PostBeeld owner Rob Smit is constantly busy seeking out opportunities to add stamps to the enormously varied stock held at the four PostBeeld stores dotted around Holland.
Always on the lookout to buy-in interesting collections at auction houses or directly from people wishing to sell, he fervently strives to provide what his customers might be looking for.
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!
On July 14, 1956 the company Clípol was founded in Andorra, the tiny independent principality situated between France and Spain in the Pyrenees mountains. It’s known for its ski resorts and for its tax-haven status that encourages duty-free shopping. The company’s name came from a combination of the names of the owners: Clement Travesset and brothers John and Henry Pol. They previously ran a taxi service, but then decided to start a bus service. To begin, they bought three Mercedes ‘minibus’ vehicles, which quickly became icons in the Principality.
In the late 1970s a fascinating series of articles written by Mr. K. Kouwenberg about the history of Stamp Collecting, appeared in the Dutch magazine Philatelie. This series has been the source of inspiration for PostBeeld owner Rob Smit to rewrite the history of stamp collecting in instalments. This is Part 16.
Well, 2016 has certainly provided surprises on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean in the world of politics.
First we had the referendum result in Great Britain to leave the European Union, and now the shock of a person with no experience as a politician being elected as the President of the United States.
The first day of October 1969 saw the inauguration of two new stamp issuing authorities, represented at the Universal Postal Union by what was then known as the British Post Office.
The British Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey had taken the option to become postally independent following the decision of Great Britain’s General Post Office to become a Public Corporation.
2005 was the 150th anniversary of the completion of the vital rail link between Dublin in Eire (Southern Ireland) and Belfast, the capital city of Northern Ireland. An Post (the Irish Post Office) commemorated the event with a set of four stamps, a prestige booklet and a miniature sheet.
Was the title of a fascinating book published in 2010, written and illustrated by John Tingey, who started collecting stamps more than fifty years ago when his parents gave him his first stamp album and a 6d packet of stamps bought from a Woolworths store.
So who was this seemingly strange Englishman? W. Reginald Bray (1879-1939) was an ordinary middle-class Englishman living in the then leafy South London suburb of Forest Hill.
September 2nd, 2016 was the 350th anniversary of the outbreak of the 1666 Great Fire of London. The fire destroyed four-fifths of the City – nearly all of the civic buildings and around 13,000 private houses. Amazingly there were only six reported deaths.
Commonly recognised for having a particular sense of humour, one British institution – the ‘saucy postcard’ – was in 1994 celebrated by the issuance of a set of stamps by Royal Mail to commemorate 100 years of the genre. Guaranteed to be found at virtually every coastal resort in Britain, their popularity never seems to wane.