Britain Issues Miniature Sheet for Queen's Diamond Jubilee

 Britain's Daily Mail reports, "The Royal Mail has issued a special sheet of first class stamps to mark the 60th anniversary of the Queen’s accession to the throne. The Diamond Jubilee Miniature Sheet...is the first time that the official portraits of the Queen, which have been used on stamps, coins and banknotes throughout her reign, have been brought together for a set of stamps. The new collection includes a new first class diamond blue stamp, which will replace the standard gold stamp in post offices over this year."

According to the article,"Since it first appeared, the standard image has been reproduced on more than 220 billion stamps and has now been updated with the words Diamond Jubilee highlighted in iridescent ink on the background."

This Diamond Jubilee Miniature Sheet is the second of three stamp issues in 2012 celebrating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.A special eight-stamp issue featuring the Queen throughout the six decades of her reign will be issued on May 31.

To read the entire article, click here.

Indian Professor Collects Gandhi and Palindrome Dates.

"For Venkatesh S Yalvigi, a retired botany professor from Bangalore University, collecting stamps, coins and currency notes is more than just a hobby — it is a way of life," writes reporter Sudha Hegde on India's Deccan Herald website.

According to Hegde, over the last forty years, 83-year-old Professor Yalvigi has spent a lot of time, money and energy on philately and "his collection has almost all the stamps, mints and currency notes on Gandhi from across the world." He also collects other individuals who fought for India’s independence.

"Though he has been into this hobby for the last 40 years, he got a new idea around 12 years ago. He started getting the stamps and special covers cancelled on special dates," says Hegde. "Hence, from 01-01-01 to 11-11-11... he has a collection of stamps and special covers cancelled on these special days."

Hegde is quoted as saying, “In this millennium, we have a series of 12 dates occurring every year from 2001 to 2012. Postal cancellation stamps are accepted as an official mark of the date across the world. So if I get the cancellation on 12-12-12, I will complete the circle and it will be a record in itself. I am waiting for 12-12-12 to complete my philately circle of special dates. I will probably have an exhibition after completing this occasion. I also have to design a special cover for the date."

Shown above, Professor Venkatesh S Yalvigi with part of his collection. 

To read the entire article, click here.

Homemade Postcards Help save Postal Service

Minnesota's TwinCities.com website reports that St. Paul architect and artist Peter Kramer (shown here) has never sent a single email in his life. However this weekend, the "snail-mail enthusiast" will present his "Postcards to Save the Post Office" collection of original artwork.

According to the article the collection consists of more than 120 one-of-a-kind postcards featuring his drawings.

Reporter Amy Carlson Gustafson pens, "On Saturday, his postcard project debuts at the Grand Hand Gallery where folks can purchase a Kramer original for $20. Buyers will fill out an address label and when the show is over in March, he'll write a note on each one, stick a personalized stamp on them and take the cards to the post office for delivery. "

Kramer is quoted in the piece as saying, "I'm just in love with the idea of mail. Everything about it is enjoyable - writing the letter, thinking about the person getting it, putting the stamp on." 


Pete Nowacki, a spokesman with the Postal Service, appreciates Kramer's support and thinks the postcards are a fun idea.

"There is kind of a natural tie-in between mail and art," Nowacki said. "After all, stamps really are little works of art. What Peter is doing - personalizing his art with a message and then popping it into the mail - that's a first for me and I think a really neat twist."

Click here to read the entire article.
 
 

Volunteers Begin Stamping Valentine Cards

Denver, Colorado's ABC Channel 7 News reports volunteers in Loveland have started stamping Valentine cards.

More than 160,000 cards are sent to Loveland each year to be stamped and remailed. Most are from the United States but many are from other countries.

According to Wikipedia, "Loveland’s Valentine Re-mailing Program began in January 1947 by Ted Thompson and Elmer Ivers, the Loveland postmaster after Ivers received about 30 valentines from individuals requesting to have the cards postmarked from Loveland for, “a romantic extra touch.” The two thought re-mailing valentines would be an opportunity to advertise Loveland, and the Loveland Chamber of Commerce agreed to promote the service. Thompson designed a cachet with the message, “A Valentine Greeting from Sweetheart Town, Loveland, Colorado,” and the image was a heart pierced by an arrow over the Rocky Mountains. The cachet was used twice, then Thompson started the tradition of changing it each year at the request of collectors. Since then, a different verse and design have been used every year."

The 2012 special message, called a cachet, says "Valentine greetings from a city with heart, Loveland, Colorado, home of fabulous art!"

To read the entire article, click here.

United Nations Stamp Artist Wendy Wray

Virginia's Newsleader.com website reports, "If you are a devoted philatelist or just someone who enjoys owning a collectors item, the United Nations endangered species stamp, designed by local artist Wendy Wray, might be high on your list of guilty pleasures."

