Postmark Calendar

Now that I have seen these amazing images, I think I will pay more attention to post marks.  I do collect mainly mint but now my interest is peaked.

i do collect used Canada and covers with postmarks from certain areas of my home province of Nova Scotia.  

Now I have a new interest to persue thanks to joining this forum.  Will have to revise my budget.

david

I missed another couple of days when I had date matches - drat & blast.  Oh well, I'll make up for it with a full slate of 4 stamps for today.  The first of my Greenland stamps is one we saw a few weeks ago when I was commenting on the damage this cancellation device had seen.  In spite of the poor readability of the cancellation I like this stamp very much.  First, polar bear + cubs = yay!  Second, this is from a very small town on the east coast and I'm always pleased to see cancellations from the really small settlements.  The October 30 postmark reads "Tiniteqilaq" and is written according to the dominant West Greenlandic dialect but the town is now known by its East Greenlandic name of Tiilerilaaq.  Last year I read an article on the NPR's oddly-named blog "Goats and Soda" about the terrible suicide problem in Greenland and the town of Tiilerilaaq was featured.  More recently, Greenland's official tourism website had an article about a community revival project underway in Tiilerilaaq.  The article contains a number of photos of the remarkable austere landscape there.



Up next is a more recent stamp from Greenland's art series of stamps.  Aage Gitz-Johansen was a Danish artist who spent a lot of time in Greenland and much of his work deals with Greenlandic themes.  This panting shows a drum dancer.  The stamp bears an October 30, 2001 cancellation applied in Tasiilaq, the home of Greenland's philatelic centre and the only major town on the east coast.



I have two stamps from Burma (now known as Myanmar) which show the same postmark date, October 30.  They are clearly made with different cancellation devices, however - on the second stamp shown here, we can also see a year date of 1956.  The two stamps show different denominations with the same design.  The Mingun Bell was at various times the largest bell in the world, weighing in at 55,555 viss (a Burmese measurement of mass, equivalent to 199,999 pounds or a bit under 91 metric tonnes.





Ryan

31st October (1898)

Great Britain, half-penny Queen Victoria 50th Jubilee issue, Scott #111 (SG #197), 1/2-penny vermilion, postmarked on this date in 1898 in London.

Well, I looked for something for this date which had anything to do with Hallowe'en, to wrap up the theme that I tried to start earlier this month, and the best I could come up with is a somewhat orange-looking image of Queen Victoria.

3rd November (1970)

Sierra Leone, Scott #C101: 9-1/2-cent multi-colored airmail, Scott #385: 4-1/2-cent multi-colored regular postage, and Scott #389, 3-1/2-cent multicolored regular postage.  The first two stamps were issued to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the Boy Scouts in Sierra Leone, and the third stamp was issued to commemorate Sierra Leone's participation in the Expo '70 International Exhibition which was held in Osaka, Japan from March-September that year.

The cover is postmarked on this date in 1970 in Freetown, which is the capital and largest city in Sierra Leone.  It was mailed to a manager at Barclay's Bank in Reading, England, and I received it as part of an accumulation of stamps and covers which had been gathered over a couple of decades by an employee at the bank.

November 4

Two pence lilac, perf. 14 Queen Victoria (Scott 100; 1884) with a registry postmark dated November 4, 1884.

I missed yesterday's matches AGAIN - drat, blast, bother, and blast one more time.  Nov. 5 had 5 matches for me from Greenland, so they'll be shown over the next 3 years, assuming I don't miss the boat again in future years.  For today, I can show a stamp we haven't seen yet.  This one commemorates Henrik Lund, a Greenlandic artist and pastor who also wrote the lyrics to Greenland's national anthem.  I've posted a copy of the national anthem here before when we saw the stamp commemorating Jonathan Petersen, the composer of its music, but I might as well post it again and the musically inclined among you may sing along with the notes seen on the stamp design.  The postmark is dated November 6, 1986 and comes from Narsaq, coincidentally the town where Lund eventually served as pastor.





Next is a very common Greenlandic stamp, the original lowest value in the first series of definitive stamps to show Queen Margrethe II, issued in 1973.  5 years later, an even smaller face value of 5 øre was issued.  The November 6 cancellation gives the magnifying loupe a bit of a workout, and the town in which it was used was Julianehåb / K'ak'ortok', now known as Qaqortoq.



I also have a pair of matches from my small glassines to show.  Both of them bear Queen Victoria's likeness, or her once-upon-a-time likeness at least.  First, a November 6, 1912 postmark on a stamp from the Australian state of Queensland.



And finally, a stamp used on November 6, 1907 in Port Augusta, South Australia.  I need to upgrade my scanner - for some mysterious reason, it handles both blue and red fairly well but somehow really misses when they're mixed together to create purple inks.



Ryan

Here's a nice cancel and set of stamps from this date last year, from the Cherry Hill RP in London, Ontario.

This copy of the stamp issued showing the M/S Kununguak and a pilot boat looks like it was cancelled on November 8, 1976 in Julianehåb (now known by its Greenlandic name of Qaqortoq) but they're fooling you!  This is actually from a postal substation from one of the tiny towns in the region - I wish I had the full postmark here, as these small towns are sometimes tough to find on cancellations.  These towns aren't large enough to complete all the duties required of a proper post office.  Qaqortoq was a hub for such substations with 11 of them in service at various times ("allegiance" to the main post office sometimes changed and the little town's substation then served a different main post office).  Included below is an example of the postmark from one of these substations.





Burma's (or rather, Myanmar's) gigantic Mingun Bell is back today on this stamp with a November 8, 1960 cancellation from Kyaikto, a city of about 35,000.  The Wikipedia article for Kyaikto is very limited so you can have a look at this page on Bret Wallach's Great Mirror website for a look at the region.



Ryan