This and That: A Blog

  Red is the theme for this week's Sunday Stamps . My Reds are all Little Red Riding Hood. Germany 2016  semi-postal for annual Welfare Care Great Britain 1994 Greetings edition, the theme is Messages.  Little Red Riding Hood has a letter for her grandmother.  Sold in booklets that included stickers to put next to the stamp with messages such as "Happy Birthday ," or " Get Well Soon ."  " Get Well Soon " may have been an appropriate message for a grandmother sick in bed.  Poland 1968  West Germany 1960 A four stamp series of semi-postals for annual Welfare Care.  The story progresses as the stamp value increases. Little Red Meets the Wolf The Wolf Fools Little Red The Woodsman Kills the Wolf and Frees Grandma Grandma Gets her Goodies in the End. Last month there was a poetry prompt about fairytale characters. I used Little Red Riding Hood. It's here if you are interested.  Next week is the last Sunday in October, and the theme is Light...

 Food is the Sunday Stamp theme this week. Three from the Bulgaria "Vegetables" series  from 1958. Cucumbers Onions  Peppers  Next week's theme is Red . 

Has your weather been strange lately?  September here was cooler than average, yet these first few days of October are 15° and more above average.  Today's supposed to reach 93­°! A few weeks ago I took the portable air conditioner hose out of the window, and yesterday I put it back in!  The tomatoes had stopped ripening, but now they're getting nice and red again.  Here's what's been going on around here. Morning Glories A kind of Parasol mushroom in the backyard. Probably a Conifer Parasol, as they are the PNW Parasols.  It's toxic, but not poisonous.  In other words, you may get a terrible stomach ache with vomiting, but you won't die.  Mickey doesn't nose around mushrooms, but I disposed of it just in case. Autumn Crocus is so pretty.  It's not a kind of crocus, it's a lily relative that blooms in the autumn, it's foliage is in spring.  It's also toxic, and not to be confused with saffron crocus. Planted in 2012 from a tiny pot, the prost...

 Birds is the theme this week for Sunday Stamps . Killy Hawk or American Kestral Montserrat 1970  Long-Crested Eagle Rwanda 1977  Cinderella feeding birds (they look like parakeets to me, but are more likely a type of dove). Poland 1968 Speaking of Cinderella... These birds from Batum, 1994, are Cinderella stamps. ( a shorter read ) Top row left to right: Coal Tit and Macaw Middle row left to right: Marsh Tit and African Blue Flycatcher Bottom row left to right: Red Chatterer and Victoria Crowned Pigeon Since they are Cinderellas, also called "illegals" since they were not issued by official governments, the postmarks are fake. They are Cancelled-to-Order (CTO), applied during production. Legally produced stamps from Batum didn't exist after 1920.  You may find Cinderella stamps (those resembling government issued postage stamps) sold as postage stamps.  I often see State of Oman dog stamps for sale. The State of Oman is not the country of Oman though. Many of ...

  Sunday Stamps this week is Celebrating Inventions. Canada 1986  Top: Rotary Snowplow and Canadarm (mechanical robot arm for the NASA Space Shuttle program) Bottom: Anti-Gravity Suit and Variable-Pitch Propeller USA 1995  Rube Goldberg's Inventions One of 20 Comics Classic Collection postal cards. Next Sunday Stamps we'll see some Birds.

 Let's Celebrate Historical Events this week with Sunday Stamps .  First some Historical Events in the United States.  USA 1939 While the cachet reads this FDC is for the 150th Anniversary of the United States Constitution, it isn't, the cachet maker mislabeled the event!  The Constitution was signed two years earlier. It's for the 150th anniversary of George Washington's inauguration as the first US President, as shown on the stamps.  Ecuador 1938 150th anniversary of the "adoption and promulgation" of the US Constitution (signed in 1787, but not officially implemented until 1789) I think this stamp is particularly pretty. Monaco 1776 Commemorating the United States Bicentennial  Spain 1976 Bicentennial of the United States Independence and Constitution  The image is the siege of Pensacola , honoring Spanish military involvement under Bernardo de   Gálvez, during the Revolutionary War. Great Britain 1989  800th anniversary of the Lord M...