According to the article, "Last year, Wray's representative in New York got an exciting offer from the United Nations. The United Nations Postal Administration was looking for an artist to design a set of stamps depicting 12 endangered bird species. Wray was thrilled and honored to get the job."

Wray is quoted as saying, ""The way it was done was Brian Arthur photographed my drawings and then I sent the file to the U.N. for the limited release series. These are not stamps you purchase at your local post office. The only place you can get them is online or at the United Nations office in New York. If you want to actually post a letter with the stamp, it would have to be mailed from the U.N. The stamps are issued in dollars, euros and francs."

Shown above, some of the stamps featuring Wray's artwork.

To order these and other United Nations stamps, click here.

To read the entire article, click here.

Buying Stamps in Tough Economic Times

John Finch writes on the About.com website about buying stamps in tough economic times and offers some money saving tricks for acquiring stamps.

Finch suggests the following...

• Buy new issues from countries or agencies,
• Have a few favorite dealers,
• Trade with fellow collectors,
• Buy lesser quality,
• Buy for the future,
• Buy in bulk,
• Possess the knowledge,
• Take care of your stamps and they'll take care of you.

Click here to read the entire article.

A Match Made in Postal Heaven

Nothing says love like a heart-themed postmark according to The Winnipeg Free Press.

Canada Post says the Love (Saskatchewan) and St-Valentin (Quebec) post offices, because of their aptly named towns, will cancel twice as much mail as usual over the coming weeks, with a special cancel designed for the romantic at heart.

According to the paper,"Already, mail is coming in from across Canada and from countries such as China, Japan, Hungary, United States, Switzerland and France."

Canada Post is calling the cancellations "a match made in postal heaven."

For more information and where to send your cards and letters, click here.

Owney The Railway Mail Dog on Facebook

Owney The Railway Mail Dog recently posted this picture of one of his canine cousins in a backpack on his Facebook page.

Owney says, "I visited a lot of post offices by Railway Mail Service in my day, stopping by to say hi to the clerks (and eat their lunches). I'd like to clarify that I was NOT in a doggy backpack at the time, like this little guy in line at the post office. I'm pretty lucky these weren't invented back in the1890s. I wonder if this dog would like to collect tags with me and travel the country, sans backpack?"

To see what else Owney has been up to, click here. 

How To Become a Virtual Philatelist

Bruce Kilgour aka The Virtual Stamp Man writes, "Virtual stamp collecting has become a favourite pastime on social media platforms such as FaceBook, Flickr and Twitter/Twitpic. This is a short introduction with all you need to know to get started as well as directions to the main virtual stamp websites. Start your virtual stamp album online today. Its the most fun you can have with your computer on! "

Click here to check out his Facebook page.

Click here to check out The Virtual Stamp Club

Philpex 2012

Reporter Jeannette I. Andrade of the Philippine Daily Inquirer pens, "The Philippine Philatelic Exhibition (Philpex) 2012 is out to prove that stamp collecting still has a place in the hearts of the young who have become so obsessed with instant communication that writing letters in longhand has become almost like a dying art."

Philpex 2012 is a festival of international exhibits and entries from member clubs of the Philippine Philatelic Federation (PPF) with the theme “Knowledge and fun through stamp collecting."

Lawrence Chan is quoted in the piece as saying philatelic judges used international standards and rules governing philatelic competitions set by the Fédération Internationale de Philatélie, a network of philatelists worldwide.

"Knowledge, study and research on the theme of the collection," he pointed out, "accounted for 35 percent of the rating. The condition and rarity of the postage stamps are 20 percent each, while the condition and importance make up 10 percent of the total score. Presentation accounts for only 5 percent of the total rating."

Shown above, Robert Tan, president of the Philippine Philatelic Federation

Click here to read the entire article.

Holocaust History Lesson Includes Stamps

Michele Morgan Bolton, a correspondent for the Boston Globe, writes on the paper's website about a project at Foxborough Regional Charter School that includes collecting stamps to represent victims of the Holocaust and creating mosaics.

She writes, "The Holocaust Stamp Project is now in its third year at the school, where students are trying to collect 11 million stamps, one to represent each victim of the one of the darkest chapters in world history."

According to Charlotte Sheer, who teaches the school’s fifth-grade community service class, the number represents 6 million Jews, including 1.5 million children, and 5 million others in 21 European countries who were annihilated by Hitler’s ruthless regime in Nazi Germany.

The Foxborough students will use some of the stamps they collect to create 18 mosaics. The first, called “With Liberty and Peace for All,’’ already hangs in a school hallway. The mosaics will symbolize the Holocaust’s Jewish victims, 18 being the numerical translation of chai, the Hebrew word for life.

