Sunday Stamps 38 - British Architecture (Cathedrals) c.1969

Well, coming from Europe and having a reasonable number of British stamps, I was spoilt for choice for my submission for this week's Sunday Stamps. I did originally think of sharing some Victorian stamps, but although interesting the colours are quite muted, so I decided to jump forwards 100 years and share a First Day Cover from Elizabeth II's reign in 1969. I'm not quite sure why the theme, whilst claiming to be 'architecture' is exclusively Cathedrals. I would have thought that there were plenty of other great architectural feats like palaces and bridges which could have been equally good candidates.

First Day Cover, British Architecture, c.1969

The architectural feats pictured on the stamps are clockwise from top left:

Durham Cathedral

York Minster

St. Paul's Cathedral

Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral

Canterbury Cathedral

St. Giles Edinburgh

and the cover itself shows Coventry Cathedral.

    

Postcard Friendship Friday - Birthday Horoscope (Sagittarius)

Despite going to various postcard events, and rummaging through antique and charity shops, I have never come across a vintage Halloween postcard here in the UK. However, not wanting to be left out of this week's Postcard Friendship Friday I have decided to share a vintage birthday postcard instead. This is in Valentine's Birthday Horoscope series, and shows the star sign Sagittarius.

Vintage birthday greetings postcard, c.1943

As usual 100's more vintage postcards on my web site

Sepia Saturday 94 - vintage postcards of Essex

Despite searching through both my vintage postcards and my vintage magazines, I was at a loss to find anything relating to any of the obvious prompts in this week's Sepia Saturday. I have nothing on Australia, Queensland, polo, horses or toys. But then I noticed Jean Harlow. I don't actually have anything relating to Jean Harlow either, but there's a place called Harlow in Essex, and I do have lots of vintage postcards of Essex. So, in convoluted and roundabout way I am theming this week, albeit a bit tenuously.

Essex is one of those places where I can't remember ever going. Ok, so I've probably been to the parts of it which border on to East London, such as Epping Forest, but I'm pretty sure I've never made it as far as the coast. When I used to travel abroad a lot with work, I would always enjoy gazing out of the aircraft window as we descended towards London along the outer reaches of the Thames Estuary, with Essex to the north and Kent to the south, mentally adding both coasts to my list of places to visit.

Clacton-on-Sea, pier approach and bridge, c.1916

Southend-on-Sea, beach and pleasure yachts, c.1926

Westcliff-on-Sea, on the cliffs

As usual 100's more vintage postcards on my web site, including a recently added Essex page. I still have a backlog of approx 200 to process but hopefully they'll get added over the next few weeks, although given the fantastic weather we're enjoying in the UK this week, I can't see me spending much time in front of the scanner or computer this weekend.

    

Sepia Saturday 93 - vintage carte de visite (with sideburns)

From Alan's post in this week's Sepia Saturday I've picked out the theme of sideburns. Perhaps this was not the most obvious of themes but it's one that struck me the most. Also, as I've not posted carte de visite for a while I thought I'd shelve the vintage postcards for this week and share a CDV instead. There's no clue as to who this person is, but he does bear a striking resemblance to Colin Firth ... maybe a long lost relative. The annotation on the back of the card simply reads, For Nelly, 1866.

Carte de visite, c.1866, by photographer Davy, 77 Union Street, Stonehouse Devon

Back of the Carte de Visite

    

Sunday Stamps 36 - South America

This week's Sunday Stamps was a bit of a challenge for me. As I've no doubt mentioned before, my stamp collection was handed down from my father and mainly consisted of stamps that were sent on letters and postcards from relatives who were serving in various British Commonwealth countries (mainly Africa). I had to search low and high for any South American stamps at all, but I eventually found these 2 in what was probably a page from my very first stamp album. Unfortunately however I know next to nothing about these stamps. I did tyr and research them on the internet but became not much useful information turned up ... suspect I was being too impatient. So I have no idea of the dates of these stamps.

The first stamp is a 3 Pesos stamp of Tierra del Fuego, and the second is a 50 centavos stamp of Pozo de Petroleo en el Mar (which roughly translates to Oil Well in the Sea). This one has been overstamped with Servicio Oficial.

    

Vintage postcard of Penzance, c.1907

I picked up this vintage postcard a couple of weeks ago in a batch of 200 or so. To be honest I kept moving it lower down in the pile as it's quite tatty, but having taken the time to look at it in more detail this evening, I think it's really quite beautiful. The colours of the sky are incredible and feel very autumnal, which is just about right as the leaves start to turn here in the UK. The postcard is of Penzance, Cornwall, c.1907 and was published by S.Hildesheimer in the Cornish Views series, number 5377. The artist is Robert Gallon.

Vintage postcard of Penzance, Cornwall, c.1907

As usual, 100's more vintage postcards on my web site

Sepia Saturday 92 - the S.S.Worthing

Inspired by Alan's rail-sea-combo photograph for this week's Sepia Saturday I've found something related to both train travel and sea crossings. The vintage postcard below is of the British Railways ship, the S.S.Worthing. It operated on the Newhaven-Dieppe crossing. Before becoming the property of British Railways it was operated by Southern Railways. Even earlier than that it was used as a troop carrier during the war. In 1955 the ship was sold to Greece and renamed as the Phryni (which apparently refers to an ancient people of eastern Central Asia).

I think the postcard actually makes it look almost like a model ship on a boating lake in a park somewhere, but I guess we should assume this is the Channel.

Vintage postcard of the S.S.Worthing

As usual, 100's more vintage postcards on my web site