Sunday Stamps 84 - historical buildings of Hong Kong

After a break of a few weeks on account of my summer holiday in California I'm back in again for this week's Sunday Stamps, and am glad the theme is anything you wish as it means I don't have to get the grey matter up and running. The first day cover below is another of my Hong Kong first day covers, and features historical buildings.

First Day Cover, Historical Buildings, c.1986

The buildings shown are:

40c - Hung Sing Temple

$1.00 - St. John's Cathedral

$1.30 - The Old Supreme Court Building

$5.00 - Wan Chai Post Office

Check out my recent blog posting of Hong Kong Dragon Boats

Sunday Stamps 79 - flags

Flags is another of those themes where I was sure I had plenty of suitable stamps, but to my surprise it actually took quite a lot of looking to find something to post for this week's Sunday Stamps. The three stamps below were issued in 1973 to commemorate Britain's entry into the European Community. The image of the Union Jack flag portrayed as a piece of a tightly fitting jigsaw puzzle is perhaps showing the test of time some 40 years later.

European Communities, c.1973

What I never knew before was that Great Britain tried to join back in 1960 but the application was vetoed by the then French President, Charles de Gaulle, who was concerned about the US influence.

    

Sunday Stamps 78 - yellow

I found lots of inspiration for this weeks Sunday Stamps theme of yellow in my stamp collection, but eventually decided on this one. It's a yellow 4d stamp, showing the Jodrell Bank telescope, and was issued in September 1966.

4d Jodrell Bank

The stamp was issued in a set of four stamps commemorating British Technology. I only have two of the set, and if you'll all forgive me straying off theme slightly, I also wanted to share the second stamp in the set, which is an orange 6d stamp showing various British cars, including probably my favourite car of all time, the e-type Jaguar, as driven by Mrs Peel in the Avengers. The other two stamps in the series were a 1s 3d Hovercraft stamp, and a 1s 6d Nuclear Power stamp. Incidentally, the 6d cars stamp is featured in Simon Garfield's book The Error World: An Affair With Stamps where he writes about a rare, errored, version of the stamp which only included the e-type jaguar and not the three minis.

6d e-type Jaguar and 3 Minis

    

Sunday Stamps 77 - the National Trust, St. Kilda

I wasn't quite sure where to go for this week's Sunday Stamps theme of Scenic Natural Areas but I eventually decided on this first day cover from June 1981 which shows various National Trust locations in the UK. The locations from left to right are:

• St. Kilda, Scotland
• Giant's Causeway, Northern Ireland
• Stackpole Head, Wales
• Derwentwater, England
• Glenfinnan, Scotland

The National Trusts, first day cover, June 1981

I am familiar with all of these places except St. Kilda, which I had heard of but knew very little about. It was populated until 1930, but numbers were typically between 100 and 200. It was eventually evacuated for a number of reasons, some accounts say voluntarily, others say forcibly. With book titles like The Truth about St. Kilda it certainly suggests this was not as amicable as other accounts would make out. It now belongs to the National Trust for Scotland, and in 1986 became a World Hertiage site. More information about this incredible story can be found in these books.

    

You might also be interested in my other blogs which cover vintage magazines and another called In Search of Space which covers subjects that don't really fit anywhere else.

Sunday Stamps 76 - Hong Kong, Dragon Boats

Looks like the sun has finally decided to come out today, so I really should go and do something outside. Just time however to share a post for this week's Sunday Stamps. Fortunately, with the theme being anything you wish again this week, I didn't need to rack my brain too much. The stamps below are a commemorative set from Hong King, c.1986, and feature a Dragon Boat festival. On taking this cover out of its sleeve to scan it in, I discovered 2 more Hong Kong commemorative covers tucked in behind this one. If a suitable theme comes up over the next few weeks/months then I'll try and share the other 2 as well.

Commemorative cover - Dragon Boat Festival, Hong Kong, c.1986

Commemorative cover - Dragon Boat Festival, Hong Kong, c.1986

    

Sunday Stamps 75 - food and drink

Wow, this was a tricky theme. I was sure that I had plenty of stamps featuring food and drink to meet this week's Sunday Stamps theme, but it turns out I didn't so I have had to stretch the theme a little. The 2 stamps below show rice being harvested and a rice field being ploughed, so it is food but not yet in its meal-ready form.

