You probably know by now that Freestampmagazine comes under the umbrella of PostBeeld, along with our other freely-offered service for stamp collectors, Freestampcatalogue. Accordingly, now and then we like to inform our readers of items recently added to PostBeeld’s already enormous and extremely varied stock.
Among recent additions is a large collection of first day covers and prestige booklets from The Netherlands.
Featured on the cover above is The Nightwatch, a painting from 1642 by one of Holland’s most famous sons, the artist Rembrandt van Rijn – which is proudly displayed in the recently refurbished Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
And below is a prestige stamp booklet from 2010 commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Patent Act in The Netherlands.
From the year 2000, celebrating 50 years of first day covers in that country, you could guess this was issued by Holland by the featured tulips.
On 25th September 2001 The Netherlands issued a very interesting stamp, made from a wafer-thin piece of silver, and minted (not printed) by the Royal Dutch Mint in Utrecht (see upper right-hand corner of the cover below). The stamp was also self-adhesive. It had the face value of 12.75 Guilders and was intended for registered mail. It was the first time that this stamp minting technique had been applied.
As the Netherlands converted to the Euro in January 2002, it was also the last Dutch stamp issued in Guilders.
The silver foil stamp.
Many other FDC’s can be seen on the Postbeeld.com website.
Below are two Europa minisheets from 1996 with the theme Famous Women, issued by Eire. Depicted on the top sheet stamps is Louie Bennett (Louisa Elizabeth Bennett, b.1870 – d.1956) who was an Irish suffragette, trade unionist, journalist and writer. Born and raised in Dublin, she began her life in the public arena with the establishment of the Irish Women’s Suffrage Movement in 1911.
The bottom sheet shows Augusta, Lady Gregory (b.1852 – d.1932). She was an Irish dramatist, folklorist and theatre manager. With William Butler Yeats and Edward Martyn, she co-founded the Irish Literary Theatre and the Abbey Theatre in Dublin.
We also have these hologram stamps from Kyrgyzstan, released in 1999 to support the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Among many other WWF-themed stamps recently added are the below, from Tuvalu ……..
These, from Barbados …….
And finally, from Uganda ……
I was not passionate about collecting stamps but after seeing this log. I feel like collecting it.