Odd stamps : 10 b Stamps on/in wood or cork

Anyone who ever opened a bottle of wine, will have seen the cork stopper, sealing the bottle.
Cork is a natural material, that comes from the Cork Oak (Quercus Suber). There are about 2,200,000 hectares of cork forest worldwide; 32.4% in Portugal, and 22.2% in Spain. Annual production is about 300,000 tons; 52.5% from Portugal, 29.5% from Spain, 5.5% Italy.
Cork can be harvest every 9 - 10 year. So it takes up to 10 years before the Cork Oak has rebuild its trunk.The first harvest can start at the age of 25 years. A cork oak can live for 200 years, so cork can be harvest 17 to 18 times from the same three.
Other then cork stoppers, cork is used for tiles used in flooring, an some conductor's batons have a cork handle.

However, and that's why it's in my blog, in November 2007, Portugal was the first country in the world that issued a stamp on cork!

Two years later, Ecuador issued a similar stamp on cork.
This to celebrate 200 year of independence. Also a tasteful designed stamp, showing a fingerprint, a feather and 200.

Both stamps I have in mint condition. They might be very hard to find in postally used condition, because the texture of the stamps is very fragile, and the stamps might be damaged when taken off of the envelopes.

Theme : 1st issues : 05 Ecuador

The first stamps of Ecuador were issued in 1865.
Yet the first stamps aren't too difficult to find and not too expensive either.

The country, litteraly on the equator, issued 4 stamps between 1865 and 1872, showing the coat of arms of this South American republic.

Michel-catalogues point out the 1/2 real as the first stamp.
Yvert states, as Michel did, the blue 1/2 real as the first stamp (1865).
It's quite possible that Yvert took over the information mentionned in Michel.
Scott  however starts with Yvert's number 3, the yellowish 1 real , but mention a later date of issue (1872), than its own n° 2, 4 and 6 (1866 and 1867).

So the 1/2 real wins the "who's first" competition...

Ecuador n° 1 - used

The quality of my first Ecuadorian, is not too good (also the paper is quite thin), but then the catalogue value of a good copy is hardly € 20 / $ 25.
Among all 1st issues, (and certainly among the ones of the 19th century) certainly not an expensive stamp.

Odd stamps : 08 Stamps with special cuts - 03 b

Not only asian countries are charmed by the diamond shape of stamps. In Latin and South America, huge amounts of diamond shaped stamps were and are issued too.

Again, I'm not pretending to show all issued items, but as a teaser, in this post I'm showing some diamond shaped stamps from this part of the world

Let's start in the North of Central America : Cuba

Moving a bit southwards on the main continent : Nicaragua

then Costa Rica and Panama

Arriving in South-America, we first encounter Venezuela, then Colombia and Ecuador

Finally we end with the biggest country in South America : Brazil
for other diamond shaped stamps of Brazil, see the topic : Esperanto

Odd stamps : 08 Stamps with special cuts - 02 a

While searching for the round stamps, I found even more stamps on the next topic: Triangular stamps.
There are hardly countries that haven't issued triangular stamps.
Is it for the beauty of the shape? Triangular stamps offer less space to place a picture, then the regular rectangle stamps. But a triangular stamp is surely something that will catch the attention of someone.
 Besides, the shape is very thankful for printing.
When two triangular stamps are put together with the longest side towards eachother, a rectangle or square shape appears, which makes them easier to perforate.
The so called 'tête-bêche' will appear in a next article about this item.

Now to the 'pure' triangular stamps.
As this item is just about 'shapes' I'm only showing some randomly chosen stamps from my collection.
Sets are not complete, or even mixed.

For this first 'round', I take you to Central and South America.
Triangular stamps are not a gimmic from the last few years, as you will see on this Ecuadorian stamps from 1907!

Also Costa Rica has issued triangular stamps long time ago (1937) and mor recently (1963)

Up to Paraguay, where I found some triangular stamps on 'scientists'

Also Nicaragua issued a nice triangular stamp (long before the endless list of CTO stamps were put on the market).

Finally, to make the circle round (sorry for the slip of the tongue),  back to Ecuador, where we started.
This beautiful stamp, both MNH and cancelled.

There is much, much more to show. So : to be continued...