Ploughing a rice field, 1 cent stamp, British Guiana

Rice harvesting, 3d stamp, Sierra Leone

    

Sunday Stamps 74 - Halley's Comet

For this week's Sunday Stamps theme of astronomy I have dug out this First Day Cover from 1986, commemorating Halley's Comet.

Halley's Comet is one of the few comets that can be seen without a telescope and is visible every 76 years. It was the astronomer Edmond Halley who first predicted the comet's return and it is named after him.

To celebrate the return of the comet in 1986, the Royal Mail issued four commemorative stamps ...

17p -  Dr Edmond Halley as a Comet

22p -  Giotto Spacecraft approaching Comet

31p -  Twice in a Lifetime

34p -  Comet orbiting Sun and Planets

First Day Cover of Halley's Comer, c.1986

    

Sunday Stamps 72 - maps on stamps

I have posted this stamp before, but not as a Sunday Stamps entry, so I hope those of you seeing it for a second time will forgive me. This is a 2 cent stamp from Canada, c.1898, celebrating the extent of the British Empire. As I mentioned last time I posted this stamp, this is not supposed to be a jingoistic entry but more a view of the importance placed on empire at the time. What's interesting is that the map is oriented on Canada as opposed to the normal views we see in the UK where it is oriented on London, presumably because of the Greenwich meridian.

    

Sunday Stamps 68 - Philympia 1970

Stamps about stamps ... what an interesting theme for this week's Sunday Stamps. After a few moments trying to get my brain into gear on this wet and grey Sunday morning, I remembered this one from 1970. Well, when I say remembered, I was only 5 at the time, but what I mean is that I remembered it being in my first day cover album. So, a rummage in the old suitcase that holds my stamp albums, and a quick leaf through the covers and I found it. The stamp and cover commemorate the 1970 International Philatelic Exhibition, held in Olympia, London, from 18th to 26th September.

First Day Cover, Philympia 1970

    

Sunday Stamps 64 - Honiton Royal Mail Post Bus

I've been planning to share this philatelic gem for a while now, and this week's Sunday Stamps theme of anything you wish has given me the opportunity. It's been quite a while since I took this out of its presentation pack, and I had forgotten that it contained a wealth of inserts, as well as the stamps, which doubled-up as the bus ticket. So given this is a Sunday Stamps posting, I'll start with the stamps themselves. These stamps are the first day of issue and represent the 19p bus fare, in September 1978. Also shown is the 'last day of issue' of bus ticket which the stamps replaced.

Royal Mail Post Bus Ticket, September 1978

Royal Mail Post Bus postcard

 Honiton Royal Mail Post Bus insert

Honiton Royal Mail Post Bus timetable

Honiton Royal Mail Post Bus fare schedule

    

Sunday Stamps 63 - Flowers

Spring is really here in the UK this week. We've had some fantastic weather and we even managed to have a barbecue yesterday. For this week's Sunday Stamps of Flowers I found this presentation pack from 1979 of British Flowers. What's curious is that the stamps themselves seems to have been printed with such heavy background colours that it makes them look a little dull. I've included scans of the inserts as these have much more lively and spring like colours. The 2nd insert cites over picking and uprooting as the major causes of the decline of these flowers ... no mention of clearing vast tracts of countryside to build new roads, houses, or business parks.

Presentation Pack of British Flowers stamps, c.1979

Presentation pack insert

Presentation pack insert

Presentation pack insert

    

Sunday Stamps 62 - S.S. Great Britain

I've been in India with work all week but fortunately there's just about time for me to submit a short posting for this week's Sunday Stamps. This is a commemorative cover of the arrival of the S.S.Great Britain back at Avonmouth after having been serving in the Falkland Islands for 84 years. This is one of the last covers before we took the plunge and went from pounds, shillings and pence to become decimal.

Commemotaive cover featuring a 1 shilling S.S.Great Britain stamp, c.1970

    

Sunday Stamps 60 - Public Transportation

It's been a few weeks since I've participated in Sunday Stamps. Work has been manic, and the kids' social events seem to occupy most of the weekend. Can't say I'm looking forward to standing on the touchline this afternoon as it's grim weather here. I had quite a few public transportation related stamps to choose from but eventually decided on this one as it's quite unusual. Admittedly the stamp itself does not feature any mode of transportation, but the postmark and first day cover envelope all do, so I hope this slight deviation from the theme is ok :-)

The first day cover is of the final arrival at Southampton of the Queen Mary, 19th October 1967.

