Theme : Esperanto 12

In april 1945, while Europe was still under the destructive influence of the second world war, a peace loving, universal congress took place at the other side of the world, in Brazil.

Rio de Janeiro, hosted the 10th Brazilian Esperanto congress, from April 14 till April 22.
On the occasion of this event, two stamps were issued, a 40 cent green stamp and a brown 1.20 cruzeiros stamp for airmail.

Brazil 1945 - 1.20  Cr. and 40 cent

This letter sent to an address in Brazil, didn't need the extra rate for air mail, but the value was good to send the letter by express service.

Express sending cancel

Letters sent by esperantists often show some extra labels, stickers, or even drawings of topic-related items.
For this 10th Brazilian congress, a rubber stamp printing was used, depicting L.L. Zamenhof 

rubber stamp cancel 'Zamenhof'

Often are those extra decorations in green, as shown above. The cover in my collection has the same decoration twice, once in green, once in the uncommon colour red.

The text, surrounding the image of L.L. Zamenhof says : "Rio de Janeiro - Brazil - 10th Brazilian Congress of esperantists - April 1945"

The back of the cover shows another cancel, from the day of arrival, April 17, 1945.
The cover was sent on the 1st day of issue of the two stamps. Most likely, a special post office was in office during the Esperanto congress.

1st day cover 16 april 1945 Brazil

to be continued ...

Theme : Tintin (Kuifje) 08

It doesn't happy too often that I find a new item for my theme collection.
But today I found.

I wrote about Tintin stamps, issued by the Netherlands in my previous posts, http://rainbowstampsandcoins.blogspot.be/2011/04/theme-tintin-kuifje-2.html

To celebrate two Dutch cities : Hattem and Urmond, who were commemorating their 700th anniversary in 1999 and 2000, the two Tintin stamps were placed on two individual covers and cancelled with a special cancel.

This cancellation is double special as the dates are Dec. 31, 1999 and Jan. 1, 2000.

two covers in special album

Let's have a closer look

1999 - cover :

cover Dec. 31, 1999

Special cancel city Hattem

Hattem is a city in the Dutch province : Gelderland; (central-east) and got it's city rights in 1299.
In 1999 they celebrated their 700th anniversary.

location of Hattem

2000 - cover :

The second cover, is cancelled in Urmond, on Jan. 1, 2000.

Cover Jan. 1, 2000

Special cancel village Urmond

There are no written documents that state that Urmond got city rights in 1300.
The oldest remains date from the 12th century, but the (now) village itself, claims to have the rights since 1300. Therefore, the cancel on Jan. 1, 2000 (also 700th anniversary).
Urmond is now part of the Dutch city 'Stein', in the province Limbourg.

Location of Urmond (city Stein)

Both covers are presented in a cardboard cover, holding the two covers.
On the front and back page of the cover, "Millennium Wissel" - Millennium Change is printed.
On one side with 1999 - 2000, on the other side 2000 - 1999.

printing on both sides of the cover

Odd stamps : 08 Stamps with special cuts - 08 b

A more recent issue of octagonal stamps, comes from the Asian country Bangladesh.
The stamps, six in total, show us bird nest of Bangladesh.

The stamps were issued as six single stamps (issued perforated) and as a non-perforated block.

6 individual stamps, showing bird's nests

one stamp in detail - 20 taka

The printing hasn't always been very accurate, but still a nice emission.

The same stamps get repeted on the sheet.
Face value of each stamp is 20 taka, but the sheet was sold for 150 taka.

block bird nests of Bangladesh

And to show you that I don't only get those items mint; a postally used example :

cover from Bangladesh with set of octagonal stamps