New piece from the stamp exchange with China

Early this year I exchanged a few stamps with one collector from China and nicely stamped cover is always a good bonus. For this postal matter are used four stamps:

The biggest one on the left is from set with the theme of Mount Huangshan, romantic scenery with rocks above the clouds. The zones of Mt. Huangshan cover an area of about 154 square kilometres and you can find there many brooks, rivers, peaks and twelve caves. Often is this area described as the place of four sights: legendary pine trees, strange-shaped rocks, sea of clouds and hot springs.

Next stamp supports China's National Tourism Administration and invites the tourists to China. After all, it's written on the backbround of this stamp - Visit China.

Third stamp displays the original site of Directorate of Posts of China Soviet Republic. It's from the set of four postal buildings issued in 1996 and commemorates the progress of postal service in China.

And last stamp? I identified some dock, but why is in the left top corner the logo of Summer Olympic Games in Peking (Beijing) in 2008, is it all right? Of course it is, because on the picture is Qingdao Olympic Sailing Center, one of the Olympic sports facilities on Chinese stamps.

Thanks to Huang, you can look at his blog on http://stampsland.blogspot.com

Correspondence with Leuchtturm company

Welcome to all visitors of my blog in new year 2010!
Many of you surely know Leuchtturm (Lighthouse) company. It's the producer of collector aids, I myself use mainly Leuchtturm stockbooks for my stamps. They sent me from Germany their product catalogue with two Bleeding heart stamps (Dicentra spectabilis).

Another two stamps from german set of flowers on the cover can you see in my post from last year. It's pleasant, that the company conversant in philately uses the stamps (although only common definitives) for payment of correspondence with collectors, not only franking machine. It is the right thing to do!

Aviatrix, Christmas and bird

Last year I received a cover with three stamps from Australia. The one with the theme of airplane celebrates Freda Thompson - pioneer aviator, first Australian woman, who flew solo from United Kingdom to Australia. The trip took her 39 days, but 20 days of them was she waiting for a spare part for a damaged wing. The stamp was issued in 1994, 60 years after her success. For better depicting pleas click on the picture.

Next to this stamp is one of the five Christmas stamps from 1984, with price 40 cents. Shows the angelic figure from a glasswindow at St. Francis Church in Melbourne.

And the third stamp below is from very good known and nice definitive set of Australian birds, here it is 30c Pied Oystercatcher (Haematopus longirostris) from 1978. Unfortunately I don't own too much pieces from this set, I hope another comes soon :)

Rabbi Judah Loew

I collect stamps almost cancelled, used in postal service. I am sure you know, how hard it is to get such stamps these days, because they are less in use. To find some less common commemorative stamp with higher value on cover is more difficult, so I am very pleased with new piece for my collection:


It is the 2009 stamp from Czech republic, with the picture of jewish rabbi and scholar Judah Loew ben Bezalel, known mainly as Rabbi Loew. Beside his interest in natural sciences he became fame mainly thanks to legend about Golem - clay giant, whom he livened. He was interested in astrology and astronomy too and wrote 17 books. More information about Rabbi Loew can you find e.g. on Wikipedia.
In addition, I own this stamp in double joined with coupon depicting the kiddush cup, which is reputedly from possession of Rabbi Loew.

Cover from India with different themes

Today I would like to show you a cover from India, the sender sticked on it four nice stamps:

On top left you see the face of Majaz Lakhnawi, Indian poet writing his production in urdu. In one's own name Asrarul Haq was born 1911 and died in December 1955 of undercooling after he stayed drunken lying on land.

I introduce the stamps on the right from top to bottom:
The butterfly is from butterfly series from 2008, concretely the male of Pachliopta Rhodifer species. The female has her own stamp, because she differs from male by physiognomy. Together with Papilio Mayo they are endemic butterflies of indian Andaman & Nicobar Islands.

The building on the stamp from the year 2007 in the middle is Wilson College - school founded in India by reverend John Wilson of the Scottish Missionary Society. Today is a degree college to the University of Mumbai.

Last stamp right down is dedicated to tiger Reserve Project in indian Sundarbansu, that's why it has the picture of the tiger. Sundarbans Biosphere Reserve was found in 1974 and spreads over 2585 km² of mangrove swamps in West Bengal.

Change for monolingual version

At the beginning I started to write this blog bilingually, in English and in Czech. But with this variant I have some problems which don't enable me to write my blog as often as I wish. Therefore I amend the blog at this internet address to monolingual english version, I hope it becomes better arranged for all readers.
I do not want to close up the czech version also, thus if you prefer Czech, from now on you can follow my blog at http://sbirka.blogspot.com

The different sorts of clouds

I really appreciate the choice of the topic on the USA stamps - various sorts of clouds, here is it specific Stratus opacus and Altocumulus castellanus. It is common meteorological effect, we can watch them anywhere in the world, but few is interested in it or can identify them. I like that the clouds found the way on the american stamps series. It's a pity, that there is a "clouded" print of machine cancel. If you know about another stamps with clouds primary, please let me know!
1$ self-adhesive stamp on the left ist from the year 2003 and displays the Statue of Wisdom on Rockefeller Center in New York City. At home I keep at disposition an older Michel catalogue for North- and Mesoamerica, so I have to assort my american stamps from definitive series. They are very nice and in large numbers, I have a little disorder in them :-)