What do we see when we look at the drawing on the stamp from Austria (1981) above? Several artists, notably the Dutch ‘master of optical illusion’ Maurits Escher, have incorporated into their designs certain impossible features that cannot exist in three-dimensional space. These include the ‘impossible cube’ on the stamp above, inspired by his designs and the ‘impossible triangle’ by the Swedish artist Oscar Reutersvärd, shown on the first of the three stamps from Sweden (1982) in the continuation of this article.
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In 2015 Poland Post issued a postage stamp featuring a particular regional product of the country – cheese. The stamp above has a Korycinski cheese, named after the town of Korycin in Poland. It is thought to be the oldest polish ‘yellow’ cheese.
On the 2017 Bosnia and Herzegovina stamp below is Travnik cheese, which boasts a long tradition, produced exclusively in the region of Mount Vlasic. It is produced using local-breed sheep (Pramenka) and cow (Busa) milk, and the rennet is made according to a secret recipe.
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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 thousands of stamps recently added to PostBeeld’s ever-increasing stock are some nice stamps for the thematic collector interested in railway stamps and, in particular, stamps featuring railway stations.
This stamp is the station at Maryborough, Victoria – built in 1890 of red brick with stucco edging and an attractive clock tower. This magnificent station boasts one of the longest platforms in the southern hemisphere and still provides freight and passenger services. American author Mark Twain visited Maryborough in 1895 and was most impressed by the town’s grand railway station.
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F
or thematic stamp collectors the horse has always been a very popular subject. If you are interested in horse sports or a particular breed there is bound to be a stamp to satisfy your interest.
The stamps shown below were issued by the German state of Saarland which, following the Second World War, from 1947 to 1956 was a French-occupied territory (the “Saar Protectorate”) separate from the rest of Germany. You may notice two values shown on each stamp.
The reason being the postal tariffs were adapted to French postage rates – mail to France was to be franked at the domestic postage, mail to Allied-occupied Germany at the foreign tariff.
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I imagine postal authorities worldwide would be rather apprehensive nowadays to issue stamps on the subject of tobacco, unless they were using the medium to discourage people from smoking – as seen with the 2006 World Day Without Tobacco stamp below from Argentina.
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New stamps appear regularly with a variety of subjects. Below is a selection of recently-published stamps from around the globe.
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Wherever people work, mistakes will be made. The business of postage stamp design is no exception. Many stamps have been issued with design flaws or flaws of a different nature. And these are of great interest to many collectors. Below we illustrate where some stamp designers have used what might be called ‘artistic licence’.
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We all know that stamps are printed on special paper. This can be with or without a watermark, with phosphor or fluorine, with special printing inks and gummed or adhesive. Sometimes plastic or other material is used instead of paper to make stamps. But what about the special stamps issued by Austrian Post in September 2004?
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