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.
