Words and Numbers - Sunday Stamps II

The merchant William Caxton was the first person to introduce the printing press to England which he did in 1476. 

The set of stamps to commemorate the 500th anniversary of British printing in 1976 included - 

Great Britain 1976 - The Tretyse of Love

I don't ever remember receiving stamps like these or whether similar ones exist today.

Great Britain - Postage Due  (early decimal)

Some organisations are well known by their initials such as the Trade Union Congress.

Great Britain - 100th Anniversary of the TUC 1968

I started off on the theme of love with Caxton so I'll end with the same thought in mind on greetings stamps from 2002 (I think).

Great Britain 

The Hello stamp is made by an aircraft sky-writing so perhaps it's from a photograph and therefore ineligible for this words and numbers theme.

You will find other words and numbers by following the links at Sunday-Stamps-II-50.

Electricity - Thematic Photography

Carmi's plug struck a chord or two with me.

Pull chords

One for the lights and one for the extractor fan in our shower room.

Meanwhile in our bathroom the bathroom cabinet lit up with this image.

Reflection of the ceiling lights and the trapdoor to the loft.

However the photo of the day for me was this cheerful chap.

Robin on a juniper bush

It was only as I saved the shot that I realised that I had also caught an electric street light and a blurred solar panel on a roof, just right for this electricity theme.

A number of people in our street have invested in solar panels to generate electricity for themselves - and here's a good example.

Solar panels

Of course these days other generation schemes are available such as these:

Two of five wind turbines in the locality

If you study that photo you can see a line of electricity pylons which are much larger when you get up close.

Pylon and power transmission lines

Some houses in our village are still hooked up to more primitive power lines.

Pole and power line connections

No underground cables for them!

There is a nuclear power station at Hartlepool just a few miles from us but unfortunately I have no shots of that.

To get there by road I can always check road condition by referring to the screen at our local petrol station.

Traffic information

For more bright sparks you need to switch over to the live links at Thematic-Photographic-356.

Children's Stories - Sunday Stamps II

For the International Year of the Child in 1979 Great Britain issued a set of four stamps on 11 July.

Great Britain - 1979

These three are based on:

• The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Beatrix Potter)
• The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame)
• Winnie the Pooh (A A Milne)

The fourth in the set shows Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll).

The 1998 series of Famous Children's Fantasy Novels included : 

Great Britain

• The Hobbit (J K Tolkien)
• The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (C S Lewis)

A second class stamp from the Animal Tales series (8 stamps) in 2006 had another of Beatrix Potter stories.

Great Britain

• The Tale of Mr Jeremy Fisher

Although I have the More About Paddington (Michael Bond) stamp I have not seen the others. Posted here.

Looking back I find that I showed a FDC of full set of stamps including Alice from the 1979 International Year of the child 
last year here.

For more children's stories check out the links at Sunday-stamps-ii-49

Old - Thematic Photography

For this week's theme I thought I would show some 'old' photographs from the 1950s. 

They have a sporting theme until you get to the present day!

Just study them carefully.

Stamford School 1st XI 

Those in the blazers have won their cricket colours. That's me second from the left.

Here I am again in 1954 or 1955 at the ground of Lincoln Lindum.

Relaxing while the Peterborough team was batting

And how better a way to relax than with a companion like this.

Later to become my wife

Over 60 years later the blazer is still around.

In full colour now, casually draped on my office chair, or

On a hanger

And that's because I'm old as well  - and can no longer get it on.

For other old interpretations check out the links at Carmi's Thematic-Photographic-355.

Famous People - Sunday Stamps II

In view of the tragic events in Paris I tried to find a French connection. 

All I could find was two Frenchmen who shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1912.

Sweden - Nobel Prize winners

Victor Grignard and Paul Sabatier shared the 2012 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for different work that greatly advanced the progress of organic chemistry.

In 1917 Karl Adolph Gjellerup and Henrik Pontoppidan from Denmark shared the Literature Prize, Gjellerup for his poetry and Pontoppidan for his descriptions of everyday life in Denmark.

One of the Founding Fathers of the United States was commemorated in 2006 on a set of stamps which show his versatility.

USA - Benjamin Franklin

To me he will always be the man who invented the lightning conductor (rod).

For other famous people you should cross over to Sunday-Stamps-II-48.

Down on the ground - Thematic Photographic

Sometimes you don't have to look far for a subject, it's just there on the ground.

You have not even have to be down yourself. It's amazing what you can catch just by bending and using a screen that swivels to let you see just what is there.

Gull at Padstow, Cornwall

Homing pigeon in our garden

Of course you may not even have to bend for items on the ground.

This one looks like it has been there for a while.

Alongside a woodland path

Washed up on Saltburn beach, North Yorkshire

To get the lowdown on what others found down on the ground just visit Carmi at Thematic-Photographic-354.

Monochromatic - Sunday Stamps II

Finding stamps to meet the 'monochromatic' theme had me puzzled and eventually sidetracked into research.

Google led me to images of monochromatic stamps that appeared to be anything else but one colour. However one stamp in my collection was included.

USA - 15 October 1968

By now I was more interested in the stamp than whether it is truly monochromatic.

The Cherokee Strip was an 8 million acre parcel of land in NW Oklahoma. When members of the Cherokee tribe were moved by the federal government from the southeastern United States to Indian Territory (in eastern Oklahoma) in the 1830s they were given an outlet to the western hunting grounds - this became known as the Cherokee Strip.

On 16 September 1893 the Cherokee Strip was opened by presidential order for a great land run, billed by the New York Times as the greatest real estate deal of the century

The stamp was issued for the 75th anniversary of the historic land run by more than 100,000 prospective homesteaders in the northern portion of Oklahoma. They were competing for 40.000 available home sites.

Still hunting for monochromatic stamps I found this stamp at my local market stall.

Belgium - Queen Astrid

At the time I did not realise that the stamp and the four others with it had black borders because of the black card holder that contained them.

Astrid was a Swedish princess who in 1926 married Belgium's Crown Prince Leopold. He became King with Astrid as his Queen Consort in 1934.

On August 29th, 1835 the royal couple had a car accident in the Swiss Alps - Astrid was killed.

Two months later, on October 31, Belgium issued a 70 centime Queen Astrid stamp. It was the first of a set of eight black bordered Queen Astrid semi-postal stamps.

Semi-postal stamps are also known as charity stamps and raise money for a particular cause.

This are the five stamps that I found.

Belgium - Queen Astrid

The surtax may be seen on each stamp at the top right. Proceeds were divided between several charitable organisations.

Even if you do not agree that my stamps are monochromatic I hope you can see why I have shared them this week under that theme on Sunday-Stamps-II- 47.

Farm Animals - Sunday Stamps II

The small farm in the village where I was born was noted for its ...

Rooster

and its early morning calls.

This stamp is one of a set of eight from Poland showing:

Cows

Horses

The three stamps that I do not have depicted geese, pigs and sheep.

On the same day that I found them I also acquired a first day of issue of British Cattle - magnificent beasts.

Great Britain - British Castle

The stamps are on what appears to be a card (nothing on the back). I wish it had been intact in view of the cow's horn at the bottom left.

The beast are:

• 16p Highland Cow
• 20.1/2p Chillingham White Bull
• 26p Hereford Bull
• 28p Welsh Black Bull
• 31p Irish Moiled Cow

I had not heard of the Irish breed before. The name Moiled is derived from the Gaelic "Maol" and refers to the fact that they have no horns.

I continue to learn from participating in Violet's Sunday-Stamps-II - No. 46, this week.