Trust no one!

Strange philatelic world... to collect or not to collect!

In my opinion I believe that philately is lost... or at least starting to slowly die... we are living a time were day by day more and more philatelic authorities are issuing stamps only with the purpose of gathering money!

The topics are picked only with the purpose to be appellative for collectors and not to be used to stamp letters... what a disgrace!

Sometimes the face values are very high and not suitable for common letters but only for very big packages... and I ask... who uses stamps on big packages?

Other times we don't even know if the name of the country on the stamps have actually issued them or if they are cinderella issues...

Trust no one!

From France: Fête du Timbre!

Today is... postcard day... yes, sometimes I like to let you see the kind of postcards I receive in the mail...

The one bellow was sent to me from FRANCE. On the front of the postcard you can see General de Gaulle - 18th President of the French Republic and a key figure in WWII - to learn more please click here.

On the back of the postcard (bellow) you can see a stamp and the cancellation of the french Fête du Timbre 2008. This event was created in 1938 and this year it has the goal to promote philately and the exchange of letters between everyone! Shouldn't this be the goal of all Postal Administrations?! I wonder...

Do you like cartoons? Aren't these little figures... drawn with a pencil... at least before PC animated cartoons... always present in the happiest corner of our minds? Hope they are in yours as they are in mine!

Have fun and watch some animated movies or read some comics! eheh!

That's all Folks!

French Space Stamp

My 1st November post... Wow!!! Xmas is really getting close, isn't it? And that will soon be a topic to explore. Please visit again soon!

Well... back to today's post... I've received a letter with the French Space Stamp. Thank you Eric. Please don't forget to visit his great blog here.


This stamp was issued on 5 Oct. 2007 to commemorate the 50th ANNIVERSARY of the SPACE CONQUEST. And as Eric also pointed out on his blog it shows 5 Space Historic Events... Sputnik, Apollo module, Spot 5 satellite and Ariane 5 and Soyuz launchers with the European map on the background. A beautiful stamp no doubt at all.

On the left of the stamp you can see a postage meter / label that the postal clerk prints on the same paper as the ATM - paper plane design.

See you all soon!

French ATM

Paper Plane ATM

I'm not an ATM collector but it's an area of philately that can be very interesting... don't you agree? At least you don't need to worry about the stamp perforations! eheeh!!

Well... Bellow there's a cover from France, do you know which ATM machine printed this stamp? And how many different ones did France issue?

Rugby and France

La VIe coupe du Monde de Rugby

Recently I've received this cover from France... and my thoughts when I received it were... What a strange looking s/s on top of the cover! But looking closer you can easily see that it's a fragment of a larger s/s issued 25.06.07 depicting The World Rugby Cup 2007 with having no more no less than 10 stamps in it! You can see an image of the full s/s bellow.


In it you can see many Rugby manoeuvres... La mélée, la touche, la passe, le haka, le plaquage, le raffut, la transformation, l'essai et l'attaque, and the fans!

The single stamp that you can also see on the cover was issued on 06.09.07 on the same thematics. The curious fact is that it is the 1st lenticular stamp issued by France PO. In it you can see a penalty being scored with the sense of motion.

See you soon!

Gargoyles in Paris

We will always have Paris...

Yesterday I went to a marriage... and yes, that's the reason for not having posted... but I'm glad for having great blog contributors that frequently post, and they post it good, don't you agree?

Well... all this to say that the marriage was in a nice church that somehow made me remember one postcard I've received some days ago... I have to be very "stampoholic" to think of it when I'm attending a marriage, right? The postcard bellow shows us the gargoyles on top of the Notre-Dame Cathedral... what do you think of these Parisian watchdogs? A bit static... I would say... probably not the best candidates for a breakdance!


On the back of the postcard were 2 stamps issued this year 2007. One definitive stamp of 0.05 Euro and a commemorative stamp of the WC Rugby belonging to a m/s with 10 stamps.

Talking about rugby...
What do you think of the Portuguese team?

Not doing a very bad work for an amateur team...
wouldn't you agree?

The last but not the least...
Let me Thank You...

Thank you all... the readers of this blog... for making it pass the barrier of the 1000 visitors... Thank you... Hope you enjoy it and continue to visit!

Please remember that all and any comments are always welcome and appreciated.

Take care!

From France

From Paris!

Today I'm only posting to thank Rute for the beautiful Postcard she sent me from Paris! I can't believe that she visited so many places in just a single day! WOW!!!

Rute... If you're reading this... Continue having fun for both of us!

Kisses


Thank you!
(Wish I was there!)

United Countries of Harry Potter

As promised here is the next cover I've received today...


On this cover you can see one S/S from France - "Harry Potter" - Fête du Timbre 2007

Personally I like this S/S... I've never read any of the books' series because they just aren't my cup of tea... apologies to the fans! But i surely understand all the fuss around them... you can see all the madness of the book release day here ... I saw one or another Harry Potter cinema movie and they were good...

But lets get back to the stamps... There's a world fever for Harry in some Postal Offices around the globe... Another blogger and philatelist friend *cddstamps* already talked about what happened in the UK with orders for over 300,000 issues... which is a major profit for their Postal Office. The same thing happened in France with stamps, booklets, M/S and S/S issued... like I said before personally I like the S/S above... but some questions arise:

1. Did the collectors buy these stamps because their countries' post office released them to make some easy profit and since they collect all their countries' stamps these ones ought to be bought?

OR

2. Did the Post Offices issue these sets to fulfill the need of the fans and collectors of Harry Potter to have an extra item in their collections without thinking of company profits?

What do you, my readers, have to say about this? Am I being too naive or simply showing to be the Harry Potter fan I didn't know I was?

Please post some comments... or if you prefer just email me... I wonder how many Harry issues are out there... starting to get an headache just thinking about that! eheh

Goodnight and see you tomorrow in another stamp trip around the world!!!