Europa CEPT 2020 Ancient Postal Routes on cover from Germany

 

This years theme for Europa CEPT stamps is Ancient Postal Routes, and German Post issued this souvenir sheet with one stamp on 7.5.2020. for this join issue of all European postal operators. This cover was sent of first day of issue with nice special postmark with postal horn.

Thank you, Jens!

Year of the Rat on FDC from China

An interesting Chinese legend about the ranking of the Rat goes that the Chinese supreme deity Jade Emperor held a birthday party and would decide the order of the zodiac animals according to their arrival times. Originally, the hardworking Ox departed early and should be the first one to reach. However, the Rat hid in the Ox’s ear and jumped down when arriving, occupying the first place. Thus the Rat had since been the No. 1 in the 12-year cycle and represents spirit, wit, alertness, delicacy, and flexibility. This year is Year of the Rat and Chinese post issued this really cute stamps set on 5th January. 

Thank you, Xu Wei!
 

Military working dogs on cover from USA

 

US Post issued stamps set dedicated to military working dogs: German shepherd, Labrador retriever, Belgian Malinois, and Dutch shepherd.  DKNG Studios created the stamp artwork by first hand-sketching the dogs, then using Adobe Illustrator to bring them to life with basic shapes and layers of color. The red, white, blue, and gold color scheme represents the American flag and the patriotism displayed by military working dogs. Stamp set is issued on 1.8.2019. This nice cover is sent from Randolph Air Force Base, located at Universal City, Texas.

Thank you so much, Ria!

Flatten the curve slogan on cover from Canada

Flattening the curve is a public health strategy to slow down the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus during the COVID-19 pandemic. The curve being flattened is the epidemic curve, a visual representation of the number of infected people needing health care over time. During an epidemic, a health care system can break down when the number of people infected exceeds the capability of the health care system's ability to take care of them. Flattening the curve means slowing the spread of the epidemic so that the peak number of people requiring care at a time is reduced, and the health care system does not exceed its capacity. Flattening the curve relies on mitigation techniques such as social distancing. 

This nice cover is designed by Trevor Ashman and he used nice embossed matching stamp Health Professionals. Thank you, mate!

Eastend, home of Scotty the T.rex

Eastend is a town in southwest Saskatchewan, Canada. It is situated approximately 55 kilometers  north from the Montana border and 85 kilometers from the Alberta border. The town is best known for the nearby discovery of a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton nicknamed "Scotty" in 1994. The town has used the discovery of this fossil as the main centerpiece in the construction of a museum called the T.rex Discovery Center, which opened on May 30, 2003. The center is operated by the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, and contains the RSM Fossil Research Station. And you can see beautiful postmark dedicated to Scotty the T.rex on this postcard.

Thank you, Trevor!

CCCC cover from Taiwan

I received my first CCCC cover and this is also my first foreign mail after star of coronavirus pandemic. There's 4 stamps on cover, but only herb stamps are cancelled.

This absolutely gorgeous souvenir sheet depicts marine lief of Taiwan and its issued on 26.6.2018.

This is set Herb plants from 11.6.2013.

And there was also this Europa CEPT stamp set from Greece.

Thank you so much, Su!

Hologram stamp on prepaid cover from UN New York

I received this prepaid cover from UN New York. Cover is overprinted with additional value of 6 cents and there's also beautiful matching hologram stamp. So, everything is dedicated on this cover  to the Headquarters of the United Nations in New York, a complex designed by a board of architects led by Wallace Harrison, and built by the architectural firm Harrison & Abramovitz. The complex has served as the official headquarters of the United Nations since its completion in 1952. It is located in the Turtle Bay neighborhood of Manhattan, on 6.9 to 7.3 ha of grounds overlooking the East River.

It's hard to show beauty of this stamp on scan, so i made this GIF file to show you changing of colors under different angles of light source.

Thank you, Mike!

Leap year on cover from USA

I received one more cover dedicated to Leap year, but this time from USA. A leap year is a calendar year that contains an additional day added to keep the calendar year synchronized with the astronomical year or seasonal year. Because astronomical events and seasons do not repeat in a whole number of days, calendars that have the same number of days in each year drift over time with respect to the event that the year is supposed to track. By inserting an additional day or month into the year, the drift can be corrected.On this cover from Miami you can see stamps dedicated to Year of the Rat and in the middle definitive stamp with American eagle.

Inside cover was this FDC dedicated to wild orchids. There are more than 30,000 species of wild orchids in the world. And these two stamps are from set of ten stamps which shows orchid species from USA.

Thank you, Mike!

Dahlias on cover from Canada

Dahlias are part of the Asteraceae family, which includes sunflowers, daisies, chrysanthemums and zinnias. Single or double flowering, dahlias come in a rainbow of colours (except blue). Considered an annual in Canada, these robust plants will bloom in most parts of the country from mid-summer until the first frost. In the Victorian era, dahlias were exchanged by couples as a show of commitment. They are still widely used in weddings and are said to symbolize honesty, balance, inner strength, creativity, positive change and kindness. More recently, the dahlia has become symbol of diversity, given the seamless way each petal fits into the whole flower head. The stamp was designed by Lionel Gadoury, Umaymah Motala and Malika Soin of Context Creative, with photography by Veronique Meignaud.

Thank you, Kenneth!

Giant sausage replica from Mundare, Canada!

Here's interesting postcard with giant sausage replica from Mundare, Canada. Mundare is a small town in central Alberta. The Canadian National Railway tracks run through the town. Mundare was named after William Mundare, a railway station agent. It is also home of the world's largest garlic sausage (on postcard), which cost about $120,000 to build and erect.

Mundare have interesting postmark, but this one is little bit smudged and upside down, probably during machine cancelling.

Thank you, Trevor!