Theme : Zodiac signs 18

In this post, I show a set of 12 precanceled stamps of France.
Precanceled stamps are mainly definitive stamps with an overprint, issued as 'canceled' before being attached to mail.
They are often offered to companies who need lots of stamps for sending their mailings, and the precanceled stamps are bought in larger quantities by those companies.

Some countries have stamps with city or district names on the overprint (like USA, Belgium, ...)
and were often used on newspaper wrappers (also in Canada, Austria and the UK).

French precanceled stamps (often called : preo's) are overprinted with 'AFFRANCH(issemen)ts POSTES"
The French precanceled stamps are unique, as they were printed in thematic sets, such as beetles, mushrooms, .... and often came in sets of 4 or multiples of 4.
Very convenient if you want to depict 4 seasons, 4 suits of cards, ... or 12 months, 12 zodiac signs,...

For this post of course, I bring the 12 western zodiac signs from the issues 1977-78.

This set was not issued at once, but came in 3 sets of 4.

Gemini - highest value in the set

In the north western corner, we find a symbol for the zodiac sign, the stars on each stamp are put randomly this time.
In the south eastern corner, we find the precancel in black.
These stamps do not exist without the precancel.

Theme : Zodiac signs 17

Hong Kong has a long tradition of zodiac sign stamps.
Most series exists of one specific stamp each year (each series having 12 stamps), but - for commercial reasons - often stamps are also printed in sheetlets.
Hong Kong often issues more then just the single stamp.

In 2012, a set of 12 small stamps were issued, on the western zodiac signs.
Not that common, as mostly Chinese astrology is depicted.
Maybe that is the reason why the set is quite modest.

The design is kept simple and the stamps have no excessive gold or silver overprints, nor is the emission printed on silk.
All stamps have the same value of 1,40 HK$ (16 eurocent or 17 dollarcent).

When we take a closer look at the individual stamp, we see clockwise, from NW corner :
the Chinese name of the sign, the Latin name (here Gemini), the stellar constellation, the year of printing, and finally on the bottom line, Honk Kong, China (in English and Chinese) and the value in Hong Kong Dollars.

This simple set comes in stripes of 6 stamps each.
A nice and inexpensive addition to my collection.

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...

Theme : Zodiac signs 16

This post can be considered as controversial, as I am presenting today a set of 'stamps' from Ajman.
Ajman is the smallest of the 7 states within the United Arab Emirates.

map of the United Arab Emirates - source Wikipedia

Ajman issued - officially recognised - stamps in 1964 an 1965. All later issues are to be considered as private issues, or at least not recognised issues.
On top of that, most of Ajmani stamps are CTO, there are numerous variations with unperforated versions, colour (mis-)prints, gold foil prints and so on....

Even after the unification with the other sultanats, Ajman (and the other Emirates) kept on issuing those colourful pagefillers. A fun thing for youngsters to collect, but a no-go for real collectors.
On official exhibitions, you even loose points if Ajman items appear in any official collection.

Yet I'm offering you a set today with 12 st... err.. items on my Zodiac topic collection.

12 Ajman issues on Zodiac signs

For those who like this, or those who cannot throw anything away like me :-)

more, and better to follow....

Odd stamps : 02e Silver / golden stamps

Estonia is one of the three Baltic states, and is therefore often named together with Latvia and Lithuania. It is the most northern Baltic Republic.
The language of Estonia however is more related to Finnish, than to the other two countries.

The country has a long history, and they declared their independency already in 1918, by the end of the first world war. Its true independency was rather short, as it came under Russian influence.
In their attempt to fight for an own republic, they fought with Germany against Russia.
This resulted in being put under Russian influence after the war.
In 1990, the Sovet Union dissolved and many states regained their independency again.
So happened in 1991 with Estionia.

The silver € 10 stamp, commemorates the (1st) independency of 1918.

€ 10 silver stamp Estonia 2018

Silver is vulnerable to oxygen, and therefore, the stamp is issued in a plastic box.

At the back of the stamp, a sticker is placed to make the stamp adhesive.
Opening the box, in order to use the stamp, would result in discolouration, and lost of the image at the front of the stamp.
The image is rather simple, we see the coat of arms of Estonia, and 100 written as 18.

This special stamp has a limited edition of only 40,000 copies.
They were printed at the Dutch printing office of Joh. Enschedé.
For the design of the stamp, all credits go to Indrek Ilves.

Indrek Ilves, showing an enlarged stamp

Estonia celebrates its independency day on Febrary 24.

Theme : Stamps on Stamps (postal services related stamps) - 04

Letter boxes on stamps, they are double as interesting as they show stamp history on stamps.
Greek postal services issued a set of 4  (8) stamps on this topic, to commemorate 190 years of the founding of the Hellenic Post, by the first Governor of Greece, Ioannis Kapodistrias.
Underneath the letter boxes, we see, in greek capital letters : "190 χρόνια ελληνικά ταχυδρομεία";
which means as much as 190 years of Greek (Hellenic) post.

4 stamps printed in sheets of 5 x 5 stamps, perforation is 13,75 x 13,75
€ 0,10 - 500,000
€ 0.50 - 1,000,000
€ 0.72 - 500,000
€ 2.62 - 1,000,000

the 'regurar' stamps come in full colour:

A week later, the same stamps were issued in a sheetlet of 8 (2 of each), with another perforation 13,25 x 13,25. This sheetlet was printed by Cartor Security Printing
They come in a sheet of 4 - so each stamp twice.

sheet of 2 x 4 greec letter boxes

The letter boxes are printed in gold/bronze emobssed printing, and only 10,000 sheetlets were made.

detail of 4 Greek letter boxes

Currency Today : Pakistan 04

The series of Pakistani banknotes contintue with 50 rupees.
As in all Pakistani notes, 

50 rupees-note of Pakistan

some of the notes 2013-2017

On the 2012, 13 and 14-notes we see signature 1 in the above picture,
on the 2015, 16 and 17-notes we see signature 2 in the above picture
In the newest note of 2018, another signature appears :

new signature from 2018 on

At the back side, we see K2 peak in Karakorum Mountains, between Pakistan and China.