First day cover, Last Arrival at Southampton of the Queen Mary

Insert from first day cover

    

Sunday Stamps 56 - Southern Rhodesia

Very glad this week's Sunday Stamps is Anything You Wish as work this week has been absolutely manic and has taken away all of my creative thought. These stamps are a block of 6 green/brown 2d Southern Rhodesia stamps from 1943 commemorating 50 years of the province of Matabeleland. One of Matabeleand's claim to fame is that it was the birthplace of scouting, where Robert Baden-Powell met Frederick Russell Burnham.

Block of 6 Southern Rhodesia green/brown 2d stamps

    

Sunday Stamps 52 - Montserrat

Given that this week's theme for Sunday Stamps was anything you wish I decided to pick the first stamps that were on the top of my philatelic inbox. These stamps are all from Montserrat, a British overseas territory in the West Indies (in the Leeward Island to be more precise) and date back to 1942.

Stamps from Montserrat, c.1942

    

Sunday Stamps 49 - Christmas Aerogrammes

My posting for this week's Sunday Stamps are stamps, but perhaps not in the conventional sense. These are in fact aerogrammes, which are basically pre-printed, pre-stamped, airmail weight letters. They almost certainly came as a gift from my mother who always bought me first day covers, but I don't remember them at all, and they were hidden away in the inside flap of my album. Bit what a find, and very appropriate for Christmas.

Christmas aerogramme, designed by Carol Walkin

Christmas aerogramme, designed by Victoria Ambrus

Christmas aerogramme, designed by Harry Titcombe

So another year is almost at its end. I can't believe how quickly this one has gone. My eldest has just finished his GCSE mock exams, my middle one is now a good 2 inches taller than me, and my youngest has just started senior school. So a big Happy Christmas to everyone reading this, and thanks for all the great comments on my blog posts throughout the year. My New Year's resolution is to find time to comment more on other people's postings.

As usual 100's of vintage postcards on my web site and also don't forget to see what's behind the door of my vintage postcard advent calendar

    

Sunday Stamps 45 - Economic Summit 1984

Given that the theme this week on Sunday Stamps was anything you wish I dipped into my childhood First Day Cover album and was struck by this one. Given the poignancy of the current economic climate, this one seemed apt. It's a British First Day Cover featuring a gutter pair of 31p stamps commemorating the London Economic Summit of 1984. Slightly ironic that such an event was commemorated in the past as a specific event rather than the day-to-day business it has become of late.

London Economic Summit, First Day Cover, c.1984

    

Sunday Stamps 44 - 1948 Olympic Games

It was a difficult choice for me for this week's Sunday Stamps Sports theme. The deicison I faced was between the 1966 World Cup stamps, or the 1948 Olympic Games stamps. Given that it's Olympic year again this year, I have opted for the latter. As with all stamps of this era, the colours are muted and understated, but I actually like this more low-key approach, with the brown 1 shilling stamp being my favourite of the four. Given the current state of the worldwide economies, I thought it was also fitting that these games are also referred to as the Austerity Olympics.

1948 Olympic Games

    

Sunday Stamps 43 - Australia and New Zealand

Well I couldn't decide whether to choose Australia or New Zealand for this week's Sunday Stamps so I ended up selecting a stamp from both. The first stamp if from Australia and depicts Christmas 1957. I am normally a firm advocate of keeping Christmas in December, but this seemed like an opportunity not to miss.

Christmas 1957, Australia

The second stamp is from New Zealand, and is an 8d stamp from New Zealand, c.1986, from the Peace series, and shows a Knight holding a banner depicting the Cross of St George - from the stained glass window of the Wellington College Memorial Hall.

 Peace, New Zealand, c.1946

    

Sunday Stamps 41 - the Philippine Islands

As Sunday Stamps continues its journey around the globe, I was initially stumped to find something relevant. I was sure I had plenty of Japanese stamps to share, but either I was imagining it or I was looking in the wrong place. Fortunately however the Philippine Islands came to my rescue, so here a a few stamps from there.

4 pesos stamp from the Philippine Islands

Two 6s stamps from the Philippines (Pilipinas) showing Jose Rizal