Sweden : 08 Landstormfrimärken (Territorial Defence Stamps) III

From 1916 to 1918, three sets were issued with surcharges.
These sets are called the 'Landstormfrimärker'  or Territorial Defence Stamps.
We're talking about the middle of the First World War.
The surcharge on the stamps were in aid of the Clothing Fund for Territorial Defence Forces.

The first set consist out of 10 stamps, a simple overprint of +5 or +10 öre.
I don't have those stamps myself, but to make this topic more 'complete' I have added a pic of a stamp from this series:

The second series are the most expensive ones.
The surcharge here is with two numerals in stead of one.
Most stamps in this set have no centred overprints. For well-centered copies, prices should be trippled!
Unfortunatly I don't have this set myself, so I added a 'found' picture too.

In this set, also the 5 Kronor 'posthuset' stamp was surcharged, so this set has 11 stamps.

The last set of Landstorm-stamps, is in fact a re-entry of the first set, but with an additional surcharge.
The first stamp from set one is a 5 öre on 2 öre stamp. The first stamp from the third set has this additional surcharge of 7 + 3 öre.
The stamp of originally 2 öre now became : 7+3 öre on 5 on 2 öre.
The first 5 stamps all got surcharged with 7+3 öre, the next 5 stamps got a 12+8 öre overprint.
There exist stamps where the overprint of the last 5 was put on the first 5 and the other way around.
As this set is the least expensive of the three, I managed to get it complete.

 The set looks marvellous, but I think, some of the cancells are just CTO.
This set can be found in SCOTT : B 022 - B 031

Sweden : 07 Early issues 1917

In 1917 and 1918, the series of Gustav V stamps were overprinted.

Two additional values were overprinted with rather unusual face values:
1,98 on 5 and 2,12 on 5.
Those two values were used for parcel post, that explains the odd values.
Two stamps I still miss in my collection.

Theme : Volkswagen Beetle - 03

Altough the Volkswagen Beetle was a European car, it became tremendously popluar in South America.
In fact, the Mexico and Brazil still have the highest number of Volkswagen Beetles still in use today.

About Mexico, I will return to this topic later.
For this item, I go to Brazil. The Volkswagen Beetle is known as 'Fusca' in the Portuguese speaking part of South-America.
In 2001, a sheet with 6 stamps was issued. All six stamps show 'old cars' of course, the Beetle Fusca is present.
Other cars on this issue are for example a Renault Gordini, a Simca and a DKW.

detail :

In the border of the sheet, all cars return, just in outline.

Another Latin-American country is the much smaller Guyana.
They issued a similar sheetlet with 'old cars'. Here however the shown cars are much older then the ones on the sheet of Brazil.
In fact, the Volkswagen Beetle is the youngest car that is depicted.
Nevertheless, it's a nice tribute to the Volkswagen, as it figures between the high-class cars of the early 20th century, Mercedes-Benz or even the Rolls-Royce Phantom I.

Sweden : 06 Early issues 1911

Gustav V (Oscar Gustav Adolf 16 June 1858 – 29 October 1950) was King of Sweden from 1907. He was the eldest son of King Oscar II of Sweden and Sophia of Nassau, a half-sister of Adolphe I, Grand Duke of Luxembourg. Reigning, by law as a near-autocrat under the 1809 Instrument of Government until his death at age 92, he holds the record of being the oldest monarch of Sweden and the second-longest reigning (after Magnus IV).

Gustav V

 

In 1910, a brand new set of stamps was emitted. All depicting the new King Gustav V;
actually the set was issued twice.
From 1910 - 1914 5 stamps were emitted with a crown as watermark,
from 1911 on, to 1919 the same set, with additional values was sold, this time without watermark, or with parts of the words "Kungl Postverket" as watermark (rare).

set 1 : (the 1 Krona in perforation 13,5 and 13)

set 2 :

In this last set, two stamps are missing; a 55 öre (light blue) and a 80 öre (black).
Those 2 stamps were only issued 1000 times each.

If any of you happens to have a spare one of each...

Theme : Esperanto 03

Having a popular topic to collect, is always easy to find new or even new 'old' things to your collection.
With a rather 'rare' topic to collect as theme, it's hard to obtain new material to add.
So is it with my topic on Esperanto. The constructed language by Dr. Zamenhof.

Before the second world war, Esperanto grew constantly. One of the countries that issued many stamps on this topic, was Brazil.

Let's go back to the late 30's of the 20th century:
In November 1936, the 9th Brazilian Congress on Esperanto took place in Rio de Janeiro (naua brazilia kongreso), a beautiful diamond shape stamp with the 'verda stelo' (green star) in the centre, and all participating countries represented by their flag. Perhaps this is the most beautiful stamp on my topic so far.

One year later, Brazil issued another "Esperanto pos^tmarko" (Esperanto stamp); this on the occasion of the 50 th anniversary of the language. (Ora jubileo de Esperanto = Golden jubilee of Esperanto)

Again, a beautiful design, a globe, with a belt 'ora jubleo de Esperanto' on the equator.

In Januari 1945, Brazil was hosting the 10th (deka) Congress on Esperanto. It was honoured again with a stamp. Now a lady (godess) is next to a globe, from where a green star seems to shine on Brazil.

In 1959, Brazil commemorated the 100th anniversary date of Dr. L. L. Zamenhof. Again a stamp is issued. Zamenhof is depicted, together ith the text : Author of Esperanto. This time, the text is in Portuguese.

For sure one thing you will have noticed. All stamps are green.
This has a reason of course.
"Esperanto" itself is an Esperanto-word. It means, "the one who is hoping"
Zamenhofs pseudonym was Doktoro Esperanto (the hoping doctor), as he was hoping for a better world, through better understanding, through a unifying neutral language.
And "green" is the colour of hope.

Dear Dr. Zamenhof, I hope, one day your dream might come true.

Odd stamps : 08 Stamps with special cuts - 02 b

Some more fine examples of triangular stamps.
So far, I'm limiting my posts to Central and South American triangular stamps.
As told before, it's only an excerpt of what's available out there.
Just to tempt you, and fall in love with triangular stamps too.

Brazil, has emitted lots of stamps, but triangular stamps are not common in Brazilian philately.
So far I found this semi-postal stamp of 1947.

Colombia emitted this air-mail stamp in 1968, to commemorate the University of the Andes.

El Salvador is the next country to be added to this topic, I could not resist posting one more fine example of a triangular stamp.

The Salvadorian stamp is quite similar to a Guatemala stamp, issued in 1926.
After all they are neighbouring countries, maybe they got inspired by the charms of the previous issues.

Next stop will be else where, but lots of triangular stamps more to show!