 Famous or Accomplished People is the theme this week for Sunday Stamps .  USA 1961 Honoring Mahatma Gandhi , part of Champions of Liberty series USA 1954 Susan B. Anthony   Poland 1982 Maria Sklodowska-Curie We will be Celebrating Historical Events with stamps next week.

 Places of Learning is this week's Sunday Stamps theme.  Bermuda 1967-1971 Government High School and Queen Elizabeth II Hungary 1967   Celebrating 600 years of higher education, referencing the 1367 founding of the Medieval University in Pécs (it had no specific name at the time, that's how it's referred to now) by Pope Urban V at the request of King Louis I the Great of Hungary. It was the first university in Hungary .  There is a modern successor, the University of  Pécs . Ireland 1995 Bicentenary of Maynooth College  (St. Patrick's Pontifical University) Germany 1949  Technical University of Berlin Anyone else have problems figuring out how to catalog old German stamps?  After WWII Germany was divided into four occupation zones, and Berlin into four sectors, and areas east of the Oder-Neisse river were under Polish and Soviet authority.  So, this is some sort of German stamp , issued in 1949 by one of the Berlin sectors... I think....

 Let's see some Vacation Destinations today for Sunday Stamps. These are people visiting Vacation Destinations, not places I necessarily want to go. I love this one!  Great Britain 1994 "Bather at Blackpool"  Picture Postcards Centenary  Malta 1999 Tourism series  New Zealand 1981  Health series  Semi-postals with 2¢ going to Children's Health Camps that provided care, nutrition, and recreation for children recovering from illnesses, living in difficult situation, etc.  Unfortunately, due to the drop in physical mail numbers the series was discontinued, after 87 years, in 2016.  I picked the New Zealand stamps because my Vacation Destination of choice would be the rocky tidepool beaches, but not in New Zealand.  They'd be northern CA, OR, and WA.  I wouldn't poke things with a stick like the girl in the illustration though!  Nor, pick anything up, just observe. September begins next week with stamps featuring Places of Educa...

 Geology is the theme this week for Sunday Stamps . Soviet Union 1968 Soviet Geology series  Mineral Wealth - the material basis for the development of heavy industry of the USSR Prospector Geologist  Oil Derreck at Survey Camp  Seismic Surveying  Vacation Destinations is up next week.

 This week the Sunday Stamps theme is Rivers. I have three oldies.  Well, two oldies, one is a teeny bit younger than I am!  Australia 1934 - Centenary of Victoria   The Yarra River, Melbourne, and a Yarra Yarra tribesman, a term used by early European colonists to refer to the   Wurundjeri people of the Yarra River Valley. Russia 1959  The Chusovaya River and the Ural Mountains  Jamaica 1938  King George VI, Priestman's River in Portland, King George VI, and what look like pomegranates, but are citrus, representing the massive export industry of the 1930s. Next Sunday will be Geology.

Sunday Stamps: Mountains Switzerland 1983  Zermatt mountains (the most famous is the Matterhorn) and Schwarzsee lake. The nude is a depiction of the Virgo zodiac sign.  Why?  There was a multi-year series, " Zodiac Signs and Landscapes ," pairing the 12 zodiac signs with views of Swiss geography.  Odd pairing if you ask me. Norway 1968 100th anniversary of the Norwegian Mountain Touring Association USA 1972  Mount McKinley, Alaska, celebrating the National Parks Centennial The mountain was known as Denali by the  Koyukon Athabaskan people  for centuries before a 1800s gold prospector named it Mount McKinley after the then-presidential candidate.  Alaska continued to call it Denali, and in 2015 President Obama restored the name Denali on all federal documents. In 2025 President Trump signed an executive order reversing that, restoring the name Mount McKinley.  Alaska continues to call it Denali.  I expect it to be federally Denali again b...