive exhibits, the middle section had all the postal offices from the world and including Czech Post. Finally, the right side of the palace were the dealers.

Will continue soon.

Here comes Micky - er, not quite

In the past I've written a lot about my personal experiences with stamp collecting. However, I haven't really shown any covers that other collectors have sent me. So, in order not to waste the beauties of these covers and to express my heartfelt thanks to these collectors, I'll put online the images of the covers I've received randomly.


This I've received from Mr. L who's a collector of music, dance and ballet. Thank you. What is special about this cover? It's the 2 Frama labels on the left side from Hong Kong! Mr. L must have bought them 12 years ago? :o No? Because the Frama label depicted a mouse with a green background that says "The year of Rat."

First UN Braille Stamp

Wow, the UN is issueing its first Braille stamp this June. Although this is not the first and certainly not the least Braille stamp issued around the world, I am pretty surprised to see it coming.

Only one stamp out of the 6 stamps set will be embossed with raised Braille characters.

The stamp will be issued by the NY office. The Braille characters spell the word "UN" and I am going to touch the words and pretend I know Braille. :-P

According to Wikipedia - Louis Braille, born  4 January 1809 in France, was the inventor of braille, a system of reading and writing used by people who are blind or visually impaired. As a small child, Braille was blinded in an accident; as a boy he developed a mastery over that blindness; and as a young man – still a student at school – he created a revolutionary form of communication that transcended blindness and transformed the lives of millions. After two centuries, the braille system remains an invaluable tool of learning and communication for the blind, and it has been adapted for languages worldwide.  

Orchids

Hum..I guess I ran out of ideas and I've been lazy so I just pulled some old covers I made "years" ago to show you. Hehe...

Orchids have a big family. There are white orchids, green orchids, purple ones, big, small and they also come in different shapes. Love their variety but they are usually not fragrant. Or at least not the ones I've seen.

The one Orchid that I always run over to see them are the ones that shape like a slipper. They look really cute and I can put a finger of mine in the little pouch. Not that it's right to do so, but I just couldn't resist..sigh..

Couldn't believe I made this 3 years ago. It was actually my first UN FDC that I made for myself at the stamp show. I got the artist and also Robert Grey, who was the UNPA cheif to sign it.

Yousuf Karsh & Winston Churchill

Yousuf Karsh was the most famous Canadian portrait photographer in the 20th century. He had taken pictures of celebrities, politicians, scientists, novelist and people from all sorts of backgrounds. One of his most famous works was a portrait of Winston Churchill taken right after his speech in the Canadian Parliament in 1941. This photo brought him frame and success later on as a professional photographer.










This month, to celebrate Yousuf’s achievement, Canada post will issue a set of stamps showing 2 of Yousuf's most beautiful works and a self portrait of the artist himself.

Talking about the subjects of the Canadian s/s.  Here is my favoritate photo of Audrey Hepburn!! Amazingly done and so beautiful! Coincidently, while I walked past by an odd little variety store the other day, I found this amazing postcard of Audrey. It is exactly the same photo! I think I will make a pretty nice Maximum card out of this.

 Most of Yousuf's portraits are in black and white, no props or decorations to distract attention from the model. The portrait of Audrey, captures the essence of Audrey's on screen personality, a sense of innocence, pureness and holiness. Audrey is definitely one of my all time favorite actress. 

Here is a larger photo of Sir Winston Churchill.  Besides being one of the most famous British politician during his time, he was also a great historian and writer.

I love some of the shorter essays he wrote here and there, beautiful writing but I thought he was too much of an imperialist at heart.