Prehistoric Animals and Plants on Covers and Postmarks

Nice stuff.Many thanks for sharing them.I think I was born around same time as some of these creatures.

When I looked more closely on these covers, I observed few strange things:
1. stamps on these covers are in different currency units:
a. fisrt two covers have "cm" units
b. the third cover has "nowa" (means new) unit and all numbers have to "00" behind. Likely 4.00, 7.00 etc
c. the last cover has units "lewa" and all numbers are after 0
2. total sum of stamps on each cover , except first two where the same stamps used are totally different, but the same additional stamp with face value of lw 1,0 is used on all covers.

By looking on post rate of regular letter from Bulgaria to Germany on Bulgarian Post Authority web site I found the price of lw 1,0 - means dinosaur stamps are used on these covers for decoration purpose only.

Hi Ryan,

do you know where to find some official information about Bulgarian stamps of Dinosaurs ? I guess it was some reason to issue this stamps, isn't it ?

I'm not sure what type of "official" information that you're after but the Scott catalog provides some basic information on the stamps shown on the four covers above.

The stamps on the first two covers were issued on June 19, 1990; the individual stamps are Scott 3540-3545 and the miniature sheet is Scott 3545a.

The stamps on the third cover were issued on April 27, 1994 (Scott 3817-3822).

The stamps on the fourth cover were issued on April 24, 2003 as a horizontal stip of 4 (Scott 4257a-d).  

In addition to the three sets above, a prehistoric animals set of six stamps was issued on May 29, 1971 (Scott 1944-1949). No other dinosaur stamps appear to have been issued by Bulgaria through October 2007, the latest listing in my 2009 catalog.

sure, we even exchange a link with this site, but thanks for thinking about me.
By "some official information" I mean - release note.
I believe Bulgarian Post Authority had a reason to depict some dinosaurs on their stamps, probably they show some animals who leaved on territory of the country a while ago.
To just fill-out an album with mint stamps is boring to me, I like to know as much I can about these stamps and the objects depicted there.
So far I have an information about 170 stamps sets of my collection: www.paleophilatelie.eu/description/stamps/index.html but still looking for information about others.

A while ago, I been told about Filatelista magazine of Poland, then found on internet. It's indeed had some worlds about their dinosaur stamps from 1965 and 1966.
Example of the magazine www.paleophilatelie.eu/description/stamps/references/poland/filatelista_1965.pdf
Perhaps Bulgaria had similar magazine, where new stamp issues announced.

Some covers produced by Paleontologic Museum of Munich (the museum belongs to University of Munich)

[Broken image links removed]

Thanks for let me know, Ryan. I didn't realized it.

Your image above showing the trilobite from Ontario reminds me of this Canadian stamp, although this trilobite is apparently from Newfoundland.



Ryan

Medium size cover, sent by to a fellow collector in Canada, via regular post with both most recent fossil stamps on it. Stamps on the right side are cancelled by regular (round) post mark. Two stamps on the left side are cancelled by commemorative stamps of Munich. This stamp is available all the time in philatelic desk of Deutsche Post in Munich, at one Post office only in the down-town.

Stamps on the cover:
Germany 2010 "Bicentenary of Museum fuer Naturkunde in Berlin"

shows most famous exponat of paleontologic part of the museum -14 meter long  sckeleton  of Brachiosaurus brancai. The bones were recovered by researchers at Tendaguru Hill ( 250 tonnes about) and shipped to Berlin, where it  were put together .


Germany 2011 "150 years of discovery prehistoric bird Archaeopteryx"

The prehistoric bird Archaeopteryx is one of the most famous fossil in the World. It was described in 1861 based on one feather cast. Later one when some completed speciments found it was very importnat evidence of Theory of Evolution. As intermediate specie from Dinosaurs to Birds Archaeopteryx has some bird and reptilie specific parts in his sckeleton. Ancestor of Archaeopteryx was a small predator dinosaur. All fossils of Archaeopteryx are founded so far are comming from Solnhofener Plattenkalken at Fraenkischen Jura region of Bavaria state, in Germany. They are about 150 M. years old. The best fossil exemplar ist stored in Museum fuer Naturkunde in Berlin.

Customized FDC with stamps of Australia



some gutter stamps are put on special cover, then sent by regular post to me in Germany.
In order to complete the post rate two more stamps are used. One of the extra stamps is Trimmus from Dinosaur set of 1993, dinosaur that is now interpreted as a member of a quite different group than when illustrated on an Australian stamp in 1993. This is a perfect example of how science works - a revision of a viewpoint in the light of new information.

Depends on the reason for your cover collection, I suppose.  If you're only interested in postally-used stamps on cover, then perhaps not. 

When I looked on both covers it seems a bit suspicious to me.

The first cover have some stamps with total value of VND 9700 (USD 0.46 about)
Similar stamps on the second cover are not cancelled, but franking meter stamps of VND 43300 (USD 2 about).
Due the fact both are sent from Vietnam this year, to Europe I assume it have to cost about the same amount of money.

Fortunately, I found some fellow collector from Vietnam who explained me what's going on.

In Vietnam sender can put some stamps on a cover, bring it to a post office, where a post clerk check correctness of the Porto,
he write total price of the letter on the cover. Sender pay a missing part of the Porto, but the post clerk don't care to add any extra post stamp on the cover. Get a money, put tracking number label and send the letter. Due this reason quite some covers from Vietnam looks like underpaid.

here two more covers from Vietnam

Friend of mine, sent me a letter on the first day of issue of latest British dinosaur stamps. Shame about the bottom right sticker. Moreover it is a failure of postman. "Delivery Confirmation" (eng. ) = "Einschreibem Einwurf" (germ.) means - the post man should confirm he put the letter into mailbox of recepient. Recepient confirmation/signature is not required. Probably he didn't realized when came to our home at our absence, put the sticker and bring the letter back to a post office.