50 rupees - reverse side

For a long time, this mountain had no real name, as it was out of sight for the local habitants of the region. When Colonel Thomas George Montgomerie measured the area in 1856, he numbered the mountains as he discovered them.

The K stands for Karakoram area, the 2 for the second mountain he discovered/measured.

Montgomerie’s , numbering K1, K2, … was later on replaced by real names:

K1 : Masherbrum

K2 : remained K2

K3 : Broad Peak

K4 : Gasherbrum II

K5 : Gasherbrum I

For those who need good questions for a quiz event, K2 is known as : Mount Godwin-Austen, Lamba Pahar (Long Mountain in Urdu), Qogir  Feng or even Chogori Dapsang.

In Balti language, the mountain is named ‘Ketu’, which is the local way to say K2.

The fact that K2 is also the second hightest mountain in the world, is rather a coincidence.
K2 is considered as the most difficult mountain to conquer, and has a death rate of 25%.

K2 - mountain

Currency Today : Pakistan 03

The second note in the Pakistani banknotes (the 5 note not counted) is a 20 rupees-note.
It represents 12 euro cents or 14 dollar cents...

This note was introduced in 2005 and reissued in 2007.

20 rupees - 2 versions

different dates on 20 rupees

Above the first issue. It can be dated 2005, 2006 or 2007.
The note below is dated 2007 to now. There re therefore 2 issues in 2007.

In uncirculated condition, the notes of the first issue are the better ones.
From the new issue, only the first 3 years are better priced than the later ones.

Looking at the signatures, I found the following:

Signature 15 - on 2005 and 2006 notes

Signature 16 - on 2009 and 2010 notes

Signature 17 (?) - on 2010 notes

Although the note was issued in 2010, the 2018 Krause catalogue (Pick-numbering), does not mention this signature. Therefore, I wrote a question mark.
Following signatures aren't mentionned in the catalogue either, but that's because they are too recent.

Signature 18 (?) - on 2017 notes (here on a 100 rupees - note)

Signature 19 (?) - on 2017 and 2018 notes

On the back side of the banknote, the archaeological site of Mohenjo-Daro, in the province of Sindh in Pakistan. This site was one of the first and largest cities in the world and was built around 2500BC.
It was destroyed and rebuilt for many times, and then abandonned around 1800BC.
In 1920 it was rediscovered. Now it is on the Unesco World Heritage list, but due to improper restoration and erosion it is currently severely threatened.

Mohenjo-Daro on the back of 20 rupees

Mohenjo-Daro archaeological site

to be continued ...

Currency Today : Pakistan 02

In my previous post, I introduced a 5 rupee - note, which is part of the current series, but not in use anymore.
Converted, 5 rupees represent 3.1 euro cent or 3.5 dollar cent...

The first note is use is a 10 Rupee-note.
The notes were issued in 2006 and reissued every year till now.
For UNC notes, 2006, 2007 and 2008 are rated a bit higher than the later issues.

10 Rupees - 2018

3 different signatures

I posted the signatures in my previous post already.
Here we can see siganture 15 (1 - 2008), signature 16 (2 - 2009) and a new signature (3 - 2018).

signature 18 (Pakistan)

different dates on 10 rupees

At the reverse side of the note, we see a picture of a gate.

reverse side of 10 rupees

It is a gate in Peshawar region, known as the Khyber-gate. It is know as the entrance gate on Jamrud Road. The road itself is a mountain road which lead to the border with Afghanistan.

Khyber-gate in Pakistan

to be continued ...

Currency Today : Pakistan 01

There are few countries that keep their banknote designs for so long as Pakistan.
For over 10 years, the look of the Pakistani notes haven't changed much.
Nevertheless there are some differences to find, if you like to extend your collection.

At first I like to start with a note that is NOT in circulation anymore.
But since it's in the style of the rest of the notes, I like to add it to this post.

The only changess to most notes is the date of issue (1) and the signature (2).

On the obverse side, all notes have the image of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, (25 December 1876 – 11 September 1948).
He was a lawyer, politician and the founder of Pakistan. Jinnah served as the leader of the All-India Muslim League from 1913 until Pakistan's independence on 14 August 1947, and then as Pakistan's first Governor-General until his death. He is known in Pakistan as Quaid-i-Azam ("Great Leader") and Baba-i-Qaum, "Father of the Nation"). His birthday is considered a national holiday in Pakistan.

The dates on the notes of this series start in 2006 until now.
Almost every year, a note was issued (except for the 5 Rupees, that only was issued in 2008, 2009 and 2010).

Some of the signatures that appear on the notes :

signatures 11 to 16

For the 5 rupees - note above, signature 15 is used.

Signature 15 on 5 rupees of Pakistan

The 2009/10-notes have signature 16.
The reverse side of the note shows the Gwadar Sea Port.

detail of reverse side of the 5 rupee note

Gwadar Sea Port

Gwadar is a port city on the southwestern coast of Balochistan, Pakistan. The city is located on the shores of the Arabian Sea opposite to Oman.

to be continued ...