The Hanseatic League, or Hanse, was formed as a northern European trading organisation, founded in the middle of the twelfth century in the north German city of Lubeck and continued as a powerful force for around 500 years. It grew to comprise a network of around 200 trading cities as far apart as London, England, in the west and Viliky Novgorod, Russia, in the east and during its lifetime had to protect its interests from interfering rulers, pirates and rival traders. The type of ship on the stamp above issued in 1977 is a Cog and it was the ship of choice for most Hanseatic League traders.
The Hanseatic League influenced the economic, political and cultural life in Europe for nearly four centuries.
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Small selection of stamps recently added to PostBeeld’s stock:
Austria 2018, woven textile stamp with Tyrolean hat.
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Among the hundreds of stamps added daily to PostBeeld’s stock are those shown below in this article.
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In 2005 an unusual set of stamps was issued by the Royal Mail.
They were issued to commemorate the 100th anniversary of The Magic Circle, a society of magicians founded in London in 1905 by a small group of amateurs and professionals.
What was unusual was the design of the five stamps. They featured optical illusions that included a jumping rabbit and disappearing dots.
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A new, annual National Stamp Celebration Day, held in association with The Philatelic Traders’ Society, is being launched this year to celebrate and promote philately. The celebration will be held today, the 4th of May, to commemorate the world’s first ever adhesive postage stamp, the Penny Black, which was issued on 1 May 1840 but officially used from 6 May.
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One can only imagine the horror of experiencing an earthquake. And millions of people live in areas where the possibility of having that experience is great.
The recent ‘quakes in New Zealand prompted us to seek out stamps on the subject.
Let us not forget that the city of Christchurch, in the region of Canterbury on New Zealand’s South Island, was devastated by an earthquake which killed 185 people in February 2011. The stamp sheet below depicts a cathedral ruined by the event. Incredibly, 4,558 earthquakes were recorded in the Canterbury region above magnitude 3.0 on the Richter measuring scale, from 4 September 2010 to 3 September 2014!
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…… was the title of a 1974 book and 1977 film, the main subject of which was the failed Second World War allied military campaign ‘Operation Market Garden’. September 17th is the 62nd anniversary of that operation, which is remembered annually in Arnhem – the Dutch city where the attack took place.
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The 50-stamp mint sheet we’re about to discuss, issued by the United States on February 23, 1976, includes the flag of each state on separate stamps.
The flags are arranged in the order of the state’s admission to the union. Each stamp includes the inscription “Bicentennial Era 1776 – 1976”
and the U.S. Bicentennial emblem.
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Great Britain’s Royal Mail has issued commemorative stamps to mark 50 years of one of the world’s most popular bands, Pink Floyd.
The set of 10 stamps features album covers and live performance photos to mark 1966 – the year the band went professional, having formed in 1965.
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The English Channel island of Guernsey will, on May 6th, issue the beautifully-illustrated stamp set shown below, featuring scenes taken from a book written by a famous author and political exile 150 years ago.
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