Monday, November 28, 2011

Famagusta, Tulips and Bikes, Break on a Beam, Ireland and Ostrava

It's new update time. I have 5 cards for this time. Today's cards come from Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Netherlands, Germany, Ireland and Czech Republic. Let's have a look at the Northern Cyprus card first. It shows some of the Salamis Ruins in Famagusta, a city on the east coast of Cyprus, east of Nicosia. The ruins we see today at Salamis are from the Roman period. The site was first excavated in 1882 and include: the Gymnasium, the Roman baths, the Amphitheatre, the Basilicas and the Forum. This card is from Leslie and she has a wonderful postcard blog called "the postcard blog ! "and you can find it here . The stamp is 1 of 4 issued in 2011 , all showing local politicians.

My next card comes from Almere, a city of about 191,000 people , near Amsterdam. It is a planned city, the youngest city in the Netherlands, the first house was finished in 1976. The postcard is one of the Images of Holland series, a number of which I have shown other times. On this one we are shown a couple of old bikes and a couple of dozen tulips, perhaps been delivered, who knows. The Postcrosser who sent this card lives in Almere but the card is cancelled in Amsterdam. The stamps are from 2010 and are 2 of 3 in a set entitled Business Stamps.

Now , a card posted from Germany. Matthias who lives in Lubbecke sent this non German card along. It is a scene from a famous picture taken in New York City. It's the 11 steelworkers sitting out on the bean having a smoke, and lunch. Not too shabby, are they ? Charles C. Ebbets took the picture and it dates from 1932. Matthias used a 2008 stamp , honouring Stefan Andres.
Now before I go on with another postcard , some thoughts and questions. This card of New York , but from Germany , raises some issues for postcard collectors. I really don't have a problem with it , but maybe others do. What do you think ? Is it okay to send a card if that is a card of another place ? Does the recipient of a card have a right to expect a received card to be from or about the place it was sent from ? I usually try and send a card along the lines of the collecting interests of the person I am sending to. I just recently sent a card showing elephants to a collector in Australia . Now we all know elephants aren't native to Alberta or Canada and my card showed African elephants in the wild. So what do you think ? Right or wrong ? I recently bought over 10,000 postcards covering every province of Canada, every state of the U.S and many, many different countries all over the world. I really think I'll be able to send cards along people's collecting interests but maybe not from my area. What do you think ? I really want to use these cards, there are lots of great cards there. Let me know your thoughts on this as I know you all have an opinion.

Ireland is next. It's just a landscape , side of a hill type view of Ireland. This card is covered with 6 stamps. Five are flower stamps from 2004 and the one on the far right is a hermit crab stamp from 2011.

Today's final card comes from Ostrava. Ostrava is the 3rd largest city in the Czech Republic. It is located near the Polish border at the confluence of 4 rivers, the Ostravice, Oder, Lucina and Opava. Ostrava has a history as an industrial city , but sadly is one of the most polluted in the EU. We see on the card some of the iron and steel works in the city. Simona used a 2010 art srtamp featuring the work of Alfons Mucha.

That about does it for me for this time. Thanks to all who sent cards. Appreciate it . If you have any thought or views on my rant above , let me know. Fill my comments box. Take care.

5 comments:

Maggie said...

I would much rather receive a Finnish card from Finland, than from Germany, and so on. But I think that New York picture card is a Nouvelles Images, isn't it? And so if the person collects NI then of course they should be happy to get it from anywhere. Also, with wishes for certain animals, then also they should be happy with any card with that animal, no matter where the picture was taken.

Also, I don't count a country as fully "received" in my collection unless I have it written and stamped and sent from that country. So for rare countries in particular, it's much better to get it from that country. :)

Just my 2¢. :)

Anonymous said...

I would prefer to receive view cards, map cards, and the like from the place that's on the card. I don't really want say, an Alaska map card sent from Arizona, especially if the sender has never been to Alaska! For the location specific cards, it's also the experience of going there/living there that I'm interested in, not just the card (which is also why I like my cards written on).

I'm much less picky about non-location specific cards, including animals. I received a lovely elephant card from Germany a few weeks ago. Elephants aren't native to Germany (last time I checked), but I like elephants, so I didn't care.

Ana said...

ok, ill give my 2 cents here...and agree with the posts above...I would much more prefer to receive a German card posted from Germany, even though I have hundreds of German cards, than, lets say, a Swaziland card posted from Germany....once on Postcrossing I received a card from Germany showing a lighthouse from the US..as much as I had appreciated the thought, I would have preferred to have received a German card instead...dont know why but that card-stamp discrepancy kinda makes me cringe...I mean, the REAL feeling is receiving the card from the place of origin, instead being posted from anywhere, which can be much easier since nowadays a variety of cards showing various parts of the world can be ordered online and then simply sent from anywhere...and that's just NOT it, is it :)

same goes for animals and flowers or anything considered native to a country...would prefer to receive it from the country of origin..

as for the general cards, like the NI, Anne Taintor or such, I dont mind where they are posted from

so like Maggie, I dont consider a country fully received until i had received a written and stamped card from that particular country..

im complicated, i know :))

Ana said...

ps. Mucha is just GREAT!

Leslie said...

I actually don't care at all where my cards are mailed from - as long as it's a nice card, I'm happy! This is especially true for US states or Canadian provinces... they're all the same to me. Maybe one day, if I have a card *of* each country in the world, then I'll get more ambitious and start trying to specifically collect cards *mailed from* each country... but for now, the former goal is big enough for me. :)

That said, I never send non-Turkish cards for official Postcrossing (not so much about the stamp, but I want the country code to match the view on the card!), and I wouldn't post a non-Turkish card from Turkey to friends who are "more serious" collectors (like all the people here in this blog post :) ). I imagine, though, that the percentage of Postcrossers who really care about this issue is still small!