Thursday, December 27, 2012

DPRK, French Guiana, Aruba, A Couple of Aircraft and a 2012-12-12 from SrI Lanka

Here I am back with another blog update. This one has great cards from great places adorned with great stamps. Let's start with a card that arrived in my mailbox on Christmas Eve. It is from DPRK , North Korea. It was postmarked in Pyongyang on 24Nov2012. The front of the card shows, well, truly I don't have any idea of what it shows. I guess it's some sort of propaganda statue .





Leo, who in the past has sent postcards from Bhutan, sent this one from The Hermit Kingdom. He used 3 large , wonderful stamps. The stamp on the left was issued in 2008 to mark 60 Years as a Democratic Republic. ( their words not mine ) The stamp from a set of 5 shows 3 winged horses in flight. The other 2 face same stamps were issued in 2010 and celebrate the New Year . They show the normal theme for stamps there, patriotic propaganda statues.

Thank you Leo, I hope you see this some time, but with a lack of internet in DPRK, I doubt that it will be soon.  As a postcard collector, getting a card from North Korea is just wonderful. I know that when I started my collecting , I thought that a card from DPRK would be next to impossible, and now this one numbers three in my collection. So everything is possible.

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My second card for this time is from French Guiane or officially just Guyane. It is an overseas region of France on the North Atlantic coast of South America. It shares borders with Brazil and Suriname. Jean Pierre's card is a look at Ile Royale, a small island off shore, one of the Iles du Salut.  




Since Guyane is an overseas region of France, French stamps are the norm there. Jean Pierre used a 2012 La Pointe Saint Mathieu stamp on the left and a 20 gram Priority Letter rate stamp on the right.






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Here's a card from Aruba, a place I have been , and would love to return . Aruba is in the southern Caribbean Sea and is located just 27 km north of Venezuela. It is one of the ABC Islands group and along with the Netherlands, Curacao and Sint Maarten, is one of the four constituent countries that form the Kingdom of the Netherlands. David's card shows Natural Pool, located on the north, windward coast. It's a great spot for swimming and diving. 


The stamp on top was issued in 2007 and is from a set of 14 definitives. The bottom stamp is from 2006 and 1 of 3 in a set celebrating 20 Years of Hi-Winds, the windsurfing and kiteboarding event. 













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Next we have a very colorful Airline/Aircraft postcard. It's a South African Airways Boeing 747 in a special livery for that country's 2004 Olympic Games bid. It has since been repainted in the usual SAA livery.






Bruce used 3 Handicrafts definitives from a set of 27 issued in 2010.










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The sunny South Coast of Sri Lanka is featured on this next postcard.







Ravindra used 5 quite large stamps on this card. The 4 flower stamps were issued on Oct 7, 2012 as a Flowers of Sri Lanka set.













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Another Airline/Aircraft card is next. This one is an Air Malta Boeing 737-300 in front of Malta International Airport.




Jean Pierre used 3 large and new 2012 stamps for this one. The stamp on the far right is 1 in a definitive set of 2.
The other 2 stamps are from  set of 4 City Gates issue. 
















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Last card for this time is another Sri Lankan card , again compliments of Ravindra. This one is a little special as it has a postmark date of 2012-12-12. We'll never see that one again. The card is of Ruwanveliseya Dagoba, Anuradhapura, the ancient city that lies 205 km north of Colombo. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was inscribed as such in 1982.


















 Ravindra used the 2012 Christmas stamp and here it is.





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So ends another great update. Thanks to Ravindra, Jean Pierre, David, Leo and Bruce for all these great cards. Don't forget , if you are reading this, and haven't done so yet, please check out my blog for December 8th, 2012 and if possible, send a postcard to Humber Elementary. The kids will certainly appreciate a card.

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