Sheer is quoted in the piece as saying, "Each stamp collected symbolizes one life “thrown away’’ as having no value, much like an envelope bearing a canceled postage stamp is tossed in the trash."

Shown above, one of the stamp mosaics created by the students at the Foxborough Regional Charter School.

To read the entire article, click here.

Ode to Snail Mail

The Forbes website reports, "In the same week first-class postage rose a penny to 45 cents, the debt-ridden United States Postal Service re-circulated its ode to snail mail, the 'Hacker' commercial. If you haven’t seen it, the spot opens with women putting notices they presumably received via mail on their refrigerators and cork board. 'A refrigerator has never been hacked,' the narrator says. 'An online virus has never attacked a cork board.'"

Contributor Mickey Meece goes on to say that the ad, targeting businesses, implores them to: “Give your customers the added feeling of security a printed statement or receipt provides – with mail. It’s good for business, and even better for your customers. For safe and secure ways to stay connected, visit USPS.com/mail.”

Mark Finkelstein of the Newsbusters.org blog wrote: “The Post Office was trying to make the argument that snail mail is safer and more appealing to people in general and customers in particular. You might call it trying to sweep back the Internet age with a soggy envelope.

To read the entire article, click here.

For more on this story, click here.

Rural Carriers

Historian Nancy Pope writes on the National Postal Museum's Pushing The Envelope blog about rural carriers. This is the first in a series of blogs spotlighting items and stories from America’s postal workers.

Nancy pens, "Rural Free Delivery (RFD) service began in 1896 and continues today. Rural carriers function a little differently from city letter carriers. For one thing, rural carriers are required to use their own vehicles to make their daily rounds. For another, rural carriers have, from the beginning, provided their patrons with more than just the day’s mail. They carry stamps, stamped envelopes, money orders, and other items that are more commonly found in a post office. This has led rural carriers’ vehicles to be nicknamed 'post offices on wheels.'” 

She goes on to say, "Carriers often purchased metal cash boxes to keep money and other valuables safe and secure during their daily rounds. Many RFD cash boxes had storage compartments and shelves. All could be secured with a padlock, also to be purchased by the carrier."

Shown above, a rural carrier cash box.

To read the entire article, click here.  

Bonsai Stamps Carefully Researched by Hawaiian Artist

USPS's Beyond The Perf points out, "To create an arboreal masterpiece requires great patience, skill, and attention to detail. So when art director Ethel Kessler was tasked with featuring the art form of bonsai on a stamp, she knew that the assignment would require the same commendable traits."

Turns out she knew just the person for the project - John D. Dawson, with whom she worked on the 12-year Nature of America series.

According to the article, "Dawson lives in Hawaiʻi, a central location for the horticultural hobby of bonsai. But despite his interest in art and nature, Dawson was unfamiliar with the elaborate processes of the art form."

Dawson is quoted as saying, “It was a big learning curve. The first thing I did was buy a good number of books, and read about the history and principles of bonsai. I also attended a bonsai show in Hilo and talked to the members of the society here.”

"Consultants carefully examined the artwork, ensuring that each style of bonsai was realistically represented — and also checking for any cultural nuances. One needed revision was changing the number of azalea trunks from four to three, as four is considered unlucky in Asian cultures,"according to the article.

Click here for additional pictures and information.

In a separate article that appears on the Big Island News Center website, reporter Sherry Bracken says,  "Dawson’s first stamps for the postal service were in the 1980s, the American Cats stamp series. Since then he has created the Idaho statehood stamp, a flowering trees series, and the Nature of America series.  The final set in that series featured a Hawaiian rain forest, and was introduced at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park last December."

Click here to read Bracken's article and listen a radio interview she did with him.

Jazz Great Miles Davis to Get Stamp in 2012

The Alton, Illinois Telegraph reports, "The great jazz musician Miles Davis has received the official stamp of approval from the U.S. Post Office."

According to Linn's Stamp News, Davis will get a stamp later this year.

Lee Barham, chairman of the steering committee for the Miles Davis Jazz Celebration is quoted in the piece by reporter Kathie Bassett as saying,"This is a fitting honor, Miles Davis was one of the greatest jazz musicians and trumpet players in the world. Before Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley, there was Miles Davis."

Miles Davis was born in Alton in 1926. He lived in the city for a year before his family moved to East St. Louis. According to Barham, Davis always mentioned Alton as his hometown in interviews.

Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006, Davis died in 1991 in Santa Monica, Calif., at the age of 65.

Shown above, 2001 souvenir sheet from Guine-Bassau honoring Davis.

To read the entire article, click here.