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.

Banknotes : North Korea - 02

In 1978 someone in North-Korea had the luminous idea of making banknotes for North-Koreans, for tourists from other socialist republics and for non-socialist visitors.
Maybe it was a way to prevent 'real' money leaving the country, or the only way to buy North-Korean money abroad. I don't think the people of Pyong-Jang really cared if the notes were spent by 'believers' or 'non-believers', but by looking at the banknotes, a lot of privacy of the bearer was given.

In this 1978 set, we see red serial numbers, North-Korean inhabitants used notes with red and black serial numbers, other socialist tourists had banknotes with only black serian numbers. As this shown set has only red serian numbers, so for 'kapitalist' tourists only.

Front North-Korea n°18, 19 and 20

However, at the back, some details are important too...
The notes for 'locals' with red and black serial numbers were replaced by notes with red serial numbers only, but can be distinguised by the 'non-socialist' notes by a number in a red guilloche on the back.
The tourist notes have a seal on the back, but no number.
So let's have a look at the same 3 notes that at first appeared to be 'non-socialist, tourist notes' :

Back North-Korea n°18c, n°19d and n°20c

red seal on n°18c

red seal on n°20c

red guilloche on n°19d

So this means, that the 1 and 10 won note were issued for western tourists, but the 5 won note was issued for local (North-Koreans), but is a replacement note.

heroic family North-Korea n°18

labour and growing food North-Korea n°19

winged equestrian statue "Chonlllima"

In this set, also a 50 won and a 100 won note were issued.
On the 50 won, the same serial numbers/seals and guilloches as in the notes above.
The 100 won note only came in the first emission (red and black serial number - local use)

Banknotes : North Korea - 01

For those who haven't been to North-Korea yet...
(Or those who went there, but haven't returned yet...) a small contribution now their illustrious leader, Kim Jong-Il, has deceased lately.

North Korea was split from it's sister republic South-Korea in 1945, when the Potsdam Conference took the 38th parallel as the line deviding the occupation forces of the United States and Russia.
It's not easy to get in to the country, and it's even more difficult to get out of that area.
Having banknotes from North-Korea might be illegal, I don't know for sure, but for those who are worried, I 'm taking care of them, by all means.

Banknotes of North-Korea came into circulation in 1945. At first, they were issued under Russian supervision.
In 1947 the Central Bank of North Korea emitted their first own notes.

It's a set of 8 notes: 15, 20 and 50 chon - 1, 5, 10 and 100 won. (the 5 won came in 2 versions).

Having "15" on a banknote is rather unusual.

North Korea n° 5 and n° 7 front

North Korea n°5 and n°7 back

The whole set came in 2 versions, with and without watermark.
The notes with watermark have a catalogue price double as the unwatermarked copies.

More recent notes are following...

To be or not to be : CTO - The very obvious ones 01 a

CTO's, ... live and let live... live and let die...
everyone has them in their collections, maybe you don't know it (yet) but this topic will try to reveil the thruth behind CTO stamps.

If you have no CTO stamps in your collection (bravo), then this topic might be surprising in the end.
Well, not this item, since this first item is about "the very obvious ones".
If after this article, you found out that you have unknowingly CTO's in your collection, then you will be surprised more.

Why did I use the title 'The very obvious ones'?
Well, because anyone who has seen the stamps here, (or similar ones) will, should have noticed the cancellations.
CTO stand for Cancelled to Order.
In a way, the obvious ones, aren't quite cancelled to order, since that's a term to receive 'cancelled' stamps on demand. Opposite to "CTO" is "postally used".
In that perspect there are two ways to collect postally used stamps.

A very special cancellation is a cancel on the day of issue.
I don't mean First Day Covers, since they aren't actually sent on that day. So here we encounter again the Cancel To Order.
The best way, is to collect stamps that were cancelled around the date of issue (this can also be days, weeks, months later than the dat of issue of course). Those stamps are most common, as they are used once they appear at the postoffices, until expiration.

Some stamps can be used years and years after they were issued.
They don't loose their face value, but in a way they become an anachronism after a while.
Suppose you put a stamp to announce the landing on the moon, on a letter in 2011...
The stamp might still be valid, and the use of it isn't illegal, still, it will be a bit odd to have those stamps in your collection.

One stap beyond the cancels that are a bit out of date, are CTO's.
In fact, a lot of countries issue stamps that aren't sold at postoffices.
Reasons may be various.
1. Some countries don't want money to get out the country, and stamps are 'money' in a certain way.
Cancelled stamps are worthless (for postal use, or direct cash)
2. Some countries have too many stamps in stock that they can't commercialize. Cancelling them, and selling them for a lower price to collectors, is a source of income, but again, the commercial cash value is gone.
3. As in point 2. some countries make 'false' cancells to cheat on collectors. In order to sell them as rare, used stamps. I'll come to this item later, as you will be surprised to see what a wide varity of countries used this trick. These are not false cancels, since the use of those cancels are known and described in (good) catalogues.
4. Real falsifications of cancels, fake dates, fake cancels... are not related to CTO directly.


Going back to the first item, we'll find this technique (in combination with item 2) in many countries, mainly under old communist influence.
Cuba, Soviet Union, Chechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, North Korea, Nicaragua, PR Lao, Cambodia, ...
Thousands of stamps, ALL with the same type of cancel, all still gummed, never ever used postally.
And yet, many of those stamps are highly priced.
The mint version of those stamps are rare, but can be found. Postally used are hard, very hard to find and to get.

Some fine examples of the HUGE amount of CTO, in the 'very obvious ones' - category