Theme : Volkswagen Beetle - 22

Cars are a commonly collected topic in theme collections.
Searching for specific cars, reduces the stack of stamps worldwide issued a lot.
As for my thematic collection, I limit myself to my love for Volkswagen Beetles.

In this article, I show you a sheet of Finland, with 10 stamps, all depicting historic police cars.
The sheetlet has 10 different 1st class stamp. Each depicting a historic police car.
Each stamp bears the number "1" - the basic rate of a simple 1st class stamp
(at the day of issue : € 1,65 each).

car types on the reverse side

10 personalised stamps with police cars

The reverse side of the sheetlet, shows the names of the type of the cars

1 Volvo PV 444.	2 Renault Goelette.
3 Moskvitsh Elite.	4 Peugeot 403.
5 Volvo Amazon Sport.	6 Porsche 356B.
7 Plymouth Valiant.	8 Plymouth Fury.
9 Volkswagen Kupla.	10 Saab 99 GL.

Porsche 365B

Volkswagen Beetle

The stamps were issued in 2008 and are personalised stamps.
Personalised stamps are printed on behalf of a private company, institution, organisation, and for Finland, (but also for the Netherlands, Belgium, ....) have a similar lay out.
This to make it easy recognisable as a 'personalised' stamp.
Since they are printed by the officially recognised postal services, the stamps can be used for regular use.

lay out of a Finnish personalised stamp

The sheet of 10 stamps are quite simple in design, but the sober design give the stamps a certain style.

More to follow...

Odd stamps : 09e hologram stamps

Stamps with holograms aren't issued that often, but Finland issued twice such a set within a couple of years.
The first set I present, was issued in 1992 and represents 3 stamps on technology ande research, european cooperation and Finnish patents.

The background of the stamp's design is rather dull, wires, lines and a machine.
The hologram on the stamp (identical on the three stamps) shows a group of trees, a river and some buildings on the background. Also the letters K.K. apear in the hologram.

Hologram

A second set of hologram stamps were also issued in Finland, but in 1995.
A booklet of 8 stamps to promote letter writing.

cover of the booklet

The stamps show scenes of letter writing, or postal delivery, through funny animals.
Each of the 8 stamps has a different hologram, showing an animal in a heart shaped background.

booklet of 8 stamps with holograms

stamp 1 - 4

stamp 5 - 8

one of the 8 holograms

Again a nice addition to my collection, and a reason more to start (or continuing) collecting.

Currency Today : Euro Common Design 01 c

Let me continue with the TOR coins.

13 countries participated in the first common design.
All together emitting 17 coins, as Germany has 5 different coins.

The countries are :
Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxemburg, Germany (5) : see previous post

and Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain.

Finland (Suomi)

Finlands coins are more rare then most other coins in this set. As Finland has no countries next to them that are using Euro coins as well, the finnish coins don't get spread that easily.

TOR Finland 2007

1. the finnish mint mark can be found in the outer circle of the coin.
  is the mint mark of the finnish mint


France

Together with german coins, french coins get spread widly all over Europe.
The french coin has two mint marks too?

TOR France 2007

1.  The cornucopia can also be seen on some coins of Luxemburg, but it's a french mint mark.

2. The hunting horn and waves is the master mint mark of H. Larivière.



Greece

Not all greek coins are made in Greece.
Some of them are minted in Spain, Finland or France.
In that case they bare the letter E (Spain), S(uomi - Finland) or F (France) in one of the stars.

TOR Greece 2007

1. the accantus leaf is the symbol of the Athens Mint

Italy

The last coin for now is the italian TOR coin.
Italy doesn't put 'treaty' of Rome, but 'treaties' of Rome, as there was more then one agreement that was signed on this event on March 25, 1957.

TOR Italy 2007

1. treaties of Rome
2. "R" mint mark of Rome

Odd stamps : 09b hologram stamps

There aren't many countries that have issued holographic stamps or stamps with holograms.
But with a little bit of research, you can still find lots of great stamps for your collection.

In this second post, some more holograms:

First item is a sheet from Finland.
The sheet has 3 stamps and a hologram.
Infact the hologram itself isn't a stamp, but if the sheet was used completely on a letter, it can be found as an postally used philatelic item.

What's more special albout this sheet, is that it is cut like a "tangram" a game with 7 geometric shapes, put together as a square. Each of the single shapes can be formed by putting the other shapes in a certain order.
Also other forms can be made by putting each piece in another place.
A nice game and major brain-breaker.

Finland sheet with hologram

Finland - detail of the hologram

Another European country that has used holograms on stamps, is Germany.
In this set, dedicated to scientific discoveries, several stamps were decorated with holograms.

Two German semi-postal stamps on space science

Jupiter encountered by a comet

map of the sky, seen under gammalight

Science doesn't have to be boring as you see...

Odd stamps : 03b 3D stamps (moving)

While I'm waiting for a letter from Finland, to redirect to Asia, I received from a Malaysian friend... stamps from Finland...
How stampcollecting makes the world smaller...

But thanks to this letterswaps, I can present you today something special.
It's been a long time since I posted some 3D items, but in this post I can spoil you all with amazing 3D stamps.
Even more... this time the whole sheet is 3D and moving.

The first item is not from Finland, but from North Korea.
It might not be the most popular country for stamp collectors, but the following sheet is really worth looking at, and an amazing asset for collectors of odd stamps, theme collectors (animals)

North Korea full 3D sheet

3D stamp from sheet (60x24mm)

And as second 3D sheet, the post I just got from my Malaysian friend.
A large 3D sheet on wintersports in Finland.

It's not easy to scan 3D stamps or sheets and show the effect of the 3D.

full 3D sheet Finland (225x114 mm)

The stamp in the top right corner is the most interesting.
A snowboarder is jumping from above the stamp, flies diagonally trough the stamp,
goes to the middle of the sheet and lands in the snow, from there he dissapears downwards.

detail 3D sheet Finland

I added a line to show the movement of the snowboarder.
You can see the snowboarder clearly in the stamp, and slightly further on the sheet.

The other stamps are moving skiers.

3D Finland (detail)

Truly an amazing sheet, issued January 24, 2008 by the Finnish Post.

Theme : Volkswagen Beetle - 14

For non-europan followers of this blog, Åland [Oland] might not be known.
Even many Europeans are not familiar with the Åland Islands.

In fact it's a part of Finland, but the inhabitants of Åland Åll speak swedish.

The flag of the islands is more similar to the swedish then to the finnish flag.

BecÅse of it's particular pÅsition, right in the middle between the two countries, it has Ålways been an important economic and strategic group of islands in the Baltic Sea.

Within Finland, it has autonomy, such as an own parliament, and Åland issues its own stamps.

flag of Åland

Åland on the map

This small group of islands however have pleased me with a very nice booklet of 'old vehicles', including ( Åf cÅrse) with a VÅlkswagen Beetle.

4 old cars are depicted. The VÅlkswagen Beetle is a 1964 version.

booklet - outside

booklet - inside

the single Åland stamp - first class

Åland licence plate on the car

FÅr this one time, you will have to excuse me the jÅke with the "Å"