Sunday Stamps # 181

I am going to be away on a short family vacation this Saturday and Sunday, so I am preparing this week's Sunday Stamps on Friday, setting it up to open on Saturday.

Our theme this week is Open - Anything you wish.  Maybe this could include interesting stamps that are hard to fit into any theme.  That is not the case for me because I think we have had the theme of castles before.

There are always castles to be seen and to appear on stamps in Europe and other countries.  In the USA?  Not many unless you count the large castle-like homes built by very rich families in the late 1800's and early 1900's, such as George Vanderbilt's Biltmore.  And these are not likely to appear on stamps. Germany, it appears, has a never-ending supply of schlosses (and I don't mean that unkindly!)

Here is another recent arrival in my mailbox:

This stamp is from China.  Please join me in an easy theme this week, if you are not on vacation!

Theme next week: faraway (romantic? exotic?) places.

Theme week after that: undersea life.

Viridian

Sunday Stamps # 180

Well what a change in the world since last Saturday.  Conflict in the Middle East has gotten much worse, and Malaysian Airlines flight 17 has gone down in a tragic way.  I don't know people involved in either situation but I think about the many who are affected by these events.

It is Saturday night so I turn from these matters to get my Sunday Stamps post up for all of you.  Our theme is Artists and illustrators.  The following stamp will be a favorite of the fans of the Laughing Cow:

This French stamp honors Benjamin Rabier (as you can read above).  According to Wikipedia (not always reliable, but we will go with it here):

Rabier was a French illustrator,comic book artist and animator. He became famous for creating La vache qui rit and is one of the precursors of animal comics. His work has inspired many other artists, notably Hergé and Edmond-François Calvo.

Rabier started to work as an illustrator for various newspapers after meeting Caran d'Ache. His first album for children was the story of Tintin Lutin, published in 1887, which told of a young lutin or "imp"; here his main characters are human and not animals, as they came to be in later albums. His most famous creations are Gideon the duck and the characters he drew for Le roman de Renart.

Please join me with any artist or illustrator.  

Theme next week: Anything you wish.

Theme week after that: faraway (romantic? exotic?) places.

Viridian

Sunday Stamps # 179

It is a beautiful Saturday evening in the American Midwest, and already Sunday in some parts of the world.  Therefore, it must be time for Sunday Stamps.

Our theme this week is beautiful landscapes, which are not hard to find on stamps, if you look around a bit.
My first stamp is this one:

A flat, evergreen-covered landscape could be very boring but it looks quite attractive in this Finland stamp of a National Park.  And, then just last week, I received these stamps from  Spain, via a Postcrosser:

Stamps again showing National Parks, and some of the flora (crocus?) and fauna (wolf) of these areas.  There is great detail in these Spanish stamps!

Please join me this week if you can, with some landscape stamps, as always, interpreted broadly.

Theme next week; Artists and illustrators.

Theme week after that: open, anything you wish.

Viridian

Sunday Stamps # 178

Hello hello and welcome to Sunday Stamps!

It's the evening of a beautiful day.  The World Cup games are being played.  And Americans are actually changing their gaze from baseball to soccer! (As we call it here).  And our theme is Sport.  It is a theme we have had before but I hope you have some stamps to share.  First some stamps from China:

These are stamps for the London Olympics.  I can tell because of the puzzle piece (or tectonic plates) logo, and the bizarre one eyed creature on the other stamp.

And there is this stamp from Germany:

I hope you are able to join me this week with a "sport" stamp.  Please add you link below.

Theme next week: beautiful landscapes.

Theme week after that: artists and illustrators.

Recommendations for future themes welcome!

Viridian